engleski

Linking habitat degradation to human activities and pressures ; map inventories and outputs from the EU MERCES project

Despite increased conservation efforts and new policy instruments aiming to safeguard biodiversity, to halt further loss and to protect and restore the marine environment, many European habitats maintain unfavourable conservation status while habitat degradation is still ongoing in a number of areas. Several initiatives and policy drivers call for extensive mapping of the marine environment, particularly for key, priority and vulnerable habitats along with information on their status and existing threats and pressures (e.g. as required by the Habitats Directive and the MSFD). The Marine Spatial Planning directive also requires the mapping of human activities acting on marine habitats, to support sustainable development of the oceans and blue growth opportunities operating under the ecosystem approach to marine management. One of the goals of the H2020 MERCES project (http://www.merces-project.eu/) is to produce an inventory of maps of degraded marine habitats and a catalogue of maps of activities and pressures acting on marine habitats in the European Seas with the overall aim to link habitat degradation with mitigation and restoration potential. To achieve this, an extensive review was undertaken and catalogues were compiled with mapping sources for: (a) key habitats in decline or assessed as degraded, (b) maritime activities (e.g. fishing, transport, carbon sequestration, and research/conservation), (c) pressures (including locally acting chemical, physical, hydrological and biological pressures such as abrasion and alien invasions, as well as larger scale pressures related to climate change). The catalogues currently include over 750 entries covering all European Seas and various key shallow soft and hard substrate habitats, as well as deep-sea habitats. The findings show differences in mapping efforts by region and habitat type. Sources include published scientific literature, web resources, mapping portals, and grey literature such as project deliverable reports. Despite progress made in the recent years, mapping efforts still lack the required coverage, resolution and detail while mapping outputs have limited usability for planning, restoration and conservation purposes.

mapping ; habitat degradation ; activities ; pressures ; meta-data

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