Global Shipping Lanes 2008

by National Center for Ecological Anaysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, February 2008

The goal of the research presented here is to estimate and visualize, for the first time, the global impact humans are having on the ocean's ecosystems.

Our analysis, published in Science, February 15, 2008 (no subscription required), shows that over 40% of the world's oceans are heavily affected by human activities and few if any areas remain untouched.

Global Marine Activity (Shipping)

from http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/GlobalMarine/impacts

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A Global Map of Human Impacts to Marine Ecosystems

from http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/globalmarine

Using information derived from the Coral Reef Temperature Anomaly Database (CoRTAD) and 16 other layers of data, Dr. Ben Halpern from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) and a team of researchers including NODC's Dr. Kenneth Casey published a paper in Science documenting human impacts on marine ecosystems. The full paper citation is:

Benjamin S. Halpern, Shaun Walbridge, Kimberly A. Selkoe, Carrie V. Kappel, Fiorenza Micheli, Caterina D'Agrosa, John F. Bruno, Kenneth S. Casey, Colin Ebert, Helen E. Fox, Rod Fujita, Dennis Heinemann, Hunter S. Lenihan, Elizabeth M.P. Madin, Matthew T. Perry, Elizabeth R. Selig, Mark Spalding, Robert Steneck, Reg Watson (2008). A global map of human impact on marine ecosystems. Science, vol. 319, no. 5865, pp. 948-952 (DOI: 10.1126/science.1149345).

The study reveals that over 40% of the world's oceans are heavily affected by human activities and few if any areas remain untouched. These results are illustrated in the image above, adapted from Figure 1 of the paper. In the image, cooler shades (blue to green) represent areas with lower levels of human impact. Warmer shades (yellow to red) represent areas with higher levels of human impact. The project is the first global-scale study of human influence on marine ecosystems. -- from http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/SatelliteData/Cortad/