Human activities and resultant pressures on key European marine habitats: An analysis of mapped resources

Human activities exert a wide range of pressures on marine ecosystems, often resulting in the loss of species anddegradation of habitats. If effective policies and management practices to restore past damage and reduce futureimpacts to the marine environment are to be developed, knowledge of the extent, duration and severity ofactivities and pressures is essential, yet often lacking. As part of the EU H2020 project “Marine EcosystemRestoration in Changing European Seas”, this study uses an exhaustive review of published records, web re-sources, and grey literature to comprehensively assess the degree to which human activities and pressures aremapped within European seas. The results highlight a number of limitations and gaps, including: (a) limitedgeographic coverage at both the regional and sub-regional level; (b) insufficient spatial resolution and accuracyin recorded data for the planning of conservation and restoration actions; (c) a lack of access to the backgrounddata and metadata upon which maps are based, thus limiting the potential for synthesis of multiple data sources.Based on the findings, several recommendations for future marine research initiatives arise, most importantlythe need for coordinated, geographically extended baseline assessments of the distribution and intensity ofhuman activities and pressures, complying with high-level standardization regarding methodological approachesand the treatment of produced data.