Sammanfattning

Coastal environments, in particular heavily populated semi-enclosed marginal seas and coasts like the Baltic Sea region, are strongly affected by human activities. A multitude of human impacts, including climate change, affect the different compartments of the environment, and these effects interact with each other. As part of the Baltic Earth Assessment Reports (BEAR), we present an inventory and discussion of different human-induced factors and processes affecting the environment of the Baltic Sea region, and their interrelations. Some are naturally occurring and modified by human activities (i.e. climate change, coastal processes, hypoxia, acidification, submarine groundwater discharges, marine ecosystems, non-indigenous species, land use and land cover), some are completely human-induced (i.e. agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, river regulations, offshore wind farms, shipping, chemical contamination, dumped warfare agents, marine litter and microplastics, tourism, and coastal management), and they are all interrelated to different degrees. We present a general description and analysis of the state of knowledge on these interrelations. Our main insight is that climate change has an overarching, integrating impact on all of the other factors and can be interpreted as a background effect, which has different implications for the other factors. Impacts on the environment and the human sphere can be roughly allocated to anthropogenic drivers such as food production, energy production, transport, industry and economy. The findings from this inventory of available information and analysis of the different factors and their interactions in the Baltic Sea region can largely be transferred to other comparable marginal and coastal seas in the world.

Publicerad i

Earth System Dynamics
2022, Volym: 13, nummer: 1, sidor: 1-80
Utgivare: COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH

SLU författare

• Kiessling, Anders

  • Institutionen för tillämpad husdjursvetenskap och välfärd, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

Globala målen

SDG6 Säkerställa tillgången till och en hållbar förvaltning av vatten och sanitet för alla
SDG14 Bevara och nyttja haven och de marina resurserna på ett hållbart sätt för en hållbar utveckling


UKÄ forskningsämne

Miljövetenskap
Klimatforskning


Publikationens identifierare

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1-2022

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/115795