Even Oceans not spared by Humans: Study

Humans have exploited every possible resource in order to meet their needs and in the process have disturbed the natural processes. A latest study has shown that human activities have strongly impacted about 40 percent of the ocean area and have left only about 4 percent relatively unsullied.

A high-resolution, global map was released at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. It reflects 17 different types of impact of human activity like fishing, climate change and pollution on ecosystems in the oceans.

North Sea, the South and East China Seas, Caribbean Sea, the east coast of North America, the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Bering Sea and parts of the western Pacific have been the most severely affected areas according to the study.

Polar Regions have not been affected to a large extent till now but with the growing human activity and climate shifts, the oceans in Polar Regions are also at a danger of getting contaminated.

According to the study’s lead author, Ben Halpern, coastal habitats were severely damaged by human activities, the study said. Worst were rocky reefs and continental shelves, where commercial fishing is mostly taking place, he said.

"Our results show that when these and other individual impacts are summed up, the big picture looks much worse than I imagine most people expected. It was certainly a surprise to me," said Halpern, who is an assistant research scientist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The most common damages due to all this were found to be reductions in fish and sea animals as well as problems for coral reefs, sea grass beds, mangroves, rocky reefs and shelves and sea mounts.

Researchers were surprised to find that every spot in the oceans was affected by at least one human activity irrespective of whether the humans have reached there or not. This was something which was not expected by the researchers.

Effective ocean-management can stop the degradation but the climate change can intensify the damage. So while keeping a check on the activity in the oceans, climate change also needs to be controlled.

Policy makers should use the scientists' map to separate harmful ocean activities, so negative effects aren't magnified and are stopped before the situation goes beyond control.

Congress has passed $454 million to be used over the next seven years for two ocean exploration programs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Its aim would be to coordinate efforts to study marine ecosystems, organisms and geology.