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Anneli Poska

Postdoctoral fellow

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Human impacts and their interactions in the Baltic Sea region

Author

  • Marcus Reckermann
  • Anders Omstedt
  • Tarmo Soomere
  • Juris Aigars
  • Naveed Akhtar
  • Magdalena Bełdowska
  • Jacek Bełdowski
  • Tom Cronin
  • Michał Czub
  • Margit Eero
  • Kari Petri Hyytiäinen
  • Jukka Pekka Jalkanen
  • Anders Kiessling
  • Erik Kjellström
  • Karol Kuliński
  • Xiaoli Guo Larsén
  • Michelle McCrackin
  • H. E.Markus Meier
  • Sonja Oberbeckmann
  • Kevin Parnell
  • Cristian Pons-Seres De Brauwer
  • Anneli Poska
  • Jarkko Saarinen
  • Beata Szymczycha
  • Emma Undeman
  • Anders Wörman
  • Eduardo Zorita
Show all

Summary, in English

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.

Department/s

  • MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science

Publishing year

2022-01-03

Language

English

Pages

1-80

Publication/Series

Earth System Dynamics

Volume

13

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article review

Publisher

Copernicus GmbH

Topic

  • Physical Geography
  • Environmental Sciences

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2190-4979