RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The global rarity of intact coastal regions
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.05.10.443490
DO 10.1101/2021.05.10.443490
A1 Brooke A Williams
A1 James E M Watson
A1 Hawthorne L Beyer
A1 Carissa J Klein
A1 Jamie Montgomery
A1 Rebecca K Runting
A1 Leslie A Roberson
A1 Benjamin S Halpern
A1 Hedley S Grantham
A1 Caitlin D. Kuempel
A1 Melanie Frazier
A1 Oscar Venter
A1 Amelia Wenger
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/05/12/2021.05.10.443490.abstract
AB Management of the land-sea interface is considered essential for global conservation and sustainability objectives, as coastal regions maintain natural processes that support biodiversity and the livelihood of billions of people. However, assessments of coastal regions have focused on either strictly the terrestrial or marine realm, and as a consequence, we still have a poor understanding of the overall state of Earth’s coastal regions. Here, by integrating the terrestrial human footprint and marine cumulative human impact maps, we provide a global assessment of the anthropogenic pressures affecting coastal areas. Just 15.5% of coastal areas globally can be considered having low anthropogenic pressure, mostly found in Canada, Russia, and Greenland. Conversely, 47.9% of coastal regions are heavily impacted by humanity with most countries (84.1%) having >50% of their coastal regions degraded. Nearly half (43.3%) of protected areas across coastal regions are exposed to high human pressures. In order to meet global sustainability objectives, we identify those nations that must undertake greater actions to preserve and restore coastal regions so as to ensure global sustainable development objectives can be met.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.