Cumulative Impact Index for the Adriatic Sea: Accounting for interactions among climate and anthropogenic pressures

Abstract

Editor: Damia BarceloAssessing and managing cumulative impacts produced by interactive anthropogenic and natural drivers is a major challenge to achieve the sustainable use of marine spaces in line with the objectives of relevant EU acquis. However, the complexity of the marine environment and the uncertainty linked to future climate and socioeconomic scenarios, represent major obstacles for understanding the multiplicity of impacts on the marine ecosystems and to identify appropriate management strategies to be implemented. Going beyond the traditional additive approach for cumulative impact appraisal, the Cumulative Impact Index (CI-Index) proposed in this paper applies advanced Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis techniques to spatially model relationships between interactive climate and anthropogenic pressures, the environmental exposure and vulnerability patterns and the potential cumulative impacts for the marine ecosystems at risk. The assessment was performed based on spatial data characterizing location and vulnerability of 5 relevant marine targets (e.g. seagrasses and coral beds), and the distribution of 17 human activities (e.g. trawling, maritime traffic) during a reference scenario 2000-2015. Moreover, projections for selected physical and biogeochemical parameters (temperature and chlorophyll 'a') for the 2035-2050 timeframe under RCP8.5 scenario, were integrated in the assessment to evaluate index variations due to changing climate conditions. The application of the CI-Index in the Adriatic Sea, showed higher cumulative impacts in the Northern part of the basin and along the Italian continental shelf, where the high concentration of human activities, the seawater temperature conditions and the presence of vulnerable benthic habitats, contribute to increase the overall impact estimate. Moreover, the CI-Index allowed understanding which are the j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / s c i t o t e n v phenomena contributing to synergic pressures creating potential pathways of environmental disturbance for marine ecosystems. Finally, the application in the Adriatic case showed how the output of the CI-Index can provide support to evaluate multi-risk scenarios and to drive sustainable maritime spatial planning and management.

Comparative Tissue Responses of Marine Mollusks on Seasonal Changes in the Northern Adriatic Sea

“…It is likely that due to human activities, the seasonal temperature and salinity fluctuations may increase in the oncoming years [16]. The additional stress imposed on (not only) mollusks in the Northern Adriatic Sea is the prospect of the rising levels of the sea, increased sea temperatures, salinities and ocean acidification [46]. Coupled with overfishing, global warming might enable non-indigenous alien species to migrate into the Northern Adriatic, threatening to extinct local mollusk communities.…”

Mangrove ecological services at the forefront of coastal change in the French overseas territories

“…The impact of any changing environmental parameters and anthropogenic forcing remains to be accounted for. Advanced modellings are, therefore, needed to understand the cumulative effects of multiple risks on mangroves, and to predict their contextdependent response to climate change and other anthropogenic pressures (Furlan et al, 2019;Gilman et al, 2008).…”

Ecological Importance of Alkaline Phosphatase Activity in Changing Marine Environmental Conditions

“…On annual scale, freshwater input accounts for about one third of the total seawater volume of this marine region, whereas the discharge of riverine nutrients far exceeds their marine budget in the area [21][22][23]. Consequently, parts of this region are among the most productive areas in the Mediterranean [24,25].…”