Global assessment of marine biodiversity potentially threatened by offshore hydrocarbon activities

Abstract

Increasing global energy demands have led to the ongoing intensification of hydrocarbon extraction from marine areas. Hydrocarbon extractive activities pose threats to native marine biodiversity, such as noise, light, and chemical pollution, physical changes to the sea floor, invasive species, and greenhouse gas emissions. Here, we assessed at a global scale the spatial overlap between offshore hydrocarbon activities and marine biodiversity (>25,000 species, nine major ecosystems, and marine protected areas), and quantify the changes over time. We discovered that two-thirds of global offshore hydrocarbon activities occur in areas within the top 10% for species richness, range rarity, and proportional range rarity values globally. Thus, while hydrocarbon activities are undertaken in less than one percent of the ocean's area, they overlap with approximately 85% of all assessed species. Of conservation concern, 4% of species with the largest proportion of their range overlapping hydrocarbon activities are range restricted, potentially increasing their vulnerability to localized threats such as oil spills. While hydrocarbon activities have extended to greater depths since the mid-1990s, we found that the largest overlap is with coastal ecosystems, particularly estuaries, saltmarshes and mangroves. Furthermore, in most countries where offshore hydrocarbon exploration licensing blocks have been delineated, they do not overlap with marine protected areas (MPAs). Although this is positive in principle, many countries have far more licensing block areas than protected areas, and in some instances, MPA coverage is minimal. These findings suggest the need for marine spatial prioritization to help limit future spatial overlap between marine conservation priorities and hydrocarbon activities. Such prioritization can be informed by the spatial and quantitative baseline information provided here. In increasingly shared seascapes, prioritizing management actions that set both conservation and development targets could help minimize further declines of biodiversity and environmental changes at a global scale. K E Y W O R D Senergy, marine biodiversity, ocean, offshore hydrocarbon, oil and gas, species richness

Advancing Equity in Utility Regulation

“…Fossil fuel production, transmission, generation, and waste disposal activities cause a wide array of harms to species and ecosystems, such as destroying and fragmenting wildlife habitat, reducing water supplies often in water-stressed areas, causing air, noise, and light pollution; contaminating surface and ground water; and facilitating the spread of ecologically disruptive invasive species, 285 with similar harms in the offshore marine environment. 286 For many species, harms from the fossil fuel-based energy system have led to mortality, changes in behavior, population declines, disruptions to community composition, and loss of ecosystem function. 287 Fossil fuel pollution from the energy system is also one main driver of the climate emergency, threatening catastrophic species losses if GHG emissions continue unabated.…”

Digital technology dilemma: on unlocking the soil quality index conundrum

“…The manifold risks created by pollution, landslides, drought, and pandemics (e.g., COVID-19 in which recovery rates hypothetically correlate with healthy diet and thus to soil quality, because soils with optimal nutrients, water and air produce healthy crops) are aggravated by the skyrocketing human population, lifestyle changes, and inapt technology use (Gleick and Palaniappan 2010 ; Landrigan et al 2018 ; Schiefer et al 2016 ; Venegas-Li et al 2019 ). This illustrates the pressing need for proactive and strategically targeted land management, for instance, to alleviate the undernourishment of over 810 million people globally (Abbas et al 2013 ; de Paul Obade et al 2014 ; Lal 2018 , 2020 ; Lal et al 2020 ; Landrigan et al 2018 ; Paz-Ferreiro and Fu 2016 ).…”

“…Analyzing soil quality using traditional “walk in the field” survey and laboratory methods can be a daunting task, that is, labor, time, and cost intensive especially for data collected over a large areal extent (Guo and Gifford 2002 ; Venegas-Li et al 2019 ; West and Post 2002 ). Besides, the laboratory determination of SOC by chromate oxidation or “wet combustion” method not only releases toxic wastes but can generate inaccurate data because of the incomplete oxidation of SOM, whereas the dry combustion method is expensive and slow.…”

Impact mitigation in marine and coastal environments: policy challenges and shortfalls

“…Mining and natural resource exploitation have typically been at the forefront of biodiversity offset policy development with many companies enacting voluntary offset policies for both social licence and finance reasons (ICMM 2005, IUCN andICMM 2016). It is likely that these policies will increasingly apply to marine environments, especially as technological advances increase the extraction potential of previously inaccessible marine regions (Kark et al 2015, Venegas-Li et al 2019).…”

“…However, the rapid expansion of humanity's footprint is also causing increasing damage to marine ecosystems (Halpern et al 2008b, Sale et al 2014, Worm et al 2006, with nearly 40% of the world's population living within 100 km of the coast (OECD 2016, Neumann et al 2015. Marine biodiversity is impacted directly by exploitation from fishing (Dayton et al 1995, Hutchings and Reynolds 2004, Perry et al 2010) and resource extraction (Kark et al 2015, Venegas-Li et al 2019, loss of habitat, and plastic pollution leading to entanglement and plastics ingestion (Andrady 2011, Bakir et al 2014, Zarfl et al 2011. Land-based activities can also lead to the runoff of excess nutrients and other pollutants, and sedimentation of coastal ecosystems which affects marine ecosystems (Brodie et al 2012, Karfs et al 2009.…”