Human pressures on the ocean are thought to be increasing globally, yet we know little about their patterns of cumulative change, which pressures are most responsible for change, and which places are experiencing the greatest increases. Managers and policymakers require such information to make strategic decisions and monitor progress towards management objectives. \n\n
Here we calculate and map recent change over 5 years in cumulative impacts to marine ecosystems globally from fishing, climate change, and ocean- and land-based stressors. Nearly 66% of the ocean and 77% of national jurisdictions show increased human impact, driven mostly by climate change pressures. \n\nFive percent of the ocean is heavily impacted with increasing pressures, requiring management attention. Ten percent has very low impact with decreasing pressures.
Our results provide large-scale guidance about where to prioritize management efforts and affirm the importance of addressing climate change to maintain and improve the condition of marine ecosystems.\n\nImpact scores are based on all 19 anthropogenic stressors. Colours are assigned to 10-quantiles in the data, except the highest scores which are the top 5% of scores. Areas of permanent sea ice are shaded white and the area within maximum sea ice extent is masked to indicate where scores are less certain because change in sea ice extent could not be included (see Supplementary Methods).
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