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Dirk Bryant, Eric Rodenburg, Tara Cox, and Daniel Nielsen

Synopsis

The first detailed global assessment of risks to important coastal areas such as estuaries, mangroves and coral reefs, and a set of simple and unambiguous signals of the threats they face.

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Abstract

An index of potential threats to coastal ecosystems due to development-related activities was developed. These threats range from habitat destruction, to sewage and industrial pollution, and to species introductions. The index is based on five globally available georeferenced indicators of human pressures:

1. population density;
2. cities;
3. major ports;
4. road networks; and
5. pipelines.

The results show a picture of widespread potential threats due to exploitation of the coastal zone -- 51 percent of the world's coasts were assessed as being under "moderate" or "high" threat from development. Most of the potentially threatened coastal ecosystems are located within northern temperate and northern equatorial zones. Combining threat results with the locations of a subset of the world's marine protected areas (georeferenced sites located within 100 kilometers of continental and major island coastlines) indicate that over 60 percent of these sites are potentially at high risk from nearby development activities.