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Threats to Coastal Biodiversity Cumulative Human Impacts on Earth’S Coastal Habitats

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Threats to Coastal Biodiversity Cumulative Human Impacts on Earth’S Coastal Habitats Threats to coastal biodiversity Cumulative human impacts on Earth’s coastal habitats Eddo Willem Meeken [email protected] UT: s6030904 UU: 5919568 Supervisor: dr. E. Drakou Professor: prof.dr. M.J. Kraak Thesis: February 2020 Abstract The coastal zone is the region of Earth where land and sea processes interact. Coastal zones attract large human populations, provide important socio-economic value, and contain a rich biodiversity and a great variety of habitats. Due to the presence of high amounts of population and agriculture the habitats in the coastal zone are under threat. Anthropogenic threats caused by sea level rise, light pollution, nutrients pollution, organic pollution, and inorganic pollution have an impact on coastal habitats in the marine and the terrestrial zone. Research often focuses on either the marine zone or the terrestrial zone, by doing so the interaction between these two zones and the cumulative impacts are highly underestimated. This thesis produces an integrated map of the anthropogenic impacts on coastal marine and terrestrial habitats. To create this integrated map several threats, impacts, and habitat vulnerabilities have been modelled. The resulting global coastal cumulative anthropogenic impact map visualises the impacts that humanity has on its valuable coastal zone. Several biogeographic regions of Earth are under several intense anthropogenic threats. Calculated cumulative impacts from these threats are greatest at coastal zones with widespread agriculture, in combination with the consumption of high quantities of fertilizer and pesticides, high local sea level rise, and high population densities. The biogeographic regions where these factors are all present are Tropical Eastern Pacific Realm, the Temperate Northern Atlantic Realm, and the Western Indo-Pacific Realm. The visualisation of these cumulative impacts will raise awareness to the high impact that the coastal habitats in these regions have to endure. 1 Threats to coastal biodiversity: Cumulative human impacts on Earth’s coastal habitats Thesis by Eddo Meeken Table of contents Chapter Page Abstract 1 1. Introduction 1.1 Research topic 4 1.2 Scientific literature 5 1.3 Justification 6 1.4 Outline thesis 7 2. Theory 2.1 Key definitions 8 2.2 Classification of marine Ecoregions 10 2.3 Conceptual model 11 2.4 Coastal marine habitats 12 2.5 Coastal terrestrial habitats 15 2.6 Threats to coastal marine habitats 17 2.7 Threats to coastal terrestrial habitats 20 3. Methodology 3.1 Philosophical stance 25 3.2 Research design 25 3.3 Data management 31 3.4 Constructing integrated vulnerability indexes 36 3.5 Results and analysis methods 41 3.6 Research questions 42 4. Results 4.1 Single stressors 43 4.2 Cumulative impacts 58 4.3 Cumulative and individual stressor analysis 78 5. Discussion of results 5.1 Analysis of impact of anthropogenic threats per Realm 83 5.2 Analysis of impact of anthropogenic threats per Province 90 5.3 Analysis of impact of anthropogenic threats per Ecoregion 91 6. Conclusion 6.1 Research questions 95 6.2 Significance of this research 97 6.3 Further research 98 7. Reflection 7.1 Rejected variables 100 7.2 Dataset selection 101 7.3 Habitat vulnerabilities 101 2 Threats to coastal biodiversity: Cumulative human impacts on Earth’s coastal habitats Thesis by Eddo Meeken 7.4 Reliability of modelled stressor intensity 102 7.5 Local impact modelling 104 7.6 Data management improvement 104 8. References 105 9. Appendix 9.1 Creating the research area layer 112 9.2 Provided marine dataset data management 112 9.3 Sea level rise impact modelling 113 9.4 Light pollution impact modelling 116 9.5 Nutrients pollution impact modelling 117 9.6 Organic pollution impact modelling 119 9.7 Inorganic pollution impact modelling 120 9.8 Creation and use of the marine habitat vulnerability maps 120 9.9 Creation and use of the terrestrial habitat vulnerability maps 122 9.10 Analysis 123 9.11 Outputs 124 3 Threats to coastal biodiversity: Cumulative human impacts on Earth’s coastal habitats Thesis by Eddo Meeken Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter introduces the topic of the research (1.1), presents the existing literature (1.2.1) and literature gap (1.2.2). Based on the literature gap the topic is justified (1.3). Finally, the further outline of the thesis is presented (1.4). 1.1 Research topic Coastal zones are the regions of Earth where land and sea processes interact. Coastal zones attract large human populations, provide important socio-economic value, and contain a rich biodiversity and a great variety of habitats (Duarte Santos, 2014). Although the absolute boundary is debatable, coastal habitats can be divided into coastal marine habitats and coastal terrestrial habitats. Coastal marine habitats are those habitats that are located close to shore and are submerged, partially submerged or periodically submerged in water (Duarte Santos, 2014). The definition of ‘close to shore’ is debatable, but generally a marine depth of up to 60 meters is considered as the ‘coastal marine zone’ (Duarte Santos, 2014; Halpern, et al., 2015). Coastal marine habitats provide various beneficial services such as nutrient cycling, detoxification of pollutants, food production, raw materials and habitats, regulation of storm- induced disturbances, as well as recreational and entertainment activities (Constanza, et al., 1997). Coastal marine habitats include estuaries, sea grass beds, salt marshes, tidal flats, mangroves, and coral reefs (Lu, et al., 2018). These habitats contain high levels of biomass, coral reefs alone even contain one third of the world’s known marine fish species (Moberg & Folke, 1999). Many coastal habitats have unique abiotic components such as the mixing of salt and fresh water, and tidal forces creating unique flora and fauna (Duarte Santos, 2014). Coastal terrestrial habitats include coastal dunes, beaches, deltas, barrier islands, strand- plains, and coastal cliffs (Raha, Banarjee, Das, & Mitra, 2013; Davis, 2018). Cliffs are the only erosional landforms, i.e. landforms that are formed by erosional forces such as waves and currents. The other before mentioned coastal terrestrial habitats are formed through sedimentation (Davis, 2018). To be able to distinguish in a clear matter between the terrestrial and marine habitats of ‘the coast’ the term coastal terrestrial habitats is used although the inland area of land from the shoreline is often called the ‘coastal zone’ in literature. The services that maritime transport and ports, tourism, fisheries and the availability of freshwater provide makes it that coastal habitats are densely populated areas (Duarte Santos, 2014). This concentration of human population places a stress on coastal habitats. These stresses include a variety of factors such as pollution, invasive species, nutrient inputs and sedimentation (Feist & Levin, 2016). The main threat that these stresses pose to coastal marine habitats is a change in function of these systems. All before mentioned threats cause a decrease in biodiversity; pollution can cause animal mortality, invasive species can cause native species mortality, nutrient inputs from mainly agriculture causes eutrophication resulting in hypoxia and animal mortality, and sedimentation causes coral mortality which eventually leads to animal mortality (Rocha, Peterson, & Biggs, 2015). Key ecosystem processes such as carbon and nutrient cycling are deteriorated due to a loss of biodiversity (Davies, et al., 2011). The (near) extinction of certain organisms due to anthropogenic influences can cause a serious decline in ecosystem functioning, thus threatening an array of ecosystem services (Gupta, 2014). The ecosystem services provided by coastal habitats include the before mentioned nutrient and carbon cycling, but also natural coastline protection, climate 4 Threats to coastal biodiversity: Cumulative human impacts on Earth’s coastal habitats Thesis by Eddo Meeken regulation, water purification, and cultural services such as aesthetic and recreational value (Monaco & Prouzet, 2014). Losing these ecosystem services will increase the vulnerability of the world we live in, posing a threat to human society (ibid). 1.2 Scientific literature The main articles that I will use for my thesis are the articles by Halpern et al (2015) and Geldmann et al (2014). These articles contain research on temporal cumulative threats to marine- (Halpern, et al., 2015) and terrestrial (Geldmann, Joppa, & Burgess, 2014) habitats. The data that is provided to me is the same as was used by these articles. These articles are the guideline for further research to scientific literature. Rocha, Peterson & Biggs (2015) have composed a very clear list of drivers that influence regime shifts at both marine, coastal and terrestrial habitats. This article will act as a guide to investigate several threats to these habitats. The book by Monaco & Prouzet (2014) contains a large amount of research on the vulnerability of coastal habitats. It describes numerous threats in detail and gives several definitions in the field of ecology, a field that is relatively new to me. The book Encyclopedia of Biodiversity by Levin (2013) is a 7 volume set that contains a vast amount of articles on ecology. Many chapters from this Encyclopaedia will be cited for my research. 1.2.1 Existing literature A broad base of literature exists on what threats drive change in marine and terrestrial ecosystem services. Coastal marine habitats are threatened by several drivers such as; artisanal fishing (Jennings & Polunin, 1996;
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