Ecosystem overviews

Baltic Sea ecoregion

Pressure: Abrasion and substrate loss

​​​Disturbance of seabed habitats due to physical abrasion from mobile bottom-contacting fishing gears occurs mostly in the southern parts of the Baltic Sea (Figure 11). This is mainly abrasion from otter trawls targeting demersal and benthic fish. Abrasion may affect the surface (top 2 cm of sediments) or the subsurface (> 2 cm). Few studies examine the impact of fishing-related abrasion on benthic communities in this part of the Baltic Sea, but from neighbouring regions, such as the North Sea and Kattegat, it is known that frequent disturbance by bottom trawls reduces benthic diversity and biomass and changes the composition of benthic species. Some of the trawled parts of the Baltic Sea are also affected by low oxygen concentrations at the seabed (Figure 15). Oxygen depletion can induce burrowing organisms to migrate to the sediment surface, making them potentially more vulnerable to trawling disturbance. For areas with even lower concentrations of oxygen, bottom trawling is unlikely to have any marked effects on habitats as the benthic biomass has already been reduced by hypoxia.

Habitat loss in the Baltic Sea is connected to human activities such as sand extraction, dredging and deposit of dredged material, harbours and marinas, and to a lesser extent offshore installations and mariculture. Less than 1% of the Baltic Sea seabed is assessed as potentially lost due to human activities.

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​Figure 11: Average annual surface (left) and subsurface (right) disturbance by mobile bottom-contacting fishing gear (bottom otter trawls, bottom seines, beam trawls) in the Baltic Sea during 2018–2021 (with available data), expressed as average swept area ratios (SAR).​

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Baltic Sea ecoregion

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