February 15, 2008	Friday	Safar 07, 1429

WASHINGTON: Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop pristine, might be the lament of today’s Ancient Mariner.

Oceans cover more than 70 per cent of the planet and every single spot has been affected by people in some way.

Researchers studying 17 different activities ranging from fishing to pollution compiled a new map showing how and where people have had an impact on the seas.

The map was released at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston and published in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

“Our results show that when these and other individual impacts are summed up, the big picture looks much worse than I imagine most people expected. It was certainly a surprise to me,” said lead author Ben Halpern, an assistant research scientist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California.

The areas most affected include the North Sea, the South and East China Seas, Caribbean Sea, the east coast of North America, the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Bering Sea and parts of the western Pacific, the study found. However, the researchers said it is likely that human activities will more and more affect polar regions as climate change warms those areas.

Damage includes reductions in fish and sea animals as well as problems for coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves, rocky reefs and shelves and seamounts.

The 19-member research team mapped the varying impacts on the oceans and then through overlays of the maps they were able to compile which areas were most affected.

“This research is a critically needed synthesis of the impact of human activity on ocean ecosystems,” David Garrison, biological oceanography program director at the National Science Foundation said in a statement.

Impacts studied by the researchers included the effects of structures such as oil rigs, commercial shipping, species invasion, climate-change impacts including acidification, ultraviolet radiation and sea temperature, various types of fishing and several types of human-related pollution.—AP