Description: Cumulative impact scores were calculated using an established, spatially-explicit method by Halpern (2008) to analyse and illustrate the cumulative effects of human activities on marine ecosystems. The model identified areas where activities and habitats intersect, applied a vulnerability metric to determine the impact score for each intersection, and then summed the impacts across all activities and habitats for each grid cell to produce a cumulative impact map. Activities included in this cumulative impact score: Agriculture, Anchorages and Anchor scours, Aquaculture (finfish and shellfish), Cities (urban sprawl), Commercial fishing (crab, euphausiid, fishing vessels, geoduck, green urchin, groundfish bottom and midwater trawl, halibut, herring, lingcod, prawn trap, red urchin, rockfish, sablefish trap, salmon gillnet, seine and troll, scallop trawl, sea cucumber, shrimp trawl, tuna), commercial vessels, cutblocks (forest harvesting), disposal-at-sea, dredging, industrial tenures, logbooms, marinas, mines, ports, pulp and paper facilities, recreational boating, roads, sea surface temperature anomalies, sewage outfalls, and sportfishing (salmon, groundfish, and shellfish)Key Fields:MarineAREA: the area within a planning unit grid cell that is covered by water (i.e. land excluded). UNIT_ID: This unique identifier is equivalent to the PU_ID that corresponds to a management planning unit, one square kilometer in size, used by DFO Oceans Management. Cumul_impact_ALL: cumulative impact score representing impacts from all activities and all habitats in each PU grid cell.Cumul_impact_sp: cumulative impact score representing impacts from all activities in the shallow pelagic habitat in each PU grid cell.Cumul_impact_dp: cumulative impact score representing impacts from all activities in the deep pelagic habitat in each PU grid cell.Cumul_impact_bh: cumulative impact score representing impacts from all activities in the benthic habitat in each PU grid cell.Cumul_impact_eg: cumulative impact score representing impacts from all activities in the eelgrass habitat in each PU grid cell.Cumul_impact_sr: cumulative impact score representing impacts from all activities in the sponge reef habitat in each PU grid cell.Cumul_impact_kp: cumulative impact score representing impacts from all activities in the kelp forest habitat in each PU grid cell.
Service Item Id: 117f1a6f361146d1a9d51622f6f0535a
Copyright Text: Cite this data as: Agbayani, S., Schweitzer, C., and Murray, C.C. 2023. Cumulative impacts from anthropogenic activities and stressors on marine ecosystems in Pacific Canada. Ecosystem Stressors Program, Ocean Sciences Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Sidney, B.C. Available at: {insert open data link}
Processing done by Craig Schweitzer (DFO, Oct 2023)