The human imprint on the marine realm has rapidly increased during the last century, leaving no area unaffected by human activities. Bottom trawl fishing intensity has boomed since the 1950s, while at the same time dredging activities in coastal zones have intensified to maintain navigable waterways, reclaim land, construct wind farms or counteract coastal erosion. Off-shore drilling platforms have been constructed around the world, and more recently, deep-sea mining has become an attractive avenue for mineral extraction. All of these economic activities physically perturb the seabed, and are expected to have a strong effect on the natural biological, geochemical and physical dynamics of the ocean. However, very little is understood about the short-term and long-term impact of these anthropogenic physical disturbances.
This session aims to create a multidisciplinary discussion on the impact and potential remediation of diverse anthropogenic alterations on the seafloor, and invites contributions ranging from marine ecology over physical oceanography and biogeochemistry, be it observational, theoretical or experimental.