4.7 Article

Deep sea habitats in the chemical warfare dumping areas of the Baltic Sea

Journal

SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
Volume 616, Issue -, Pages 1485-1497

Publisher

ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.165

Keywords

Baltic Proper; Chemical Warfare Dumpsites; Deep-Sea Benthic communities; Habitat description

Funding

  1. European Regional Development Fund in frame of Baltic Sea Region CHEMSEA project [069]
  2. NATO SPS MODUM Project [G4589]
  3. polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education [W37/NATO/2014]
  4. European Union (European Regional Development Fund) - Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Poland) [R013 DAIMON, 3623/INTERREG BSR/2016/2]
  5. Polish National Science Centre [2013/11/N/ST10/00804]

Ask authors/readers for more resources

The Baltic Sea is a severely disturbed marine ecosystem that has previously been used as a dumping ground for Chemical Warfare Agents (CW). The presence of unexploded underwater ordnance is an additional risk factor for offshore activities and an environmental risk for the natural resources of the sea. In this paper, the focus is on descriptions of the marine habitat based on the observations arising from studies linked to the CHEMSEA, MODUM and DAIMON projects. Investigated areas of Bornholm, Gotland and Gdansk Deeps are similarly affected by the Baltic Sea eutrophication, however, at depths greater than 70 m several differences in local hydrological regimes and pore-water heavy metal concentrations between those basins were observed. During the lifespan of presented studies, we were able to observe the effects of Major Baltic Inflow, that started in December 2014, on local biota and their habitats, especially in the Bornholm Deep area. Reappearance of several meiofauna taxa and one macrofauna specimen was observed approximately one year after this phenomenon, however it's ecological effects already disappeared in March 2017. According to our findings and to the EUNIS Habitat Classification, the three reviewed areas should be characterized as Deep Sea Muddy Sands, while the presence of suspicious bomb-like objects both beneath and on top of the sediments confirms their CW dumpsite status. (c) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.7
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available