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Chapter 5: Productive Seas

This is the first time that a comprehensive assessment of the productive use of the UK seas has been carried out. We found that our seas are economically productive and there are strong policy drivers to increase this productivity. Most activities are highly regulated in order to limit impacts on the marine environment and, aside from fisheries, have localised pressure footprints. Although we have begun measurements of sustainability we do not yet know how sustainable our use of the seas is overall.

Key findings
  • Oil and gas make the highest annual contribution to the economy of any activity in the marine environment, with a gross value added of £37 billion in 2008. Maritime transport and telecommunications provide vital links within the UK and to the rest of the world offering significant economic benefit. Expenditure related to leisure and recreation activities is high and likely to be underestimated given current limitations in sourcing data for this sector. Expenditure on military defence activities provides additional benefits to the economies surrounding the main naval bases. Fisheries and aquaculture within the UK continue to supply food nationally and abroad and support local fishing communities.
  • During the past ten years, fishing mortality (mortality caused by fisheries) has declined significantly in 67% of assessed fish stocks in UK waters. Out of 20 indicator fin-fish stocks in UK waters, the proportion being harvested sustainably and at full reproductive capacity has risen from around 10% in the early 1990s to around 25% in 2007. The proportion of these stocks being harvested sustainably has risen from 10% to around 40% over the same time period. However, the large majority of scientifically assessed stocks continue to be fished at rates well above the values expected to provide the highest long-term yield.
  • Renewable energy projects and work on flood and coastal defences have more than doubled since Charting Progress and will continue to increase. For marine renewable energy, the target is to increase installed capacity from 0.7 GW (as at the start of 2010) to at least 33 GW by 2020. Most of this additional capacity is expected to come from new offshore wind farms.
  • Many socio-economic activities put varying degrees of pressure on the marine environment, notably damage and loss of habitat on the seabed from fishing and the presence of physical structures; pollution and other chemical changes from land and marine-based sources; introduction of invasive species from shipping and mariculture; noise from construction and operational activities; and litter from a wide range of sources. Stricter controls in a number of evolving UK, European and international policies have reduced some of these pressures since Charting Progress and most industries now have sustainable development strategies.

Improvements in assessment methodology and future requirements

We cannot yet determine whether we are using the seas sustainably, largely because we are not in a position to assess the cumulative impacts of all activities such as fisheries and leisure and recreation. Assessing sustainable use will be an important focus for the coming years.

We need a better way to establish a market value for some activities, including leisure and recreation, waste disposal, telecommunications and power transmission, and pipelines, as well as future activities such as carbon capture and storage. We also need a way to evaluate the contribution that marine activities make to social values, such as upholding cultural traditions in local fishing communities. As yet there is little primary research on the economic value of ecosystem goods and services and the non-use value of the marine environment. We need to agree a methodology on how to spatially allocate socio-economic data to support regional assessments.

Future assessments would greatly benefit from a more coordinated and centralised collation of data on the distribution of pressures associated with aquaculture, with leisure and recreation, and with temporal and size aspects of shipping density.

Gaps in knowledge

We also need to know more about the nature and extent of many pressures arising from productive use of the seas, notably the spatial and temporal distribution of noise sources, litter and invasive species and to agree on the methodology used to assess them. We do not yet know the extent of the environmental pressures that will arise from increasing activity in renewable energy, coastal defence and gas storage. We also need tools to take account of the fact that some industries, which may cause impacts while they are being constructed, can then act as areas for species to settle once they are established.

Summary map

The summary map displays the top six activities in terms of market value within each region (drawn from Table 2.3 in the Feeder Report prepared by the Productive Seas Evidence Group), except Region 8 in which the only significant activities are telecommunications and military defence.

Pressures for each activity have been assessed based largely on an expert judgement of their spatial and temporal aspects ensuring that we captured issues such as intensity, size of footprint and distribution.