Oceans have many uses, and there are too many linkages among marine ecosystems and between the land and adjacent seas to review them all in this chapter. The First Global Integrated Marine Assessment (A/RES/70/235; Inniss and Simcock eds. 2016) and reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2013) have provided recent comprehensive reviews of the state of the ocean. Therefore, three topics have been selected here that warrant particular attention – tropical coral reefs, fishing and debris entering the marine environment. Several topics of emerging or particular interest – mercury, sand mining, deep sea mining and ocean noise – are also briefly considered.

Tags: chemicals toxics and heavy metals climate change coastal ecosystems coral reefs fisheries GEO marine environment marine litter oceans tourism