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OCEAN SPRAWL

Structures spread across our seas

Nature Sustainability volume 4, pages 7–8 (2021)Cite this article

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Construction along coasts and offshore is accelerating. A new study estimates the extent of different developments and their wider influence and forecasts their expansion.

The built environment is spreading along the planet’s coastlines and plunging into ever-deeper waters, a phenomenon aptly dubbed ‘ocean sprawl’1. Most of the world’s relentless current and projected population growth is in coastal areas, driving urbanization and land claim for homes, industry, commerce, tourism, transport and associated infrastructure. Coastlines will be simultaneously squeezed by rising and stormier seas, prompting proliferating sea defences2. Hydrocarbon exploitation went offshore 100 years ago and is penetrating ever-deeper waters. Renewable-energy generation has expanded rapidly in shallow seas and is now moving further offshore with floating wind turbines. Aquaculture has spread from enclosed to open waters, and deep-sea mining is next. But the accelerating expansion of construction across the ocean often passes unnoticed given deserved attention to anthropogenic climate change and overfishing. Deep-water expansion is out of sight and mind. Writing in Nature Sustainability, Bugnot et al.3 provide a timely inventory of the current extent of such marine structures and forecast their likely spread.

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Fig. 1: Examples of ocean sprawl considered by Bugnot et al.

Louise B. Firth (a–d).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Stephen J. Hawkins

  2. Marine Biological Association, Plymouth, UK

    Stephen J. Hawkins

  3. School of Biological and Marine Sciences, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK

    Stephen J. Hawkins & Louise B. Firth

  4. Institute of Biological Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK

    Ally J. Evans

Authors
  1. Stephen J. Hawkins
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  2. Louise B. Firth
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  3. Ally J. Evans
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Correspondence to Stephen J. Hawkins, Louise B. Firth or Ally J. Evans.

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Hawkins, S.J., Firth, L.B. & Evans, A.J. Structures spread across our seas. Nat Sustain 4, 7–8 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-00598-y

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