Ocean Sustainability

With over 70% of the Earth covered by oceans, humans have had an intricate relationship with oceans for thousands of years. They have been vital in the development of humanity and sustain us to this day. But now, our oceans are under threat across all scales. These threats are complex. Climate change is a unifying driver of many hazards—from the melting of the ice caps threatening sea levels to elevated sea temperatures, leading to mass coral reef bleaching. Overfishing and pollution have also further pushed stressed ecosystems to the brink. Therefore, living with our oceans sustainably is crucial. Cell Reports Sustainability recently attended the Ocean Sciences Meeting 2024, where the world’s leading experts in ocean-related sciences presented their latest research. It is well known that only about 5% of our oceans have been explored and mapped with much still to discover. To begin to understand how to live sustainably with our oceans, we need this fundamental research. In our February issue, we published a paper by Mitch Lyons and colleagues, providing updated maps of global coral reef spatial coverage at a high resolution. Quantifying the current state of our marine ecosystems is one vital step in comprehending the impacts of climate change, fishing, and the resulting sustainability challenges. Approximately 40% of the global population live in coastal areas. These areas can face compounding hazards such as sea level rise and climate extreme events. Some cities like New Orleans, where the Ocean Sciences Meeting 2024 was held, are also subsiding, and thus further raising the potential hazard. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina exposed the devastating consequences of structural inequality in areas of New Orleans in which low-income communities and people of color were the most vulnerable to flooding generated by the hurricane. As progress is made with technical and nature-based solutions to sea level rise and flooding, justice must be at the heart of these sustainable solutions. While most of us will rarely, if ever, go out into the open ocean, our lifestyles on land directly impact them. Our rivers discharge our rubbish, waste, and chemical pollutants. Microplastics have made their way to the deepest parts of oceans. Polluting, supersized cargo ships circle the globe, carrying everything from food to cars to Legos for our every need and desire. We cannot isolate impacts in the oceans from actions on land. At Cell Reports Sustainability, we call for papers that span the broad remit of ocean sustainability research, from the state of marine ecosystems and the impacts of climate change to the solutions and policy needed. New global area estimates for coral reefs from high-resolution mappingLyons et al.Cell Reports SustainabilityFebruary 13, 2024In BriefLyons et al. present statistics and trends derived from globally consistent, high-resolution maps of shallow coral reefs. They revise the global area of shallow corals reefs to 348,361 km², including 80,213 km² of coral habitat. Leveraging 1.5 million+ samples curated from 480+ data contributors and 100 trillion pixels from satellite imagery, this work integrates machine learning and coral reef science. Accessible publicly on the Allen Coral Atlas and Google Earth Engine, the data empower global efforts in coral reef conservation, management, and research. Full-Text PDF Open Access