Map shows where oceans have been damaged by humans

NPR reports:

But now a group of scientists has drawn a map that leaves the land blank and highlights what humans have done to the world's oceans. . .

The map, which was published in the journal Science, overlays the ocean with bands of color to highlight manmade changes like overfishing and coastal pollution. Pristine areas, shown in blue, are found in oceans near the poles. More-stressed ocean waters are yellow and orange. Trouble spots are red. Halpern says the red zones are the ones found near big cities and near overcrowded coastlines.

"These are the most impacted ocean areas on the planet," Halpern says. "It's where the combination of human activities, from shipping to fishing to land-based pollution, are coming together to make things really bad."

According to the map, the most disturbed ocean areas include Europe's North Sea, the South and East China Seas, the Persian Gulf, and parts of the Atlantic near the East Coast of the United States. Surprisingly, small zones of pristine ocean water can be found in many of these areas. Halpern says these are the kinds of zones that need to be preserved as a first step toward saving more badly damaged ocean waters.

One shortcoming about the map is that it's creators lacked information about certain destructive fishing practices.