Issue: Contributions of the coasts and oceans to human life - Medium for transportation
This is an issue under the Coasts and oceans theme of the Data Reporting System.
Why we need to know about this issue
The ocean contributes many benefits to human life but the pressure of extracting those contributions, combined with other pressures, can exert pressures on the marine environment. Environmental degradation resulting from these and other pressures could ultimately erode the capacity of coasts and oceans to supply these benefits. In the shorter term, the additional effort needed to obtain these contributions in the face of environmental degradation could exert even greater and more damaging long-term pressure on the environment.
To have the full story, it is therefore important to track not only what is happening to the pressures, the resulting condition of the coasts and oceans, and the societal responses, but also what is happening to the contributions. If the contributions can be maintained or increased (or replaced) while responses are undertaken to ensure that environmental pressures are reduced and environmental condition maintained or improved, then the contributions from the coasts and oceans can become environmentally sustainable.
One of the benefits the coasts and oceans contributes to human life is a transportation medium through which human settlements convey goods and people between each other. However, shipping activities also place a range of pressures on the coastal and marine environment. While the condition of marine biodiversity, nor the quality of marine waters, is not directly essential to the ocean’s capacity to provide this transportation medium, it is not clear how significant changes to climate, currents or to the ocean-air interface might affect this capacity.
Indicators
- CO-14 Number of ship visits
Number of ships visiting Australian ports is a broad and partial indicator of the economic value provided by the ocean as a means of transportation. - CO-15 Tonnage and value of containers and bulk commodities transported by sea
Number and tonnage of containers and bulk commodities transported to and from Australia by sea is a broad, partial indicator of the economic value provided by the ocean as a means of transportation.
Related issues
Key
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