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Submarine Geomorphology pp 503–534Cite as

Fishing Activities

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Part of the book series: Springer Geology ((SPRINGERGEOL))

Abstract

Unlike the major anthropogenic changes that terrestrial and coastal habitats underwent during the last centuries such as deforestation, river engineering, agricultural practices or urbanism, those occurring underwater are veiled from our eyes and have continued nearly unnoticed. Only recent advances in remote sensing and deep marine sampling technologies have revealed the extent and magnitude of the anthropogenic impacts to the seafloor. In particular, bottom trawling, a fishing technique consisting of dragging a net and fishing gear over the seafloor to capture bottom-dwelling living resources has gained attention among the scientific community, policy makers and the general public due to its destructive effects on the seabed. Trawling gear produces acute impacts on biota and the physical substratum of the seafloor by disrupting the sediment column structure, overturning boulders, resuspending sediments and imprinting deep scars on muddy bottoms. Also, the repetitive passage of trawling gear over the same areas creates long-lasting, cumulative impacts that modify the cohesiveness and texture of sediments. It can be asserted nowadays that due to its recurrence, mobility and wide geographical extent, industrial trawling has become a major force driving seafloor change and affecting not only its physical integrity on short spatial scales but also imprinting measurable modifications to the geomorphology of entire continental margins.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. US Geological Survey—Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, 2885 Mission Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060, USA

    Ferdinand K. J. Oberle

  2. Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC), Passeig Maritim de la Barceloneta, 37-49, 08003, Barcelona, Spain

    Pere Puig

  3. Laboratorio de Oceanografía y Procesos Hidrosedimentarios, Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC-CONICET), Bernardo Houssay 200, V9410CAB, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

    Jacobo Martín

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  1. Ferdinand K. J. Oberle
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  2. Pere Puig
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  3. Jacobo Martín
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Correspondence to Ferdinand K. J. Oberle .

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  1. Marine Geology & Seafloor Surveying Group, Department of Geosciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malta, Msida, Malta

    Aaron Micallef

  2. Institute of Geosciences, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

    Sebastian Krastel

  3. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Università degli Studi Milano Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Alessandra Savini

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Oberle, F.K.J., Puig, P., Martín, J. (2018). Fishing Activities. In: Micallef, A., Krastel, S., Savini, A. (eds) Submarine Geomorphology. Springer Geology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57852-1_25

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