Role of anthropogenic pressures (Task 4.2)

The task is divided into two inter-related components: a) to determine the role of anthropogenic pressures on ecosystem structures and functions affecting eutrophication, habitat loss and biodiversity changes and b) then to identify environmental thresholds indicating incipient changes which can lead to a new dynamical state.

Background and Rationale

Anthropogenic factors such as fishing, fish-farming, pollution with toxic substances, increasing salinity and pollution of coastal lakes/estuaries, increasing turbidity (due to plankton blooms, bottom trawling, sand mining and erosion of shores) and over-exploitation, alter the ecosystem and degrade the habitats. The impacts of eutrophication, industrial and domestic effluents and the like on benthic community structure are well documented.