Signal Bottom trawling disturbs 1 to 2 percent of the seafloor each year

Summary

The seafloor hosts living structures such as biogenic reefs, sponge grounds, kelp, shell habitats and burrowing communities that shape food webs, nutrient cycling and carbon storage. Bottom trawling now physically disturbs about 1 to 2 percent of the global seafloor every year, an area around half the size of Europe. Much of this repeatedly hits the same fishing grounds, but it is concentrated on continental shelves, which make up only a small share of the ocean. Those shelves carry a large part of marine productivity, fisheries, nutrient cycling and long-term carbon burial. Where trawlers pass often, complex seabed landscapes are turned into marine deserts of sand or mud. The report compares this damage to deforestation on land and warns that disturbed seafloor may not recover on human timescales.