![]() Physical damage to the seabed by ship anchors is increasingly considered a threat to the health of benthic communities 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, due to physical destruction and associated changes in sediment type and ecosystem function 24. Concomitant anchorage use is becoming a more dominant, but unreported and unquantified, impact of the shipping industry on the global seabed 15. The global pandemic has shone a spotlight on surging marine port congestion 1, 13, 14. ![]() The short-term deployment of anchors has been referred to as a “hidden cost” of the shipping industry 11 due to the associated, and mostly unaccounted for, seabed damage 11, 12. While the economic fallout of the pandemic on the global shipping industry is well reported 1, 8, 9, 10, the associated environmental impacts due to intensifying anchorage use have been little considered. Marine ports around the world have been experiencing unprecedented bottlenecks in traffic, with no relief in sight 6, 7. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of ships have been reported waiting on anchor outside heavily congested ports 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. As seaborne trade is projected to quadruple by 2050, the poorly constrained impacts of anchoring must be considered to avoid irreversible damage to marine habitats. Seafloor damage due to anchoring has far-reaching implications for already stressed marine ecosystems and carbon cycling. Scaled-up globally, this provides the first estimates of the footprint of anchoring to the coastal seabed, worldwide. The calcuated volume of sediment displaced by one high-tonnage ship (> 9000 Gross Tonnage) on anchor can reach 2800 m 3. We present the first characterisation of the footprint and extent of anchoring in a low congestion port in New Zealand-Aotearoa, demonstrating that high-tonnage ship anchors excavate the seabed by up to 80 cm, with the impacts preserved for at least 4 years. ![]() Intensified by the pandemic, the commonplace anchoring of high-tonnage ships causes a substantial geomorphologial footprint on the seabed outside marine ports globally, but isn’t yet quantified. ![]() San Clemente Island is more open to marine traffic, so the Navy regularly notifies the Coast Guard of missile launches to make sure no ships stray into the area during that time, the report said.With the COVID-19 pandemic came what media has deemed the “port congestion pandemic”. The Washington Examiner said in its report that the Navy owns two islands off the Southern California coast, which are used as training facilities for airstrikes and amphibious assaults, including San Clemente Island, 68 miles from San Diego, and San Nicolas Island, 65 miles from the Point Mugu Naval Air Station in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles. As of Wednesday, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California, 88 ships were in the two ports, including 32 at anchor or loitering and 56 at berths. The busy twin ports are struggling with indigestion problem after the number of ships anchored offshore swelled last fall to more than 100. POLB reported that the calendar year 2021 volume of 9,384,368 TEUs went up 15.7 percent over the previous year, setting a new annual record as well. POLA processed about 10.7 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) in 2021, breaking its previous calendar year record by 13 percent and setting a new record in the Western Hemisphere. ![]() The Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and the Port of Long Beach (POLB) together form the fifth busiest port facility in the world and the busiest in the Americas. They are waiting along the Mexican coast and as far away as the Panama Canal,” Louttit said.Īccording to the report, Louttit provided a map of incoming ships with a huge cluster off the coast of Mexico, adding crews aboard ships waiting to be called into shore must agree not to disembark in foreign countries or they lose their place in line. We now have them 150 miles offshore of Southern California. “We needed to spread the ships out, so we had to skip over the area. Kipling Louttit, Executive Director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, which coordinates shipping traffic and piloting vessels into the ports, was quoted as saying that only cargo ships cleared to dock within 72 hours were permitted within 50 miles since “the military is shooting missiles and guns six days a week.” Navy launched training exercises along the coast, the Washington Examiner reported Thursday. Cargo ships waiting to unload in ports of Southern California had been pushed farther away from the shore as the U.S. ![]()
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