BSEP116B Biodiversity in the Baltic Sea - Helcom

ecommendations would contribute to a sustainable
performance of many human activities in the
Baltic Sea area.
6.4 Recreational activities
Millions of people take part in boating, fishing
and bathing in the Baltic Sea every year. The recreational
value of the Baltic Sea area depends on
a healthy ecosystem and pleasant environment,
both with regard to individual appreciation and
economic revenue for the tourism sector. At the
same time, these activities have the potential to
affect the Baltic Sea negatively through the release
of nutrients, physical disturbance, and extraction of
resources. A Baltic-wide assessment of the impact
of recreational activities is not available, but information
from some countries gives an indication of
the extent of the pressure.
6.4.1 Recreational activities and their
impact on the Baltic Sea
All coastal areas visited for recreational purposes
are subject to littering and direct physical disturbance
such as trampling, which may affect the
submerged vegetation in beach areas. A more continuous
impact stems from summerhouses, which
contribute a disproportionately large nutrient
Tourism, Eckernförder Bay, Germany
release to the Baltic because many summerhouses
are not connected to municipal sewage treatment
plants. The construction of jetties in summerhouse
areas also contributes to fragmentation of shallowwater
habitats.
In addition, boats and associated activities such as
fishing are the cause of multiple impacts on the
Baltic environment. An overwhelming majority of
recreational boats in the Baltic Sea area belong
to residents of Denmark, Finland and Sweden;
in Denmark and Finland, the number of privately
owned boats used along the Baltic Sea coast is
around 400 000, and in Sweden the number is
450 000. These estimates include vessels ranging
from rowboats to motor- and sailing boats with
overnight capacity (DEPA 2002, SCB 2004). In
Estonia and Latvia, the number of leisure boats is
about 14 500 and 7 300, respectively.
Impacts of boating
In Finland, it has been forbidden to release toilet
waste within territorial waters since 2005. Private
boat owners are thus obliged to collect toilet waste
onboard and deliver the waste to reception facilities
in Finnish harbours. In many cases, however, toilet
waste from recreational boats is released directly
into the sea. This is the case for an estimated 60%
of Swedish boats that have onboard toilets (SCB
2004). The toilet waste poses a hygienic risk when
disposed in coastal areas and is also a source of
nutrients (for impacts on biodiversity, see Chapter
6.5, Eutrophication). In the Stockholm archipelago,
it is estimated that 4.5 tonnes of nitrogen and 1.1
tonnes of phosphorus are released to the water as
toilet waste every summer (SEPA 2007). On a Balticwide
scale, recreational boats have been estimated
to contribute within the range of 30–190 tonnes of
nitrogen and 4–28 tonnes of phosphorus per year
(DEPA 2002).
108
High boating activity also affects the aquatic vegetation
in the nearshore area. Shallow bays that are
exposed to traffic by recreational boats and small
ferryboats show a smaller area of vegetation coverage
and lower species richness compared to reference
areas (Eriksson et al. 2004). The fish communities
also differ between these areas; fish dependent
on aquatic vegetation during early life stages appear
less common in the areas affected by boating (Sandström
et al. 2005).