Anthropogenic Pressures on Coral Reefs

Undersea cables support our global network society (Starsielski 2015, 1). Often referred to as "energetic monsters," undersea cables transport almost one hundred percent of our digital communications; rather than satellites, submarine systems carry most of the Internet across the ocean. Undersea cables are the backbones of capitalism: they enable the expansion of multinational corporations and drive financial transactions. The reliance on undersea cables is not flexible. While militaries use undersea cables to organize long-range weapons tests and remote battlefield operations, undersea cables also allow collaboration between countries to distribute transnational media (Starsielski 2015, 2). Undersea cables facilitate digital communications between continents.

Undersea cables remain largely invisible to the public as a security precaution (Starsielski 2015, 4). If the importance of undersea cables is primarily unnoticed by the public, then people will not think to contest or disrupt them. Leaving internet cables out of view to the public perpetuates the notion that the internet lacks physicality. Communication infrastructures advertise themselves as wireless, directing the public's attention above (e.g., "in the cloud"). Public representations of undersea cables divert the public's attention away from the physicality and instead promote narratives on dematerialization (Starsielski 2015, 6). Wireless networks are not wireless. Despite the rhetoric of wirelessness, technological devices utilize more wires. Technological systems arrive and advance at all points in time and are not necessarily better. New devices do not emerge ready-made; specifically, we are path dependent on particular forms of technology.

Deep-sea mining has grown significant interest worldwide due to the potential of deep-sea minerals on the deep seabed (Sharma 2015, 204). Imports of ores and minerals from the ocean assist in expanding industrial development. Environmental strains from offshore mining include higher sedimentation rates (Sharma 2015, 205). Specifically, increases in sediment plumes and mining discharge affect biological productivity by disrupting the process of photosynthesis.

Anthropogenic pressures such as resource exploitation and recreational practices continue to impact essential coral reef ecosystems (Bellwood et al. 2019, 604-605). Coral reefs are defined by their high species biodiversity and abundance of associated organisms. Abundant coral loss ultimately impacts the functioning of coral reef ecosystems. Changes in the ecological processes of coral reefs promote the existence of non-coral organisms, such as algal turfs. Increasing rates of significant disturbances and climate disruption are the most widespread.

1. Identify potential hot spots of oil risk locations along the coast of Florida.
2. Consider how rising sea surface temperature and salinity impacts coral reefs.
3. Explore the relationship between submarine cables and threatened coral reefs.

• Found a potential correlation between active submarine cables and an increase in oil spill risk
• A possible relationship between high levels of sea surface salinity and oil spill hotspots along the Eastern coast of Florida

• I did not include any mortality points or strandings of a particular species to identify a correlation between coral reef biodiversity loss and mortality rates
• I did not include other anthropogenic factors such as recreational boating to explain the decline in coral reef ecosystems

1. Bellwood, David, et al. 2019. "Coral Reef Conservation in the Anthropocene: Confronting Spatial Mismatches and Prioritizing Functions." Biological Conservation 236: 604-615 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.05.056
2. Florida Geospatial Open Data. Accessed November 1, 2022.  Florida Geospatial Open Data Portal (floridagio.gov) 
3. Sharma, Rahul. 2015. "Environmental Issues of Deep-Sea Mining." Procedia Earth and Planetary Science 11: 204-211. doi: 10.1016/j.proeps.2015.06.026
4. Starosielski, Nicole. 2015. The Undersea Network. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
5. United States. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. United States. Department of Commerce. United States. National Ocean Service. Coastal Services Center (U.S.). (2016). Submarine Cables, Northeast United States, 2010. [Shapefile]. Coastal Services Center (U.S.). Retrieved from https://earthworks.stanford.edu/catalog/stanford-bz075sz3951