POTENTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL-IMPACT OF MARINE GRAVEL EXTRACTION IN THE NORTH-SEA

The rapid increase in the mining of marine gravels in the North Sea offers a serious threat to the marine environment and especially to the herring populations of the southern North Sea and Channel. The paper discusses the extraction methods for gravel and the usefulness of applying programmed dredging to minimize the effects on the sea-bed. The impact of gravel extraction on the sea-bed and on the herring and sand-eel fisheries is discussed. It is estimated that the resources of marine gravel in the southern North Sea will be depleted within 50 years whereas the fisheries will be practised for many hundreds of years to come. Therefore a careful evaluation, on a European level, is needed of the relative short-term benefits for the marine gravel industry and the long-term interests of the fisheries. © 1979.