The coastal ocean (i.e. regions that are directly influenced by their watershed, including estuaries) is under increasing pressures that affect its functioning and health, and compromise the provision of services to society. The implementation of the Blue Growth strategy has led to the multiplication of marine and maritime activities (e.g. dredging, offshore wind farms, eutrophication, fishing, pollution) with consequences for biodiversity and biogeochemistry that are still poorly known, in particular, at ecosystem scales. All these activities are developing in a context of global change (e.g. warming, acidification, deoxygenation, global sea level rise), adding additional complexity to the challenge of unravelling the intricate interplay between multiple stressors that may act synergistically or antagonistically.
In this special issue, we invite contributions to overview progress in our capabilities to understand, monitor, and forecast the impact of human activities on coastal marine environments to support the set-up of an ecosystem-based management scheme for the marine ecosystem. We welcome contributions linking science and policy, taking account of selecting useful and communicable indicators for ecosystem health, targeting ecosystem services, and making use of novel analytical tools acknowledging the complexity of driver–pressure–stressor–impact–response interactions.

This special issue is an output of the 52nd international Ocean Liège Colloquium on “Towards an understanding and assessment of human impact on coastal marine environments” that was organized online from 17–22 May 2021.