Coastal Habitats, Shallow Seas and Inland
Saline Steppes: Ecology, Distribution,
Threats and Challenges
Carsten Hobohm, Joop Schaminée, and Nils van Rooijen
Abstract Coastal and inland saline habitats are distributed worldwide. The coastal
habitats occur at the border between land and sea in various landscape formations,
such as rocky shores, shallow coasts and protected bays, as far as to offshore areas.
The inland saline habitats are predominantly part of inland steppe ecosystems. The
complex underlying geomorphology, ecology, specialized flora and fauna, temporal
and spatial dynamic, diverse ecosystem services and the general importance for
human populations, settlements, fisheries, trades, and tourism make coastal habitats
a unique part of the world’s landscape.
In this chapter, we briefly outline the historic significance of coastal habitats and
their ecosystem functions and services. We describe recent threats affecting coastal
habitats and their flora and fauna. Owing to their spatially close relation or similarities in vegetation composition to saltmarshes, we additionally describe the characteristics of shallow sea communities and inland saline steppe vegetation.
Today, many of the characteristic plant and animal species showing special
adaptations with respect to challenging environmental, as well as subtidal, coastal
and inland saline habitats are threatened worldwide and thus, are under serious
pressure. Main threats comprise residential and commercial building development,
artificial coastal defence, tourism, overexploitation, pollution, increasing pressure of
invasive and other problematic species, anthropogenic influence on water dynamics
and climate-change induced changes in coastal dynamics.
Theoretically, many climate-related extremes such as floods and hurricanes imply
a much higher risk for humans and human buildings at the coast than for natural
C. Hobohm (*)
Department of Ecology and Environmental Education, University of Flensburg (EUF),
Flensburg, Germany
e-mail: hobohm@uni-flensburg.de
J. Schaminée
Wageningen University and Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The
Netherlands
N. van Rooijen
Vegetation, Forest and Landscape Ecology Group, Wageningen University and Research,
Wageningen, The Netherlands
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
C. Hobohm (ed.), Perspectives for Biodiversity and Ecosystems, Environmental
Challenges and Solutions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57710-0_12
279
Saline Steppes: Ecology, Distribution,
Threats and Challenges
Carsten Hobohm, Joop Schaminée, and Nils van Rooijen
Abstract Coastal and inland saline habitats are distributed worldwide. The coastal
habitats occur at the border between land and sea in various landscape formations,
such as rocky shores, shallow coasts and protected bays, as far as to offshore areas.
The inland saline habitats are predominantly part of inland steppe ecosystems. The
complex underlying geomorphology, ecology, specialized flora and fauna, temporal
and spatial dynamic, diverse ecosystem services and the general importance for
human populations, settlements, fisheries, trades, and tourism make coastal habitats
a unique part of the world’s landscape.
In this chapter, we briefly outline the historic significance of coastal habitats and
their ecosystem functions and services. We describe recent threats affecting coastal
habitats and their flora and fauna. Owing to their spatially close relation or similarities in vegetation composition to saltmarshes, we additionally describe the characteristics of shallow sea communities and inland saline steppe vegetation.
Today, many of the characteristic plant and animal species showing special
adaptations with respect to challenging environmental, as well as subtidal, coastal
and inland saline habitats are threatened worldwide and thus, are under serious
pressure. Main threats comprise residential and commercial building development,
artificial coastal defence, tourism, overexploitation, pollution, increasing pressure of
invasive and other problematic species, anthropogenic influence on water dynamics
and climate-change induced changes in coastal dynamics.
Theoretically, many climate-related extremes such as floods and hurricanes imply
a much higher risk for humans and human buildings at the coast than for natural
C. Hobohm (*)
Department of Ecology and Environmental Education, University of Flensburg (EUF),
Flensburg, Germany
e-mail: hobohm@uni-flensburg.de
J. Schaminée
Wageningen University and Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The
Netherlands
N. van Rooijen
Vegetation, Forest and Landscape Ecology Group, Wageningen University and Research,
Wageningen, The Netherlands
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
C. Hobohm (ed.), Perspectives for Biodiversity and Ecosystems, Environmental
Challenges and Solutions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57710-0_12
279