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HELCOM identified several important pressures, caused by human activities. Coastal areas are mainly affected by point-source pollution and open-sea areas by fishing, riverine pollution and atmospheric nitrogen deposition. Another important issue is also disturbance of the seabed by construction, dredging and disposal of dredged material, which creates large impacts on local environments, whereas bottom trawling affects large areas of the sea. The cumulative impact of human activities is large in all areas except open-sea areas of the Gulf of Bothnia. (HELCOM, 2010)

This HELCOM Initial Holistic Assessment shows that the environmental status of the Baltic Sea is generally impaired (HELCOM, 2010). None of the open basins of the Baltic Sea has an acceptable environmental status at present. The integrated assessment of the ‘ecosystem health’ has revealed that only very few coastal areas along the Gulf of Bothnia can be considered healthy. In most of the coastal waters, nutrient concentrations and chlorophyll-a concentrations generally are elevated compared to both target values and reference conditions. (HELCOM, 2011).