(e.g., anchor, burial, water quality)
Most human activities that occur in the ocean have multiple impacts and habitats may be negatively affected by multiple impacts. Consider the number and types of impacts associated with the proposed activity and how many impacts affect each habitat in order to assess the likely impacts to the diversity and heterogeneity of habitats in the area.
Several schemes have been developed to help select the locations of marine reserves. All of them combine social, economic, and biological criteria, and few offer any guidance as to how to prioritize among the criteria identified. This can imply that the relative weights given to different criteria are unimportant. Where two sites are of equal value ecologically; then socioeconomic criteria should dominate the choice of which should be protected. However, in many cases, socioeconomic criteria are given equal or greater weight than ecological considerations in the choice of sites.