The goal of the research presented here is to estimate and visualize, for the first time, the global impact humans are having on the ocean's ecosystems. This dataset contains 12 raster grids (with global coverage) representing types of human activities in categories like fishing, climate change, and pollution, and commercial activity, that directly or indirectly have an impact on the ecological communities in the ocean's ecosystems. This analysis, published in Science, February 15, 2008 (no subscription required), shows that over 40% of the world's oceans are heavily affected by human activities and few if any areas remain untouched. System requirements: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software that reads ESRI shapefile format.