Sea Water Pollution

By: FARHAN HAMEED

Sea water Pollution(UN definition)

“The introduction by man, directly, or indirectly,

of substances or energy to the marine

environment resulting in deleterious effects such as hazards to human health, hindrance to marine

activities, impairment of the quality of seawater

for various uses and reduction of amenities.”

Types of Sea Water Pollution

• Chemicals, Metals and Radioactive Substances

• Solid Waste

• Oil

• Sewage (Faecal Coliform and nutrients)

• Agricultural runoff (herbicides, pesticides and nutrients)

• Biological

• Sedimentation

Major Pollutants

Worldwide

• ~10 billion tones of ballast water with invasives

• ~ 10,000 million gallons of sewage annually

• ~3.25 million metric tones of oil annually

• Millions of tones of Solid waste

Major Pollutants

Metals

• Introduced dangerous metals include Mercury, Lead, and Copper.

• Heavy Metals are a great concern because they enter the food chain.

• Copper is dangerous to marine organisms and has been used in marine anti-fouling paints.

• Human activities release 5 times as much mercury and 17 times as much lead as is derived from natural sources.

Heavy Metals Entering Oceans

Lead68 %

Mercury20%

Copper8%

Natural4%

Lead Mercury Copper Natural

Major Pollutants (Cont.)Solid Waste

• A large portion and great danger is nonbiodegradable plastic.

• ~46,000 pieces of floating plastic/sq mile of ocean surface off the Northeastern United States coast.

Major Pollutants (Cont.)

Oil

• Oil spills at sea are generally much more damaging than those on land.

• The International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation has tracked 9,351 accidental spills that have occurred since 1974.

• According to this study, most spills result from routine operations such as loading cargo, discharging cargo, and taking on fuel oil.

Major Pollutants (Cont.)

• 91% of the operational oil spills are small, resulting in less than 7 metric tons per spill.

• On the other hand, spills resulting from accidents like collisions, groundings, hull failures, and explosions are much larger, with 84% of these involving losses of over 700 metric tons.

Sewage and Agricultural runoff

• Direct disposal of sewage sludge to the open sea and deep seafloor.

• The ‘best’ example is the “106-mile” dump site in the deep (2500m) NW Atlantic, serving the populations of New York and New Jersey.

• A total of around 42 million wet tons (1.5 million dry tons) of sludge were disposed of at the 106-mile site.

Sewage and Agricultural runoff (Cont.)

Marine outfall

A marine outfall is a pipeline or tunnel that discharges municipal or industrial wastewater,

combined sewer overflows, cooling water, or brine effluents from water desalination plants to the sea.

Radioactive Waste

• Radioactive waste is also dumped in the oceans and usually comes from the nuclear power process, medical use of radioisotopes, research use of radioisotopes and industrial uses.

• The difference between industrial waste and nuclear waste is that nuclear waste usually remains radioactive for decades.

Biological Pollution

• Biological pollution, or biopollution, is a term that defines adverse effects of invasive alien species (IAS) on quality of aquatic and terrestrial environment.

Effects of Pollution

Metals

• Generally marine pollution affects ecosystem health, public health, recreational water quality.

• Heavy Metals are a great concern because they enter the food chain.

• Copper is dangerous to marine organisms and has been used in marine anti-fouling paints.

• Mercury and lead poisoning cause brain damage and behavioral disturbances in children.

Solid Waste

• Sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and die from internal blockages.

Solid Waste (Cont.)

• Seals and sea lions starve after being entangled by nets or muzzled by six-pack rings (decomposition time 400 years).

• Plastic debris kills 100,000 marine mammals and

2 million sea birds die annually.

OIL

• The effects of an oil spill of marine life depend on a number of physical and biological factors.

• The distribution of the oil spill will be affected by currents and wind.

• In addition, the amount of oil spilled will determine the eventual geographic boundaries of the impact area.

• Environmental conditions such as salinity, water temperature, and type and slope of shoreline will determine habitat effects and clean-up procedures.

Oil (Cont.)

• Biological characteristics of the organisms affected will determine the severity of impact.

• These characteristics include the type of species, life stage (larval, juvenile or adult) and size.

• Animals can be poisoned or suffer internal damage from ingesting oil.

• Animals coated by even small amounts of oil may be unable to swim or fly properly, maintain their body temperature, feed or even reproduce.

Oil (Cont.)

Sewage and Agricultural runoff

• Most people think that all sewage is fully treated at a sewage treatment plant and enters the ocean relatively clean. Sewage contains a host of toxic chemicals that can kill fish.

• Sewage contains hundreds of toxic chemicals dumped into the sewage system by households, businesses and industries. Some are harmful in very low concentrations. Some toxins combine with others in this deadly brew to create new compounds that are even more dangerous.

Sewage and Agricultural runoff (Cont.)

• Even small amounts of the most hazardous chemicals found in sewage can cause irreparable harm to fish, particularly juveniles.

• The result is not immediate and visible like the aftermath of an oil spill.

• It is a quiet, unseen death over time.

• Dead and dying fish are simply eaten by other marine organisms.

Radioactive Waste

• If radioactive waste dump in concentrated areas, most of it will not be evenly distributed throughout the ocean.

• Most of it will remain in that location and will contaminate organisms in that local area.

• Unfavorable situations might arise if a package of radioactive material were found on the shore or recovered in a fisherman's net or by a trawler or dragger.

Solutions to Pollution

Two main methods• Correction – costly and time intensive

• Prevention – requires attitude changes

Coastal Scientists believe that prevention is better

than cure since the effects of marine pollution may

be irreversible and we may therefore be creating

everlasting damage to the marine ecosystem.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”

THANK YOU