Definition And Analysis Of Marine Pollution Environmental Sciences Essay

INTRODUCTION

The word pollution means the introduction of harmful substances or products into the environment. The definition of Marine Pollution also can describe as the adding of toxins and harmful chemicals into the ocean, not only is it chemicals added to the ocean but things such as plastic are also found. One of the main problems is that when many of these particles are placed into the ocean, they are quickly eaten by the smaller fish, these fish that are lower down the food chain are then eaten by larger predators, therefore most fish are been toxicated by these harmful and dangerous chemicals.

HISTORY

2. June 8th is World Ocean Day. It was first declared on June 8, 1992 at the Earth Summit, Rio de Jeneiro in Brazil. This declaration is to raise awareness about the importance of the sea to human life. Although marine pollution has a long history, significant international laws to counter it were enacted in the twentieth century. Marine pollution was a concern during several United Nations Conferences on the Law of the Sea beginning in the 1950s. Most scientists believed that the oceans were so vast that they had unlimited ability to dilute, and thus render harmless, pollution.

3. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were several controversies about dumping radioactive waste off the coasts of the United States by companies licensed by the Atomic Energy Commission, into the Irish Sea from the British reprocessing facility at Windscale, and into the Mediterranean Sea by the French Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique. After the Mediterranean Sea controversy, for example, Jacques Cousteaubecame a worldwide figure in the campaign to stop marine pollution. Marine pollution made further international headlines after the 1967 crash of the oil tanker Torrey Canyon, and after the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill off the coast of California.

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4. Marine pollution was a major area of discussion during the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm. That year also saw the signing of the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, sometimes called the London Convention. The London Convention did not ban marine pollution, but it established black and gray lists for substances to be banned (black) or regulated by national authorities (gray). Cyanide and high-level radioactive waste, for example, were put on the black list. The London Convention applied only to waste dumped from ships, and thus did nothing to regulate waste discharged as liquids from pipelines.

5. Do we know that the sea was so amazing role as a buffer? It sustain the heat, the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and pollutants to offset the climate of the earth so protecting people from sudden changes in the Earth’s temperature increases due to the modernization process.

6. Adverse effects will occur globally and is fast but can not be seen with the naked eye. Unfortunately the cause of human blindness is more proud of the many activities continue to destroy the sea.Plastic waste, industrial waste and oil identified as the main self-centered man who harassed and then kill marine life and habitat.

Even in small concentrations, toxic components of these contaminants can impede the ability of marine life to flourish and grow.

PLASTIC DEBRIS

7. Marine debris is mainly discarded human rubbish which floats on, or is suspended in the ocean. Eighty percent of marine debris is plastic – a component that has been rapidly accumulating since the end of World War II. The mass of plastic in the oceans may be as high as one hundred million metric tons. Drastic improvement from the plastic-based marine pollution in the 1940s is now the issue is so acute. Each year tens of thousands of marine creatures were killed or disabled as a result of plastic. In fact, studies have found that at least 30,000 wildlife trapped or suffocated to death.

8. In the eyes of marine wildlife including seabirds, turtles and whales, the suspension looks like plastic food animals that eventually killed due to choking, poisoning, or do not feel like eating because of feeling of ‘fullness’. In addition, nets, ropes, fishing lines and hooks and eyes, and stuck a chain-foot accidentally left many anglers also kill marine life. At least an estimated 77 tonnes of plastic waste disposed of each year based on the shipping industry. While the commercial fishing industry has been left 135 million pounds of plastic-based fishing gear and throw another 24 million pounds of plastic waste into the sea. This means that the sea has become garbage bins should be taken into account by waste from other sources, including land.

9. While the issue is, a biodegradable plastic material is very difficult and may remain in the marine environment up to 450 years. The fact that toxic difficult to unravel due to the longer life expectancy than through the food web and cause the toxic cumulative poison marine animals, particularly shellfish.

10. In Malaysia, the pollution of industrial waste that flows into the sea, especially in the industrial states of Penang, Selangor and Johor have to be considered. This is because the pollution could affect marine life and the next source of food and the traditional fishing economy. For example, local shellfish contain heavy metals of lead and other toxic high up as case studies institute of higher learning (IPT) for local and foreign. In fact, many may recall, not long ago there were countries that had prevented the importation of shellfish from this country.

11. Due to other shellfish farmers in Sungai Juru, Pulau Pinang, the main producer of cockles, it has been reported that half of the revenue losses due to dead shells, blocked or disabled as a result of sea water quality in the state which is too bad. In fact, mussel farming is actually a branch of the major aquaculture countries, with production of 40,000 tonnes in 1991.

SHIP POLLUTION

12. Ships can pollute waterways and oceans in many ways. Discharge of cargo residues from bulk carriers can pollute ports, waterways and oceans. In many instances vessels intentionally discharge illegal wastes despite foreign and domestic regulation prohibiting such actions. It has been estimated that container ships lose over 10,000 containers at sea each year (usually during storms). Ships also create noise pollution that disturbs natural wildlife, and water from ballast tanks can spread harmful algae and other invasive species.

13. Ballast water taken up at sea and released in port is a major source of unwanted exotic marine life. Theinvasive freshwater zebra mussels, native to the Black, Caspian and Azov seas, were probably transported to the Great Lakes via ballast water from a transoceanic vessel. Meinesz believes that one of the worst cases of a single invasive species causing harm to an ecosystem can be attributed to a seemingly harmless jellyfish. Mnemiopsis leidyi, a species of comb jellyfish that spread so it now inhabits estuaries in many parts of the world. It was first introduced in 1982, and thought to have been transported to the Black Sea in a ship’s ballast water. The population of the jellyfish shot up exponentially and, by 1988, it was wreaking havoc upon the local fishing industry. “The anchovy catch fell from 204,000 tons in 1984 to 200 tons in 1993; sprat from 24,600 tons in 1984 to 12,000 tons in 1993; horse mackerel from 4,000 tons in 1984 to zero in 1993.” Now that the jellyfish have exhausted the zooplankton, including fish larvae, their numbers have fallen dramatically, yet they continue to maintain a stranglehold on the ecosystem.

14. Invasive species can take over once occupied areas, facilitate the spread of new diseases, introduce new genetic material, alter underwater seascapes and jeopardize the ability of native species to obtain food. Invasive species are responsible for about $138 billion annually in lost revenue and management costs in the US alone.

OIL SPILL

15. Oil spills can have devastating effects. While being toxic to marine life, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the components in crude oil, are very difficult to clean up, and last for years in the sediment and marine environment.

16. Destructive effects of oil spills are very difficult to be identified. This is because the impact on marine life is not visible to the naked eye and do not cause immediate changes in the economy.

17. The worst oil spill in the history of the oil tanker Exxon Valdez in 1989, which broke and spilled over 35,000 tons of crude oil in the waters of Prince Wiilian Sound in Alaska. Oil has not only includes more than 2,300 square kilometers of sea and even in the past three days, 50 percent of its oil off the coast of the precipitate. This resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of marine life, including 13 percent of the population of seals, 28 percent of the population of sea otters, and up to 645,000 sea birds.

18. Moreover, the fact that large-scale oil spill into one of the richest marine ecosystems with biodiversity of the world have caused an uproar around the world and caused many controversies. What’s more, studies show after 15 years of healing the affected area is still too slow. It is not worth the huge cost of U.S. $ 3 billion that was spent to clean up the spill.

19. This shows that there is no method or technology for cleaning and conservation of large-scale oil spills after effective. This tragedy is proof that large-scale oil spill is destroyed.

20. In addition, the Persian Gulf is the most polluted sea. One of the dozens of oil rigs destroyed bombarded during the Iran-Iraq War, for example, has shed a total of 172 tonnes of crude oil every day for almost three months. The biggest oil spill catastrophe in world history happened only a few years later during the 1991 Gulf War. This time around 800,000 tonnes of crude oil spilled causing over 570 kilometers of the coast of Saudi Arabia and oil covered the sea bed.

21. Thus, after 16 years of awareness about the marine Kanwil publicized throughout the world, how we respond to this issue now? We forgotten that the role of the ocean as a supplier of basic human needs such as food, oxygen and greater water beyond the role of terrestrial ecosystems?

EUTROPHICATION

22. Eutrophication is an increase in chemical nutrients, typically compounds containing nitrogen orphosphorus, in an ecosystem. It can result in an increase in the ecosystem’s primary productivity (excessive plant growth and decay), and further effects including lack of oxygen and severe reductions in water quality, fish, and other animal populations.

23. The biggest culprit are rivers that empty into the ocean, and with it the many chemicals used asfertilizers in agriculture as well as waste from livestock and humans. An excess of oxygen depleting chemicals in the water can lead to hypoxia and the creation of a dead zone.

24. Estuaries tend to be naturally eutrophic because land-derived nutrients are concentrated whererunoff enters the marine environment in a confined channel. The World Resources Institute has identified 375 hypoxic coastal zones around the world, concentrated in coastal areas in Western Europe, the Eastern and Southern coasts of the US, and East Asia, particularly in Japan. In the ocean, there are frequent red tide algae blooms that kill fish and marine mammals and cause respiratory problems in humans and some domestic animals when the blooms reach close to shore.

25. In addition to land runoff, atmospheric anthropogenic fixed nitrogen can enter the open ocean. A study in 2008 found that this could account for around one third of the ocean’s external (non-recycled) nitrogen supply and up to three per cent of the annual new marine biological production. It has been suggested that accumulating reactive nitrogen in the environment may have consequences as serious as putting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION

26. Much anthropogenic pollution ends up in the ocean. Bjorn Jennssen (2003) notes in his article, “Anthropogenic pollution may reduce biodiversity and productivity of marine ecosystems, resulting in reduction and depletion of human marine food resources” (p. A198). There are two ways the overall level of this pollution can be mitigated: either the human population is reduced, or a way is found to reduce the ecological footprint left behind by the average human. If the second way is not adopted, then the first way may be imposed as world ecosystems falter.

27. The second way is for humans, individually, to pollute less. That requires social and political will, together with a shift in awareness so more people respect the environment and are less disposed to abuse it. At an operational level, regulations, and international government participation is needed. It is often very difficult to regulate marine pollution because pollution spreads over international barriers, thus making regulations hard to create as well as enforce.

28. Perhaps the most important strategy for reducing marine pollution is education. Most are unaware of the sources, and harmful effects of marine pollution, and therefore little is done to address the situation. In order to inform the population of all the facts, in depth research must be done to provide the full scale of the situation. Then this information must be made public.

29. As expressed in Daoji and Dag’s research,[83] one of the reasons why environmental concern is lacking among the Chinese is because the public awareness is low and therefore should be targeted. Likewise, regulation, based upon such in-depth research should be employed. In California, such regulations have already been put in place to protect Californian coastal waters from agricultural runoff. This includes the California Water Code, as well as several voluntary programs. Similarly, in India, several tactics have been employed that help reduce marine pollution, however, they do not significantly target the problem. In Chennai city, India, sewage has been dumped further into open waters. Due to the mass of waste being deposited, open-ocean is best for diluting, and dispersing pollutants, thus making them less harmful to marine ecosystems.

PROTECT

30. In this country, establishing measures of Marine Park Malaysia as a marine protected area since 1994 through the Fisheries Act 1985 was seen as a good beginning for marine conservation efforts. So far a total of 40 islands of the richest marine biodiversity has been gazetted as marine parks and several more in the study. But the question is to what extent the effective implementation and enforcement of various regulations and laws to achieve the real objective to conserve the sea? Is the Department of Environment, Fisheries Department, Forestry Department, Department of Marine Park, the Customs Department, Malaysia Tourism, Municipal Councils, Marine Police and other work to manage and maintain the originality of a firm and sustainable ocean?

31. Can the department officers of the shoots to the ground performing the tasks entrusted to protect and find ways to get the best manner of marine exploitation in the interest of mankind in the future?

32. The role is including restricting excessive harvesting of sea, to prevent fishermen from using prohibited fishing gear or illegal, blocking the smuggling and intrusion of foreign fishermen, to prevent the visitors, especially divers who steal and destroy coral reef ecosystems or interfere with the natural life.

33. Method of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is touted for almost 10 years ago, even the marine experts have been detailed by the local institutions of higher learning should be implemented immediately.

Lt Mohd Hazfanizam bin Razali TLDM N/404473 menyertai perkhidmatan TLDM pada 20 Jun 2004. Dilahirkan di Bagan Serai, Perak.

Diperjawatkan di KD PELANDOK sebagai Pegawai Seksyen Penyelidikan Pembangunan Kawalan Mutu Latihan.

34. If we are really sensitive, this method should be done by applying the expertise of local universities are indeed marine of the best in Asia, in addition to strictly limit any development projects and new industries.