Marine Pollution

Many of the ’pollution’ problems of previous decades seem to be ’solved’, in the developed World, or at least managed to minimise their environmental impacts. Whilst pollutants such as sewage can now be treated to reduce their damaging qualities the resulting effluent still contains a potent mixture of compounds that negatively impact marine ecosystems. These include ’traditional’ pollutants, such as metals, and ’new’ ones such as hormone mimics and pharmaceutical residues. Similarly, although oil spills are now less common and better managed the growth in global trade means vast volumes of ballast water are moved around continuously. When discharged it is usually contaminated with pollutants and potentially invasive alien species, and so represents a new threat to biodiversity.

So, the question arises has pollution really been solved or are there simply different and potentially more complex challenges today? This book considers both the ’traditional’ threats from both the ’solved’ and ’ongoing’ pollution problems, whilst also addressing ’emerging’ pollutants such as hormone mimics, nanometre sized particles added to clothing and food packaging, millimetric plastics within hygiene products, residues from the pharmaceuticals we use day-to-day along with noise and light pollution. It also considers the science behind measuring the ecological impacts of pollutants and how they are monitored in the environment including traditional and ’new’ management approaches that holistically consider the impacts of human activities. This text provides an up to date account of the range of marine pollutants within a broad ecological and social context.