Marine Pollution is a major concern nowadays. Generally, the term marine pollution can be defined as the introduction of chemicals, particles, agricultural, industrial and residential waste to the ocean that ultimately creates an ill-effect on marine animals, public health, ecosystem health, recreational water quality and economic viability.
There are several types of marine pollution, which includes sedimentation, agricultural runoff (herbicides, pesticides, and nutrients), thermal and light energy, sewage (faecal coliform and nutrients), solid waste, chemicals, metals, radioactive substances, oil and several biological sources.
Metals are considered as the major source of the marine pollution. The dangerous metals which are introduced to the ocean generally include mercury, lead and copper. These metals are very dangerous as they directly enter in the food chain. Copper causes harm to the marine animals. Mercury and lead poisoning causes brain damage. Solid waste is also a major marine pollutant which includes non degradable plastic and kills 100,000 marine animals and 2 million sea birds annually. Oil is another major marine pollutant, which includes 15 % of land based sources, 32 % from oil industry, 45 % from marine transport and 4 % from natural by which marine water gets contaminated and causes harmful effects to marine life.
Sources of marine pollution:
- Land - 80% of non-biological pollution is caused as a result of land based activities. This includes discharge of industrial, chemical, food processing wastes and sewage via pipes.
- Air - Marine pollution also occurs due to the atmospheric air which includes dust, air contaminants.
- Maritime - It generally occurs due to oily discharges during constant shipping operations and illegal way of dumping waste material.
Impacts of marine pollution: Marine pollution is causing a huge impact in Atlantic Ocean which in turn is causing ill-effects on marine animals, public health, ecosystem health, recreational water quality and economic viability by various ways such as acidification, eutrophication, toxicity, mutagenic and carcinogenic substances.Generally marine pollution causes reduction in GDP by decreasing fishery resources and decrease in tourism earning. It also results in loss of bio-diversity and various life saving medicines for Cancer and HIV AIDS.
Atlantic Ocean is suffering from the marine pollution, and it is due to the introduction of chemicals, particles, industrial, agricultural and residential waste to it. There are various pathways due to which pollution occurs in Atlantic Ocean and these are as follows :
- Direct discharge
- Land runoff
- Ship pollution
- Atmospheric pollution
- Deep sea mining
- Acidification
- Eutrophication
- Plastic debris
- Toxins
- Noise pollution
- Adaptation and mitigation
Drift net fishing can kill dolphins, albatrosses and sea birds and that’s why the species has come in danger. Atlantic Ocean also gets contaminated due to the Municipal pollution that comes from America, Brazil, and Argentina. So, day by day the pollution is increasing in Atlantic Ocean and due to this pollution various environmental issues are coming forward which can cause hazards to mankind.
