A Global Comparison of Contamination in Populated Estuaries and Coastal Waters

Abstract

Many areas of the world ocean which are subject to contaminant inputs from man's waste discharges have been the subject of intensive pollution studies during the last decade. In the United States, the New York Bight Project of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been the largest of such marine ecosystem studies. This paper is a brief summary of a study which compared the available information concerning contamination and its effects on the New York Bight and on other coastal areas throughout the world (Segar and Davis, in press). These comparisons reveal that problems in many regions of the coastal ocean are quite similar, that nutrient-induced eutrophication and organic loading of sediments in areas with insufficent dispersal of inputs are the most widespread and serious problems, and that inputs of toxic trace metals and synthetic organics to the ocean have had no significant impact on human health or the marine environment, except in a few extreme cases in very small areas of the coastal ocean environment.