Marine Pollution

Abstract

The chapter is an introduction to topics of interest in marine pollution. It describes the changes that have occurred during the past 40 years, sources of data, general techniques of quality control, data evaluation, and determination of temporal trends. The status of knowledge of classes of substances of interest, ranging from simple inorganics and organics to complex effluents, is presented. The measurement techniques have improved significantly and the amount of information about the pollution of the marine environment has very much increased. However, the list of substances of interest is not getting shorter and there is a continuing need for faster and cheaper methods of data acquisition, evaluation, information extraction, and integration. All cause and effect relationships may never be fully understood or predicted and there is an urgent need to limit the amount of waste reaching the marine environment.