- Email: [email protected]
Marine environmental quality
The principal research targets are clear enough and are not much different from those identified by the Ocean Affairs Board of the United States' NAS-NRC (see this page). The first GIMPE report is particularly concerned with the machinery of international research and asks for such things as the development of suitable sampling methods and promotion of a multiship observational programme by 1974. It asks for a compilation of present national and international studies of river inputs into the sea and a consideration of how best to promote international research information exchange. Among research it would particularly like to see coordinated and developed are investigations of the transfer of pollutants from the atmosphere to the sea, the vertical transfer of materials across the thermocline, of biological accumulators and the survival and fate of pathogenic viruses and bacteria in the sea. A more open-ended request is for a comprehensive investigation of the dynamics of ecosystems in relation to pollution. Finally, it asks the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission to arrange for scientists engaged in appropriate studies to combine their findings in a preliminary report on the 'health of tile ocean'.
Government Pollution Rese ch -l'he Department of the Environment's Central Unit on Environmental Pollution has published an index of current research on pollution that is being carried out in government establishments, or in other organizations. such as universities, with government support. A mixed bag of nearly 550 research programmes is listed dealing with various aspects of air, freshwater, marine and terrestial pollution, with noise and radioactivity and the social aspects of pollution treated separately from the rest. The list has to be read with a certain amount of circumspection because there is no indication of the scale of operations: a programme involving one scientist for a few weeks of the year is indistinguishable from one involving a whole laboratory continuously. No less than six government departments are engaged one way or another in pollution research: Defence; Agriculture. Fisheries and Food (and its Scottish counterpart): Health; Trade and Industry; the Environment; and, principally through the Research Councils, the Department of Education and Science. Surprisingly, the Department of the Environment has responsibility for fewer research programmes than any other and most o[ its activity is in the Water Pollution Research Laboratory. Presumably this is a reflection of its recent creation and the involvement of other departments predates that, but it is clearly an odd situation.
Sydney Sewerage System Sydney, Australia, with a population of more than 2.5 million has, like most other coastal conurbations in the world, a sewage treatment problem. The Metropolitan Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board has just 38
placed an A$9 million contract with Woodall-Duckham for the completion of the Malabar treatment plant. The Malabar complex employs similar methods to those used in a number of places on the American west coast to combat beach and inshore pollution. When completed in autumn 1974 the plant will treat industrial and domestic waste from a million people in southern and western suburbs of Sydney.
Japan Controls Navigators Regulation of shipping traffic in congested waters took one step forward with the announcement that navigation controls are to be tightened in Tokyo Bay, Ise Bay and the sea of Japan. The Japanese Maritime Safety Agency will in future have to be kept informed about shipping movements along specified sea lanes and proposed regulations will include rules for small ships to follow when avoiding large vessels, right of way rules and obligatory speed limits in certain sectors.
Shallow Waters The increasing size of oil tankers and container ships is reaching the point where normal sea routes are proving to be too shallow to accommodate the latest monsters (Marine Pollution Bulletin 3(1): 3, 1972). Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have recently completed a joint survey of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, which most shipping from Europe and the Middle East pass en route for the Far East. Thirtyseven shallows which could endanger the movement of supertankers and giant cargo vessels were discovered.
Marine Environmental Qu ty The Ocean Affairs Board of the US National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council organized, through its Ocean Science Committee, a special study last August to propose research programmes for understanding the human impact on the ocean. A report of this examination of what should be done has now appeared. It is suggested that early priority should be given to studying selected areas where pollution has not yet begun but which are likely to be subjected to pollution pressure within a few years. The intention of this is to provide a baseline to show the effect of human activities later on. More specifically there are proposals to investigate oil pollution, chlorinated hydrocarbons, municipal wastes, radionuclides, heavy metals and carbon dioxide. For each of these wastes it is suggested that the following information should be gathered: a baseline study of existing concentration, the effect of the pollutant on the metabolism of selected indigenous organisms, dilution and physical transport rates, transfer rates between the water, biota and sediments and the chemical and biological reactions and rates and, for degradable materials, the products of decomposition. These summary recommendations are preceded by an analysis of the problems of ocean pollution and a justification of the emphasis the study group placed on research programmes most urgently needed.
Government Pollution Rese ch -l'he Department of the Environment's Central Unit on Environmental Pollution has published an index of current research on pollution that is being carried out in government establishments, or in other organizations. such as universities, with government support. A mixed bag of nearly 550 research programmes is listed dealing with various aspects of air, freshwater, marine and terrestial pollution, with noise and radioactivity and the social aspects of pollution treated separately from the rest. The list has to be read with a certain amount of circumspection because there is no indication of the scale of operations: a programme involving one scientist for a few weeks of the year is indistinguishable from one involving a whole laboratory continuously. No less than six government departments are engaged one way or another in pollution research: Defence; Agriculture. Fisheries and Food (and its Scottish counterpart): Health; Trade and Industry; the Environment; and, principally through the Research Councils, the Department of Education and Science. Surprisingly, the Department of the Environment has responsibility for fewer research programmes than any other and most o[ its activity is in the Water Pollution Research Laboratory. Presumably this is a reflection of its recent creation and the involvement of other departments predates that, but it is clearly an odd situation.
Sydney Sewerage System Sydney, Australia, with a population of more than 2.5 million has, like most other coastal conurbations in the world, a sewage treatment problem. The Metropolitan Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board has just 38
placed an A$9 million contract with Woodall-Duckham for the completion of the Malabar treatment plant. The Malabar complex employs similar methods to those used in a number of places on the American west coast to combat beach and inshore pollution. When completed in autumn 1974 the plant will treat industrial and domestic waste from a million people in southern and western suburbs of Sydney.
Japan Controls Navigators Regulation of shipping traffic in congested waters took one step forward with the announcement that navigation controls are to be tightened in Tokyo Bay, Ise Bay and the sea of Japan. The Japanese Maritime Safety Agency will in future have to be kept informed about shipping movements along specified sea lanes and proposed regulations will include rules for small ships to follow when avoiding large vessels, right of way rules and obligatory speed limits in certain sectors.
Shallow Waters The increasing size of oil tankers and container ships is reaching the point where normal sea routes are proving to be too shallow to accommodate the latest monsters (Marine Pollution Bulletin 3(1): 3, 1972). Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have recently completed a joint survey of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, which most shipping from Europe and the Middle East pass en route for the Far East. Thirtyseven shallows which could endanger the movement of supertankers and giant cargo vessels were discovered.
Marine Environmental Qu ty The Ocean Affairs Board of the US National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council organized, through its Ocean Science Committee, a special study last August to propose research programmes for understanding the human impact on the ocean. A report of this examination of what should be done has now appeared. It is suggested that early priority should be given to studying selected areas where pollution has not yet begun but which are likely to be subjected to pollution pressure within a few years. The intention of this is to provide a baseline to show the effect of human activities later on. More specifically there are proposals to investigate oil pollution, chlorinated hydrocarbons, municipal wastes, radionuclides, heavy metals and carbon dioxide. For each of these wastes it is suggested that the following information should be gathered: a baseline study of existing concentration, the effect of the pollutant on the metabolism of selected indigenous organisms, dilution and physical transport rates, transfer rates between the water, biota and sediments and the chemical and biological reactions and rates and, for degradable materials, the products of decomposition. These summary recommendations are preceded by an analysis of the problems of ocean pollution and a justification of the emphasis the study group placed on research programmes most urgently needed.