The cleanest sea in Russia is the Baltic (beaches of the Kaliningrad region), and the dirtiest are the Caspian and Azov, where it is generally dangerous to swim. Sanitary doctors of Rospotrebnadzor came to this conclusion after summing up the monitoring results for 2016.
Rospotrebnadzor summed up the results of monitoring the quality of coastal water in the seas used for recreation. In Russia, the coastal waters of the Black, Azov, Caspian and Baltic seas, as well as parts of the Sea of Japan washing the Primorsky Territory, are used for recreational purposes.
Sanitary doctors regularly take water samples to assess its sanitary-chemical and microbiological indicators (including the number of pathogens of intestinal infections).
A high proportion of “non-standard” samples indicates that sewage (untreated sewage) from neighboring cities, coastal industrial enterprises and recreation centers is being discharged into the seas. Sanitary doctors “reject” the samples taken based on parameters such as high content of phenols, petroleum products, synthetic surfactants (surfactants), iron, manganese, and chlorides. The samples contain E. coli, enterococci, worm eggs, and in isolated cases even salmonella and the hepatitis A virus.
Another cause of pollution, Rospotrebnadzor notes, is accidents at onshore facilities and sea vessels (including fuel spills during bunkering), as well as uncontrolled pumping of oil-containing water from ships. Spontaneous landfills are set up in coastal areas (including snow dumps after street cleaning).
As noted in the report of Rospotrebnadzor, the main threat to the seas is the rapid growth of cities: at the same time, water supply networks are built much faster than sewer networks (about 2-2.5 times), the capacity of sewage treatment plants is also significantly less than the volume of water consumption of cities.
At the same time, deep-water wastewater discharges have not been modernized for decades: suffice it to say that in the Gulf of Finland, technologies for deep removal of nutrients, as well as disinfection of wastewater with ultraviolet irradiation, began to be introduced only in 2007.
A separate discussion concerns the improvement of beaches. Beaches must meet the strict requirements of GOST “Hygienic requirements for recreational areas of water bodies”: have changing rooms, shade canopies, trash cans, sports and children's playgrounds, and parking for vehicles. In fact, Rospotrebnadzor states that not all have separate ramps for small vessels and jet skis; the boundaries of the swimming area are not fenced with buoys, and rescue towers are not installed or equipped.
The Caspian is being poisoned by oil workers and corrupt officials
The Caspian Sea is of greatest concern to sanitary doctors. For many years, among all Russian waters, the Caspian waters in the Makhachkala region remain the most polluted, where back in 2007 almost 100% of samples taken by sanitary doctors did not meet microbiological standards. Last year - only 31% (in Derbent - 8%, in Kaspiysk - 5%).
We have already talked about the deplorable state of the Caspian seaside: the entire coastline is uncontrollably built up with cottages, recreation centers, and sanatoriums. At the same time, the level of the Caspian Sea has been rising over the past three decades, as a result of which wastewater treatment plants in Derbent and Izberbash have already been disabled.
And nothing has changed! Rospotrebnadzor in its report for 2016 notes that the discharge of untreated wastewater (sewage and surface stormwater) into the Caspian Sea does not stop, the boundaries of sanitary protection zones have not been defined, and there is no approved regime and procedure for economic activity in these zones. Well, the heads of municipalities continue to uncontrollably distribute land for construction in the water protection zone.
Things are also bad with the Sea of Azov. For example, back in 2000 in the Temryuk region, 100% of samples taken by sanitary doctors were recognized as “non-standard”. Now the situation seems to have improved, but not much: last year Rospotrebnadzor “rejected” 16% of the samples taken in the Sea of Azov (and again Temryuk turned out to be the “champion”, while in Yeysk or Slavyansk-on-Kuban everything is fine) . It is worth recalling that in August 2016, the operation of the central beach in the village of Golubitskaya was suspended due to the terrible water quality of the Azov Sea.
Greater Sochi is “growing” with sewerage
In the Primorsky Territory, where people swim in the Sea of Japan, Rospotrebnadzor also noted a significant improvement in water quality in all respects. “Non-standard” samples, of course, exist, but there are fewer and fewer of them every year (the worst situation, of course, is near large cities - Vladivostok and Artyom).
At the same time, as noted in Rospotrebnadzor, only last year the collectors of two districts of Vladivostok - Leninsky and Pervomaisky - were connected to sewage treatment plants.
In the Leningrad region, it is not recommended to swim in many rivers, which are rejected by Rospotrebnadzor from year to year (Syas, Volkhov, Kobrinka and others), as well as in the waters of the Gulf of Finland (the village of Bolshaya Izhora and Fort Krasnaya Gorka) and the Vyborg Bay (Vyborg itself and Smolyanoy Cape).
As for the Black Sea, which is most popular among Russians, as noted in the Krasnodar department of Rospotrebnadzor, last year water quality indicators improved significantly - there were noticeably fewer “non-standard” samples (and there were none in the Anapa area). Less than 0.3% of samples taken do not meet hygienic standards (while in 2015 there were almost 5%).
The Krasnodar department of Rospotrebnadzor explains this by the fact that the situation was taken under personal control by the deputy plenipotentiary representative in the Southern Federal District Vladimir Gurba: discharges of wastewater after treatment from treatment facilities in the Greater Sochi area have been taken under strict control.
As a result, the share of “non-standard” seawater samples taken in Greater Sochi in 2016 was only 0.1% compared to 11% two years earlier.
On the Crimean seaside the situation is even better, state sanitary doctors: only 2% of the samples taken were “rejected”, including on several beaches of Yalta, Kerch, Sevastopol, Alushta, as well as the village of Nikolaevka. But neither tourists nor local residents believe such data.
“It’s dangerous to swim in Gelendzhik Bay”
Dmitry Shevchenko, deputy coordinator of the public organization “Ecological Watch in the North Caucasus,” has very strong doubts about the data provided by Rospotrebnadzor. In a conversation with Free Press, he noted that it is incorrect to estimate the “gross” indicators of the number of sea water samples taken by sanitary doctors - it is necessary to take into account how far from the coast they were taken, at what depth, at what time of day and year.
— Today, the biggest problem for the coastal waters of the Black Sea is, undoubtedly, municipal pollution. Industrial pollution from various industrial enterprises is more local in nature; it is most pronounced, in particular, in the area of the ports of Novorossiysk and Taman.
While municipal pollution is more widespread and is associated with the discharge of untreated waste into the sea. In the Greater Sochi area, even after the Olympics, during which centralized treatment facilities were modernized, this problem remained relevant.
Many Sochi areas with private buildings even today do not have a centralized sewerage system. People solve this issue as best they can: they buy septic tanks, stack them and build local treatment facilities. But many still discharge raw sewage directly into the sea or into storm drains, which in turn also go to the sea.
“SP”: — Rospotrebnadzor notes in its report that last year the modernization of sewer networks in Greater Sochi continued, which was taken under control at the embassy.
— Modernization is underway, but at an insufficient pace. Most of the deep-sea outlets in the water area were built back in the sixties and seventies of the last century, and are now outdated both physically and morally. And even the engineering condition of the facilities has raised many questions in recent years. Suffice it to remember that in December last year, a huge plastic pipe surfaced off the coast like a whale - part of the deep-water outlet of the Adler sewage treatment plant, built before the Olympics.
“SP”: — So you wouldn’t recommend swimming in the Black Sea?
- I won’t be so categorical. There are areas where the water actually meets all standards. But there are also extremely polluted areas: for example, in Gelendzhik or Anapa bays, in my opinion, going into the water is dangerous to health. The water area near Anapa is shallow, the water is strongly heated by the sun, which allows microorganisms from wastewater entering the sea to multiply more quickly.
Now all the water there is “blooming” due to algae - this is an indicator of the degree of pollution with organic waste. Due to the abundant proliferation of algae that consume oxygen, the water is deprived of its other inhabitants - fish, mollusks, and crustaceans go to other places. That is, ultimately, this leads to an environmental disaster.
The greatest danger in terms of seawater pollution is industrial waste. But is it only industry that harms the cleanliness of the seas?
The dirtiest seas in Russia
Unfortunately, it is difficult to find a clean sea coast in our country. Human activity does not affect the ecological situation in the best way, and it is the waters of rivers and seas that suffer from this in the first place. Numerous factories located on the banks of rivers discharge waste into water, which subsequently ends up in the sea. Seawater is also often used to dump oil waste from tankers.The Azov, Caspian and Black seas are considered the most polluted seas in our country. According to satellite monitoring data, numerous oil spills were discovered on them. On the shores of the Caspian Sea, carcasses of seals that died near an oil field are periodically found. The Volga River, which brings the bulk of water to the Caspian Sea, is also noted by environmentalists as one of the dirtiest rivers.
The Sea of Azov does not shine with cleanliness for the same reasons. Extensive film contamination, reaching 17.7 square meters. kilometers were also found on its surface. The situation is further aggravated by the relatively shallow depth of this sea. Due to the fact that the coastal zone is characterized by its shallow waters, epidemics of intestinal diseases can occur at the height of the tourist season.
Natural pollution is also common in the Sea of Azov. So, in 2008, just 150 meters from the coast, hundreds of vacationers could observe a rather interesting phenomenon - the eruption of a mud volcano. The eruption lasted for several days and was so strong that a small mud island formed near the shore. Swimming these days, and even more so, approaching the new island, was strictly prohibited.
How dirty is the Black Sea?
The favorite vacation spot of Russians, the Black Sea, is worth talking about separately. Since the times of the USSR, spending a vacation on the Black Sea coast has been the dream of many of our compatriots. Sochi, Anapa, Tuapse, Loo and many other coastal cities still happily welcome thousands of vacationers. 
But is it worth the risk and going on vacation to the shores of the dirtiest sea? According to researchers from the ScanEx company, which conducted research commissioned by the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, the pollution of the Black Sea is simply off the charts. The main source of pollution is maritime shipping, especially on the borders of Russia, Ukraine and Turkey. In addition, the rate of water exchange, and, accordingly, self-purification of the Black Sea is very low. And at the bottom of the Black Sea there is a huge accumulation of hydrogen sulfide, which periodically rises to the surface.
The popularity of the Black Sea resorts also affects the general situation in these places. And there are often cases when sewage from small hotels and the private sector leads directly into the sea. Therefore, getting sick with some kind of intestinal infection on the Black Sea is considered almost the norm.
In many cities, especially in Sochi, there is a busy construction of new hotels for numerous tourists. But the situation is not far off when it will be possible to go to Sochi not for a beach holiday, but simply to look at the beautiful city. Already, according to reviews from those who have visited this city, swimming on city beaches is dangerous to health.
Why is the sea dirty in Pattaya?
Of course, one should not assume that dirty seas are found only in Russia. Recently, holidays in Thailand, in particular in Pattaya, have become very common among our compatriots. Undoubtedly, Thailand is a very interesting country, and a trip there will be remembered for a long time. Whether these impressions will remain good depends only on you. 
You should know that the sea in Pattaya is considered quite dirty. During stormy and rainy seasons, sea water looks very cloudy due to grains of sand raised by the waves. But this is not what frightens tourists, but the fact that all the marine debris that was previously carried away by the water washes up on the shore. Plastic bottles, cigarette packs, algae, all this makes swimming and just being on the beach very unpleasant. Therefore, those who like to relax in these places are advised to visit the beaches of nearby islands.
And if you still decide to stay in Pattaya, then you should carefully observe the rules of hygiene. After all, local residents do not particularly care about the cleanliness of the coastal area, and food and sewage waste here can end up in sea water. Be sure to shower after swimming and try to drink only bottled water.
The dirtiest sea in the world
Well, the Mediterranean is considered the dirtiest sea in the world. About 400 thousand tons of industrial waste and hazardous petroleum products are discharged into its waters annually. And man himself does a lot of harm to the purity of this sea. Just imagine - on every kilometer of the seabed there are about 2000 items related to waste from our activities.Harmful substances that are released from garbage over time tend to enter the water and accumulate in the fish that we consume. For example, tuna and swordfish may contain mercury, which is dangerous to humans. Therefore, environmentalists do not recommend consuming large quantities of seafood from the Mediterranean Sea.
The Baltic Gulf of Finland is also considered one of the most problematic places in terms of pollution. It is surrounded on all sides by European countries with well-developed industries, and waste effluents ultimately end up here. Baltic fish has been found to contain excess mercury, and its consumption is also unsafe for humans.
As you can see, a trip to the sea may not always have a beneficial effect on your body. Carefully study all the information you can find about your proposed vacation spot, and let your vacation leave only pleasant memories!
Fortunately, there is a rating not only of dirty seas. The website has a detailed article about the warmest seas in the world.
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“In Anapa, traditionally, the water will be clean until mid-July, then algae will bloom: where there is sand and shallow, the vegetation begins to rot, where there is a high shore and a pebble beach, the sea will remain clean,” executive director of the Union of Krasnodar Regional Housing Self-Government Corporation told AiF.ru Irina Stashevskaya. — In Gelendzhik Bay (since it is quite closed), during the influx of vacationers (July-August), the water can be dirty. On other beaches of the Krasnodar Territory, where the open sea is, the water is cleaner. Local services of Rospotrebnadzor take water samples everywhere for E. coli.”
“Last year in Anapa, the sewer pipes leading to the discharge of treated wastewater into the sea were extended by another 200 meters,” says Irina Stashevskaya. — According to local residents, the most unfavorable situation with sewerage remains in Gelendzhik. Today we must not forget about the risk of flooding of street toilets and cesspools due to heavy rains.”
The main problem is that in resort villages, not all private households and private mini-hotels are connected to the central sewerage system. Until the season has started, and 2-3 people live in the house, there is enough cesspool. When every free corner is occupied by crowds of vacationers, the “system” cannot cope. As a result, the contents of the toilets flow into the ground and then end up in nearby rivers.
Water will be turned off for violators
To combat violators, interdepartmental commissions have been created in the region, with the participation of representatives of Rospotrebnadzor, Rosprirodnadzor, operating organizations, local governments and others. Inspectors go door to door and find out whether they are connected to a central sewer system or have their own mini-treatment systems. Violators who do not correct themselves within the prescribed period and ignore warnings face the risk of having their water supply turned off.
This is what AiF.ru was told by the Ministry of Fuel and Energy Complex and Housing and Public Utilities of the Krasnodar Territory: “In total, more than 110 thousand addresses were examined across the region, waste water discharge onto the terrain was detected at 8.6 thousand objects (in the city of Sochi 5600), including illegal tappings into storm sewers (1694 units). Based on the results of the inspections, 7.5 thousand protocols were drawn up and more than 18 thousand orders were issued (including 8625 in Sochi). Until the identified violations are eliminated, water supply restrictions have been introduced for 14.5 thousand subscribers. More than 14.8 thousand notifications were issued to citizens about the need to obtain technical conditions for wastewater disposal, for which 9,850 applications were submitted and more than 8,000 technical specifications were issued. conditions for connecting houses to public sewerage networks (including 5,626 objects in Sochi). As part of the work carried out over the past two years, 4,270 subscribers have been connected to the centralized sewerage system, of which 3,172 subscribers are in Sochi.”
It follows that thousands more homes and private hotels will continue to dump untreated waste onto the ground this year.
But to correct the situation in Gelendzhik, according to the Kuban authorities, 6 billion rubles are needed. This is the cost of the project for the construction of modern treatment facilities and sewerage. In general, to improve the environment on the Azov-Black Sea coast and modernize sewerage in the territories of Anapa, Gelendzhik, Sochi, Yeisk, Novorossiysk, Tuapse, Primorsko-Aktarsky and Temryuk regions, 19 billion rubles are required.
The best Crimean resort is Yalta?
Last year Head of the NP Housing and Public Utilities Control in Crimea Anatoly Petrov honestly admitted to AiF.ru that he does not risk swimming in the Black Sea. What is the situation this season?
“During the winter, some measures were completed,” said Anatoly Petrov. — In the villages of Malorechenskoye, Rybachye and others to the left of Alushta, treatment facilities were installed, the situation there is improving. In the Yalta region you can swim anywhere without fear. Personally, as a Crimean, I love Tarkhankut - there are very clean beaches and water. In Koktebel the problem has not yet been completely resolved. Of course, we are still far from ideal. But there are work plans for the construction of modern treatment facilities - this Federal target program is designed for three years.”
By the way, Russia has been waiting for toilets and sewerage for almost a century. More Sergey Yesenin in 1929 he wrote: “... because I want to go to the restroom, but there are no restrooms in Russia.” So waiting a couple of years is not a problem at all!
So, until sewerage is built everywhere in the country (and not just in large cities), and people learn to visit specially designated places when needed (it’s no secret that even if there are toilets nearby, many people prefer to do this in nature), it’s worth remembering some rules:
- do not swim in estuaries (where the river flows into the sea)
- do not swim if you see that there is a pipe nearby from which something is flowing into the sea
- try to swallow as little water as possible while swimming near the shore. And if you want to take a sip of sea water for medicinal purposes (sometimes doctors recommend rinsing the nasopharynx with sea water), then blow away from the shore.
“The Black Sea is the most polluted of all the seas in the world” (Excerpt from the decisions of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro).
Recently we once again celebrated Black Sea Day. As always, modestly. Once again, Odessa scientists and the environmental community tried to attract the attention of the powers that be and ordinary people to the problem of improving the health of the Black Sea. It, like a person, can get sick. Whether he will recover depends on how we treat him.
I would venture to suggest that the words in the title of the material will not come true, and the Black Sea will remain alive. What am I risking by disproving my own prophecy? Seem inconsistent? Nonsense! Or maybe there are few facts about the slow dying of the once “bluest sea in the world” and I’m deliberately escalating the situation? I wouldn't say so. I have before me the data of six serious expeditions, the opinions of hundreds of experts. The sea is truly dying. I agree to be called a liar, but only if the sea remains alive. If only for the sake of saving the 3,774 species of living organisms living in it. Bye.
Will the Black Sea dry up?
The length of the Black Sea coastline is 4340 kilometers. If you distribute it among the countries of the Black Sea basin, you get the following picture: Bulgaria owns 300 km, Georgia - 310, Russia - 475, Romania -225, Turkey - 1400 and Ukraine - 1628 kilometers. To paraphrase the ancient Greeks, the Black Sea can rightfully be called not the Euxine Pontus, but the Ukrainian Pontus. Unfortunately, most of the troubles threaten him from the Ukrainian shore.
In general, our sea has a very difficult fate. Over the past 50 - 60 million years, it has become part of the World Ocean and has repeatedly become an enclosed sea-lake, sometimes with fresh or salt water. The last time and, hopefully, forever, the Black Sea was connected through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits with the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean several tens of thousands of years ago. This connection is quite fragile: the Bosphorus, for example, is a narrow (from 35 to 0.7 km) and short (31 km long) channel with a depth of only 50 meters. The rather fragile connection with the Mediterranean makes the Black Sea highly dependent on human activity. Its water balance is somewhat deficient. According to American scientists Shimkus and Trimonis, the influx of water into the sea is 694 cubic kilometers per year, and the source is 704 cubic kilometers.
Now let's take into account human intervention - numerous dams on rivers and the use of water for irrigation. Let us remember the grandiose plans for the diversion of Danube waters to lakes Yalplug, Sasyk and others in the 60s and 70s. If they were fully implemented, the ecological balance and water balance would change greatly. The fate of the Aral Sea, of course, would not threaten the Black Sea as long as there is a connection through the Bosphorus with the Mediterranean Sea, but it would become significantly shallower, and most importantly, the salinity of the water would change and many species of fish and living organisms would die.
Why is the Black Sea the dirtiest in the world?
The Black Sea requires special environmental treatment for three main reasons: an extensive river catchment area (almost 1/3 of the entire drainage of Europe), limited water exchange with neighboring seas and a very slow vertical exchange of water masses.
Until recently, the main source of pollution of the Black Sea was considered to be the discharge of untreated or insufficiently treated industrial wastewater. Yes, in the 50s, the Danube, Dnieper and Dniester together contributed about 14 thousand tons of phosphates, 154,000 tons of nitrates and more than two million tons of organic substances per year. In the 1980s, the amount of phosphates quadrupled, nitrates doubled, and organic matter began to flow almost five times more.
Many will say that now the industry is almost non-functional. But as a result of ill-conceived economic activity, the sea has already suffered damage that is not so easy to repair. When organic substances oxidize, oxygen disappears from water. In addition, industrial wastewater feeds unicellular algae - phytoplankton, the biomass of which increased 18 times in the 70s compared to the 60s. Since living organisms that feed on phytoplankton did not have time to “eat” it, it covered the coastal surface of the sea - the so-called water bloom occurred. This blocked the access of sunlight to the algae growing on the coastal bottom, and they stopped releasing oxygen. The general depletion of oxygen has led to the disappearance of crustaceans, shrimp, and fish in the coastal zone.
A typical example is the Zernov phyllophoric field. In the 50s, the bottom algae Phyllophora occupied an area of about 11,000 square kilometers, and its total biomass was 10 million tons. By the mid-80s. The area of Zernov's field was reduced to 500 square kilometers, and its biomass to 200,000 tons. This caused irreparable damage to the ecosystem, since more than a hundred species of fish and invertebrate animals were grouped around the phyllophora. (During its “heyday”, Zernov’s field produced about 2 million cubic meters of oxygen daily).
It would seem that with the industrial decline there should have been a reduction in the harmful load on the sea. Not so. Nothing in the Soviet and post-Soviet economy disappears without a trace. Now the problem of untreated and undisinfected domestic and storm drains has come to the forefront. In this regard, Odessa took upon itself the sad laurels of a kind of leader. First, the imperfect operation of the “Yuzhnaya” treatment plants in Tairovsky and “Severnaya” in the Kotovsky massif, then untreated storm drains collecting all the street dirt, “raced” to worsen the already difficult environmental situation.
This became especially noticeable as these arrays grew. We know what this led to. For most of the summer season, the beaches are closed due to sanitary standards of sea water. The content of bacterial cells exceeds the norm by hundreds of thousands of times. The breakwaters built along the coastline to prevent landslides disrupted natural water exchange, and beach swimming areas practically turned into sewers, where not only swimming, but simply being on the shore is dangerous due to the contamination of sand with bacteria.
They disrupt the ecology of the sea and other types of human activities:
the construction of numerous ports on coastal estuaries with clearing and dredging of the bottom destroys the natural underwater landscape and habitats of living organisms; washing away of herbicides and pesticides from fields into rivers (especially in Moldova), and then into the sea; sea pollution by ballast water from passing ships and oil products; uncontrolled harvesting of “seafood”; clogging it with food waste from beachgoers. The list of environmental violations goes on and on. But this is enough to understand that the sea is in danger.
Who will save the Black Sea?
In 1946 - 1947 Dr. K. Z. Khait and in 1950 G. I. Shpilberg carried out a thorough sanitary and bacteriological examination of the sea coastal water and sand of the beaches of Odessa in the summer months. The results they published became the starting point for all subsequent measurements. Khait and Shpilberg found from 10 to 200 E. coli cells in one liter of sea water. In 1970, Professor D.M. Babov found about 90,000 individuals of this species there. In the late 80s, the number of E. coli cells in one liter of water rose to 250,000, and the maximum number on one of the most popular beaches of Odessa, Arcadia, reached 2 million four hundred thousand cells in one liter of sea water. If Odessa residents and visitors to the city knew then, it would be easier to swim in a sewer pipe!
Now that information about the condition of Odessa beaches has become public knowledge, the influx of tourists to Odessa has decreased significantly. Naturally, the city treasury was also empty. Where to get money to save the Black Sea and what needs to be done first.
The first steps to improve the health of Odessa beaches should be the dismantling of the famous breakwaters and the creation of artificial reefs instead - this will significantly improve the health of the coastal zone.
The second stage would be the introduction of a system for disinfecting wastewater from the Odessa biological treatment stations “Yuzhnaya” and “Severnaya”. It is known that they need modernization, since they do not kill bacteria. There are several methods for this - the use of ultraviolet rays, electrical discharges or ozonation. The cost of the work is estimated at several million dollars. Not only Odessa, but also Ukraine, perhaps, cannot cope with such costs. Although, if we involve the public, businessmen, bankers, and directors of enterprises, the situation can be improved.
The Black Sea Environmental Program, which was adopted in 1993-1996 by all countries of the Black Sea basin, is called upon to coordinate joint efforts to save the sea.
There is, of course, a problem related to the watershed from countries outside the Black Sea region. Coordination is more difficult here. In this case, assistance should be provided by the United Nations Global Environment Facility, which has declared the Black Sea a “hot spot” on the map of the World Ocean. The international organization Euroregion, which includes the Odessa region as a full member, also did not say the last word.
Alarming signals from doctors, biologists, and chemists about the unsatisfactory state of sea water are heard more and more often, but the authorities do not pay attention to them. The accumulation of sand on Odessa beaches indicates precisely this. From the point of view of hydrogeology, the operation seemed to be carried out correctly, but the biological factor was not taken into account: all living beings died in the entire space between the shore and the breakwaters. One of the most authoritative Odessa ecologists, Doctor of Geographical Sciences Valery Mikhailov, recently stated that now not only swimming, but also walking along the sea is harmful. Will the moment really come when we will only show our children and grandchildren the sea from afar?
Which sea is the dirtiest?
Ecologists cannot yet give a definite answer to this question. There are different types of pollution; the same sea can be clean on one coast and heavily polluted on another. So far, the dubious reputation of the dirtiest seas is shared by three water surfaces - the Mediterranean Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Black Sea.
Mediterranean waters
Mediterranean Sea is the dirtiest in the world, according to the international organization Greenpeace, which conducted monitoring together with the Spanish Institute for Ocean Research. The waters of the Mediterranean Sea are especially polluted in the area of large ports of developed countries, such as France, Italy, and Spain. Every year, about 400 thousand tons of hazardous oil products and industrial waste are accidentally or intentionally discharged into the sea. And for every square km of the seabed, about 2,000 objects fall that are waste from human activity.
Moreover, plastic waste entering the Mediterranean Sea mainly from the coast poses a particular danger to flora and fauna. Some types of fish, especially tuna and swordfish, accumulate mercury, which is very dangerous for humans, so you should not eat Mediterranean seafood in large quantities.
The Gulf of Finland
Another problematic area of the sea in terms of pollution is the Gulf of Finland Baltic. Most of the harmful pollution comes from spilled petroleum products. In addition, the Baltic Sea itself is very dirty, its geographical location is to blame for this; the sea is surrounded on all sides by industrialized countries: Sweden, Norway, the Baltic countries. Baltic fish is also not very safe; it contains excessive mercury. The Baltic Sea is also polluted by industrial waste.
Troubled Black Sea
Black Sea is also present on this list of environmentally unfavorable reservoirs. Rivers from all over Europe flow into it, carrying all the waste of human activity. The Black Sea is polluted with oil products, especially affected by the Kerch accident in 2007.
The sea has an unfavorable ratio of surface area to water intake area, approximately 1:6, which has a bad effect on the rate of water exchange, and, accordingly, on the ability to self-purify. The situation is worsened by hydrogen sulfide, which lies in layers on the bottom of the Black Sea and periodically rises to the surface due to high summer temperatures.