1. Features of the behavior of pollutants in the ocean
2. Anthropogenic ecology of the ocean - a new scientific direction in oceanology
3. The concept of assimilative capacity
4. Conclusions from the assessment of the assimilation capacity of the marine ecosystem for pollutants using the example of the Baltic Sea
1 Features of the behavior of pollutants in the ocean. Recent decades have been marked by increased anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems as a result of pollution of the seas and oceans. The distribution of many pollutants has become local, regional and even global. Therefore, pollution of the seas, oceans and their biota has become a major international problem, and the need to protect the marine environment from pollution is dictated by the requirements of rational use of natural resources.
Marine pollution is defined as: “the introduction by humans, directly or indirectly, of substances or energy into the marine environment (including estuaries), causing harmful consequences such as damage to living resources, danger to human health, interference with marine activities, including fishing, deterioration of sea water quality and reduction of its beneficial properties." This list includes substances with toxic properties, heated water discharges (thermal pollution), microbial pathogens, solid waste, suspended solids, nutrients, and several other forms of anthropogenic impacts.
The most pressing problem in our time has become the problem of chemical pollution of the ocean.
Sources of ocean and sea pollution include the following:
Discharge of industrial and household waters directly into the sea or with river flow;
Receipt from land of various substances used in agriculture and forestry;
Deliberate disposal of pollutants at sea; leakage of various substances during ship operations;
Accidental releases from ships or subsea pipelines;
Seabed mining;
Transport of pollutants through the atmosphere.
The list of pollutants produced by the ocean is extremely extensive. They all differ in the degree of toxicity and scale of distribution - from coastal (local) to global.
More and more new pollutants are being found in the World Ocean. The most dangerous organochlorine compounds, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and some others are becoming widespread globally. They have a high bioaccumulative ability, a sharp toxic and carcinogenic effect.
The steady increase in the total impact of many sources of pollution leads to progressive eutrophication of coastal marine zones and microbiological pollution of water, which significantly complicates the use of water for various human needs.
Oil and petroleum products. Petroleum is a viscous oily liquid, usually dark brown in color and weakly fluorescent. Oil consists predominantly of saturated aliphatic and hydroaromatic hydrocarbons (from C 5 to C 70) and contain 80-85% C, 10-14% H, 0.01-7% S, 0.01% N and 0-7% O 2.
The main components of oil - hydrocarbons (up to 98%) - are divided into four classes.
1. Paraffins (alkanes) (up to 90% of the total composition of oil) are stable saturated compounds C n H 2n-2, the molecules of which are expressed by a straight or branched (isoalkanes) chain of carbon atoms. Paraffins include the gases methane, ethane, propane and others; compounds with 5-17 carbon atoms are liquids, and those with a large number of carbon atoms are solids. Light paraffins have maximum volatility and solubility in water.
2. Cycloparaffins. (naphthenes) are saturated cyclic compounds C n H 2 n with 5-6 carbon atoms in the ring (30-60% of the total composition of oil). In addition to cyclopentane and cyclohexane, bicyclic and polycyclic naphthenes are found in oil. These compounds are very stable and poorly biodegradable.
3. Aromatic hydrocarbons (20-40% of the total composition of oil) - unsaturated cyclic compounds of the benzene series, containing 6 less carbon atoms in the ring than the corresponding naphthenes. The carbon atoms in these compounds can also be replaced by alkyl groups. Oil contains volatile compounds with a molecule in the form of a single ring (benzene, toluene, xylene), then bicyclic (naphthalene), tricyclic (anthracene, phenanthrene) and polycyclic (for example, pyrene with 4 rings) hydrocarbons.
4. Olefips (alkenes) (up to 10% of the total composition of oil) - unsaturated non-cyclic compounds with one or two hydrogen atoms at each carbon atom in a molecule having a straight or branched chain.
Depending on the field, oils vary significantly in their composition. Thus, Pennsylvania and Kuwait oils are classified as paraffinic, Baku and California are predominantly naphthenic, and the remaining oils are of intermediate types.
Oil also contains sulfur-containing compounds (up to 7% sulfur), fatty acids (up to 5% oxygen), nitrogen compounds (up to 1% nitrogen) and some organometallic derivatives (with vanadium, cobalt and nickel).
Quantitative analysis and identification of petroleum products in the marine environment pose significant difficulties not only because of their multicomponent nature and different forms of existence, but also due to the natural background of hydrocarbons of natural and biogenic origin. For example, about 90% of low molecular weight hydrocarbons such as ethylene dissolved in the surface waters of the ocean are associated with the metabolic activity of organisms and the breakdown of their residues. However, in areas of intense pollution, the level of such hydrocarbons increases by 4-5 orders of magnitude.
Hydrocarbons of biogenic and petroleum origin, according to experimental studies, have a number of differences.
1. Petroleum is a more complex mixture of hydrocarbons with a wide range of structures and relative molecular weights.
2. Oil contains several homologous series in which neighboring members usually have equal concentrations. For example, in the series of alkanes C 12 -C 22 the ratio of even and odd members is equal to unity, while biogenic hydrocarbons in the same series contain predominantly odd members.
3. Petroleum contains a wider range of cycloalkanes and aromatic hydrocarbons. Many compounds, such as mono-, di-, tri- and tetramethylbenzenes, are not found in marine organisms.
4. Oil contains numerous naphthenic-aromatic hydrocarbons, various heterocompounds (containing sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen, metal ions), heavy asphalt-like substances - all of them are practically absent in organisms.
Oil and petroleum products are the most common pollutants in the World Ocean.
The routes of entry and forms of existence of petroleum hydrocarbons are diverse (dissolved, emulsified, film, solid). M. P. Nesterova (1984) notes the following admission routes:
discharges in ports and port waters, including losses when loading tanker tankers (17%~);
Discharge of industrial waste and wastewater (10%);
Stormwater (5%);
Disasters of ships and drilling rigs at sea (6%);
Offshore drilling (1%);
Atmospheric fallout (10%)",
Removal by river runoff in all its diversity of forms (28%).
Discharges of washing, ballast and bilge waters into the sea from ships (23%);
The greatest oil losses are associated with its transportation from production areas. Emergencies such as tankers discharging washing and ballast water overboard - all this causes the presence of permanent fields of pollution along sea routes.
A property of oils is their fluorescence under ultraviolet irradiation. The maximum fluorescence intensity is observed in the wavelength range 440-483 nm.
The difference in the optical characteristics of oil films and sea water allows for remote detection and assessment of oil pollution on the sea surface in the ultraviolet, visible and infrared parts of the spectrum. Passive and active methods are used for this. Large masses of oil from land enter the seas through rivers, with domestic and storm drains.
The fate of oil spilled at sea is determined by the sum of the following processes: evaporation, emulsification, dissolution, oxidation, formation of oil aggregates, sedimentation and biodegradation.
When oil enters the marine environment, it first spreads as a surface film, forming slicks of varying thickness. By the color of the film you can approximately estimate its thickness. The oil film changes the intensity and spectral composition of light penetrating into the water mass. The light transmittance of thin films of crude oil is 1-10% (280 nm), 60-70% (400 nm). An oil film 30-40 microns thick completely absorbs infrared radiation.
During the first period of existence of oil slicks, the process of evaporation of hydrocarbons is of great importance. According to observational data, up to 25% of light oil fractions evaporate in 12 hours; at a water temperature of 15 °C, all hydrocarbons up to C 15 evaporate in 10 days (Nesterova, Nemirovskaya, 1985).
All hydrocarbons have low solubility in water, which decreases with increasing number of carbon atoms in the molecule. About 10 mg of compounds with C6, 1 mg of compounds with C8 and 0.01 mg of compounds with C12 are dissolved in 1 liter of distilled water. For example, at average seawater temperature, the solubility of benzene is 820 µg/l, toluene - 470, pentane - 360, hexane - 138 and heptane - 52 µg/l. Soluble components, the content of which in crude oil does not exceed 0.01%, are the most toxic to aquatic organisms. These also include substances such as benzo(a)pyrene.
When mixed with water, oil forms two types of emulsions: direct “oil in water” and reverse “water in oil”. Direct emulsions, composed of oil droplets with a diameter of up to 0.5 microns, are less stable and are especially characteristic of oils containing surfactants. After removing volatile and soluble fractions, residual oil often forms viscous inverse emulsions, which are stabilized by high-molecular compounds such as resins and asphaltenes and contain 50-80% water (“chocolate mousse”). Under the influence of abiotic processes, the viscosity of the “mousse” increases and it begins to stick together into aggregates - oil lumps ranging in size from 1 mm to 10 cm (usually 1-20 mm). The aggregates are a mixture of high molecular weight hydrocarbons, resins and asphaltenes. Oil losses for the formation of aggregates amount to 5-10%. Highly viscous structured formations - “chocolate mousse” and oil lumps - can remain on the sea surface for a long time, be transported by currents, washed ashore and settle to the bottom. Oil lumps are often colonized by periphyton (blue-green algae and diatoms, barnacles and other invertebrates).
Pesticides constitute a large group of artificially created substances used to combat pests and plant diseases. Depending on their intended purpose, pesticides are divided into the following groups: insecticides - to combat harmful insects, fungicides and bactericides - to combat fungal and bacterial plant diseases, herbicides - against weeds, etc. According to economists’ calculations, every ruble spent for chemical protection of plants from pests and diseases, ensures the preservation of the harvest and its quality when cultivating grain and vegetable crops for an average of 10 rubles, technical and fruit crops - up to 30 rubles. At the same time, environmental studies have established that pesticides, while destroying crop pests, cause enormous harm to many beneficial organisms and undermine the health of natural biocenoses. In agriculture, there has long been a problem of transition from chemical (polluting) to biological (environmentally friendly) methods of pest control.
Currently, more than 5 million tons of pesticides enter the world market annually. About 1.5 million tons of these substances have already become part of terrestrial and marine ecosystems by aeolian or waterborne means. Industrial production of pesticides is accompanied by the emergence of a large number of by-products that pollute wastewater.
Representatives of insecticides, fungicides and herbicides are most often found in the aquatic environment.
Synthesized insecticides are divided into three main groups: organochlorine, organophosphorus and carbamates.
Organochlorine insecticides are produced by chlorination of aromatic or heterocyclic liquid hydrocarbons. These include DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) and its derivatives, in whose molecules the stability of aliphatic and aromatic groups in the joint presence increases, all kinds of chlorinated cyclodiene derivatives (eldrin, dil-drin, heptachlor, etc.), as well as numerous isomers of hexachlorocyclohexane (y -HCH), of which lindane is the most dangerous. These substances have a half-life of up to several decades and are very resistant to biodegradation.
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), derivatives of DDT without an aliphatic part, containing 210 theoretical homologues and isomers, are often found in the aquatic environment.
Over the past 40 years, more than 1.2 million tons of PCBs have been used in the production of plastics, dyes, transformers, capacitors, etc. Polychlorinated biphenyls enter the environment as a result of industrial wastewater discharges and the combustion of solid waste in landfills. The latter source supplies PCBs into the atmosphere, from where they fall with precipitation in all regions of the globe. Thus, in snow samples taken in Antarctica, the PCB content was 0.03 - 1.2 ng/l.
Organophosphate pesticides are esters of various alcohols of orthophosphoric acid or one of its derivatives, thiophosphoric acid. This group includes modern insecticides with characteristic selectivity of action towards insects. Most organophosphates are subject to fairly rapid (within a month) biochemical decomposition in soil and water. More than 50 thousand active substances have been synthesized, of which parathion, malathion, fosalong, and dursban are especially famous.
Carbamates are, as a rule, esters of n-metacarbamic acid. Most of them also have selectivity of action.
Copper salts and some mineral sulfur compounds were previously used as fungicides used to combat fungal diseases of plants. Then organomercury substances such as chlorinated methylmercury found widespread use, which, due to its extreme toxicity to animals, was replaced by methoxyethyl mercury and phenylmercury acetates.
The group of herbicides includes derivatives of phenoxyacetic acid, which have a strong physiological effect. Triazines (for example, simazine) and substituted ureas (monuron, diuron, pichloram) constitute another group of herbicides that are quite soluble in water and stable in soils. The most powerful of all herbicides is pichloram. To completely destroy some plant species, only 0.06 kg of this substance per 1 hectare is required.
DDT and its metabolites, PCBs, HCH, deldrin, tetrachlorophenol and others are constantly found in the marine environment.
Synthetic surfactants. Detergents (surfactants) belong to a large group of substances that reduce the surface tension of water. They are part of synthetic detergents (CMC), widely used in everyday life and industry. Together with wastewater, surfactants enter continental surface waters and the marine environment. Synthetic detergents contain sodium polyphosphates in which detergents are dissolved, as well as a number of additional ingredients that are toxic to aquatic organisms: fragrances, bleaching agents (persulfates, perborates), soda ash, carboxymethylcellulose, sodium silicates and others.
The molecules of all surfactants consist of hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts. The hydrophilic part is the carboxyl (COO -), sulfate (OSO 3 -) and sulfonate (SO 3 -) groups, as well as accumulations of residues with groups -CH 2 -CH 2 -O-CH 2 -CH 2 - or groups containing nitrogen and phosphorus. The hydrophobic part usually consists of a straight, containing 10-18 carbon atoms, or a branched paraffin chain, from a benzene or naphthalene ring with alkyl radicals.
Depending on the nature and structure of the hydrophilic part of the surfactant molecule, they are divided into anionic (organic ion is negatively charged), cationic (organic ion is positively charged), amphoteric (displaying cationic properties in an acidic solution, and anionic in an alkaline solution) and nonionic. The latter do not form ions in water. Their solubility is due to functional groups that have a strong affinity for water and the formation of hydrogen bonds between water molecules and oxygen atoms included in the polyethylene glycol radical of the surfactant.
The most common surfactants are anionic substances. They account for more than 50% of all surfactants produced in the world. The most common are alkylaryl sulfonates (sulfonols) and alkyl sulfates. Sulfonol molecules contain an aromatic ring, the hydrogen atoms of which are replaced by one or more alkyl groups, and a sulfuric acid residue as a solvating group. Numerous alkylbenzene sulfonates and alkyl naphthalene sulfonates are often used in the manufacture of various household and industrial CMCs.
The presence of surfactants in industrial wastewater is associated with their use in processes such as flotation concentration of ores, separation of chemical technology products, production of polymers, improving conditions for drilling oil and gas wells, and combating equipment corrosion.
In agriculture, surfactants are used as part of pesticides. With the help of surfactants, liquid and powdered toxic substances that are insoluble in water, but soluble in organic solvents, are emulsified, and many surfactants themselves have insecticidal and herbicidal properties.
Carcinogens- these are chemically homogeneous compounds that exhibit transforming activity and can cause carcinogenic, teratogenic (disruption of embryonic development processes) or mutagenic changes in organisms. Depending on the conditions of exposure, they can lead to growth inhibition, accelerated aging, toxicogenesis, disruption of individual development and changes in the gene pool of organisms. Substances with carcinogenic properties include chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons with a short sliver of carbon atoms in the molecule, vinyl chloride, pesticides and, especially, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The latter are high-molecular organic compounds in the molecules of which the benzene ring is the main structural element. Numerous unsubstituted PAHs contain from 3 to 7 benzene rings in the molecule, variously connected to each other. There are also a large number of polycyclic structures containing a functional group either on the benzene ring or on the side chain. These are halogen-, amino-, sulfo-, nitro derivatives, as well as alcohols, aldehydes, ethers, ketones, acids, quinones and other aromatic compounds.
The solubility of PAHs in water is low and decreases with increasing molecular weight: from 16,100 μg/L (acenaphthylene) to 0.11 μg/L (3,4-benzpyrene). The presence of salts in water has virtually no effect on the solubility of PAHs. However, in the presence of benzene, oil, petroleum products, detergents and other organic substances, the solubility of PAHs increases sharply. Of the group of unsubstituted PAHs in natural conditions, 3,4-benzpyrene (BP) is the most known and widespread.
Sources of PAHs in the environment can be natural and anthropogenic processes. The concentration of BP in volcanic ash is 0.3-0.9 μg/kg. This means that 1.2-24 tons of BP per year can be released into the environment with ash. Therefore, the maximum amount of PAHs in modern bottom sediments of the World Ocean (more than 100 μg/kg of dry matter mass) was found in tectonically active zones subject to deep thermal effects.
Some marine plants and animals are reported to be able to synthesize PAHs. In algae and sea grasses near the western coast of Central America, the BP content reaches 0.44 μg/g, and in some crustaceans in the Arctic - 0.23 μg/g. Anaerobic bacteria produce up to 8.0 μg of BP from 1 g of plankton lipid extracts. On the other hand, there are special types of marine and soil bacteria that decompose hydrocarbons, including PAHs.
According to estimates by L. M. Shabad (1973) and A. P. Ilnitsky (1975), the background concentration of BP created as a result of the synthesis of BP by plant organisms and volcanic activity is: in soils 5-10 μg/kg (dry matter), in plants 1-5 µg/kg, in freshwater water 0.0001 µg/l. Accordingly, gradations of the degree of pollution of environmental objects are derived (Table 1.5).
The main anthropogenic sources of PAHs in the environment are the pyrolysis of organic substances during the combustion of various materials, wood and fuels. Pyrolytic formation of PAHs occurs at temperatures of 650-900 °C and a lack of oxygen in the flame. The formation of BP was observed during the pyrolysis of wood with maximum yield at 300-350 °C (Dikun, 1970).
According to M. Suess (G976), global BP emissions in the 70s were about 5000 tons per year, with 72% coming from industry and 27% from all types of open burning.
Heavy metals(mercury, lead, cadmium, zinc, copper, arsenic and others) are among the common and highly toxic pollutants. They are widely used in various industrial processes, therefore, despite treatment measures, the content of heavy metal compounds in industrial wastewater is quite high. Large masses of these compounds enter the ocean through the atmosphere. For marine biocenoses, the most dangerous are mercury, lead and cadmium.
Mercury is transported to the ocean by continental runoff and through the atmosphere. During the weathering of sedimentary and igneous rocks, 3.5 thousand tons of mercury are released annually. Atmospheric dust contains about 12 thousand tons of mercury, a significant part of which is of anthropogenic origin. As a result of volcanic eruptions and atmospheric precipitation, 50 thousand tons of mercury enter the ocean surface annually, and during degassing of the lithosphere - 25-150 thousand tons. About half of the annual industrial production of this metal (9-10 thousand tons/year) in various ways falls into the ocean. The mercury content in coal and oil averages 1 mg/kg, so when burning fossil fuels, the World Ocean receives more than 2 thousand tons/year. The annual production of mercury exceeds 0.1% of its total content in the World Ocean, but the anthropogenic influx already exceeds the natural removal by rivers, which is typical for many metals.
In areas polluted by industrial wastewater, the concentration of mercury in solution and suspended matter increases greatly. At the same time, some benthic bacteria convert chlorides into highly toxic (mono- and di-) methylmercury CH 3 Hg. Contamination of seafood has repeatedly led to mercury poisoning in coastal populations. By 1977, there were 2,800 victims of Minamata disease in Japan. The cause was waste from plants producing vinyl chloride and acetaldehyde, which used mercury chloride as a catalyst. Insufficiently treated wastewater from factories flowed into Minamata Bay.
Lead is a typical trace element found in all components of the environment: rocks, soils, natural waters, atmosphere, living organisms. Finally, lead is actively dissipated into the environment during human economic activity. These are emissions from industrial and domestic wastewater, from smoke and dust from industrial enterprises, and from exhaust gases from internal combustion engines.
According to V.V. Dobrovolsky (1987), the redistribution of lead masses between land and the World Ocean has the following form. C. river runoff with an average concentration of lead in water of 1 μg/l carries about 40 10 3 t/year of water-soluble lead into the ocean, approximately 2800-10 3 t/year in the solid phase of river suspended matter, and 10 10 3 t/year in fine organic detritus. /year. If we take into account that more than 90% of river suspended matter settles in a narrow coastal strip of the shelf and a significant part of water-soluble metal compounds is captured by iron oxide gels, then as a result the pelagic ocean receives only about (200-300) 10 3 tons in the composition of fine suspended matter and (25- 30) 10 3 t of dissolved compounds.
The migration flow of lead from the continents to the ocean occurs not only with river runoff, but also through the atmosphere. With continental dust, the ocean receives (20-30)-10 3 tons of lead per year. Its supply to the ocean surface with liquid precipitation is estimated at (400-2500) 10 3 t/year with a concentration in rainwater of 1-6 μg/l. Sources of lead entering the atmosphere are volcanic emissions (15-30 t/year in pelitic eruption products and 4 10 3 t/year in submicron particles), volatile organic compounds from vegetation (250-300 t/year), combustion products during fires ((6-7) 10 3 t/year) and modern industry. Lead production increased from 20-10 3 tons/year at the beginning of the 19th century. up to 3500 10 3 t/year by the beginning of the 80s of the XX century. The current release of lead into the environment through industrial and household waste is estimated at (100-400) 10 3 tons/year.
Cadmium, whose global production reached 15 10 3 tons/year in the 70s, also enters the ocean through river runoff and through the atmosphere. The volume of atmospheric removal of cadmium, according to various estimates, is (1.7-8.6) 10 3 tons/year.
Dumping of waste into the sea for the purpose of burial (dumping). Many countries with access to the sea carry out marine disposal of various materials and substances, in particular dredging soil, drill cuttings, industrial waste, construction waste, solid waste, explosives and chemicals, radioactive waste, etc. Volume burials account for about 10% of the total mass of pollutants entering the World Ocean. Thus, from 1976 to 1980, more than 150 million tons of various waste were dumped annually for the purpose of disposal, which is what defines the concept of “dumping.”
The basis for dumping at sea is the ability of the marine environment to process large quantities of organic and inorganic substances without much damage to water quality. However, this ability is not unlimited. Therefore, dumping is seen as a forced measure, a temporary tribute from society to the imperfection of technology. Hence, the development and scientific substantiation of ways to regulate waste discharges into the sea are of particular importance.
Industrial sludge contains a variety of organic substances and heavy metal compounds. Household waste on average contains (by dry matter weight) 32-40% organic matter, 0.56% nitrogen, 0.44% phosphorus, 0.155% zinc, 0.085% lead, 0.001% cadmium, 0.001 mercury. Sludge from municipal wastewater treatment plants contains (by dry matter weight) up to. 12% humic substances, up to 3% total nitrogen, up to 3.8% phosphates, 9-13% fats, 7-10% carbohydrates and contaminated with heavy metals. Dredging materials also have a similar composition.
During discharge, when the material passes through a column of water, part of the pollutants goes into solution, changing the quality of the water, while the other is sorbed by suspended particles and goes into bottom sediments. At the same time, the turbidity of the water increases. The presence of organic substances often leads to the rapid consumption of oxygen in water and often to its complete disappearance, dissolution of suspended matter, accumulation of metals in dissolved form, and the appearance of hydrogen sulfide. The presence of a large amount of organic substances creates a stable reducing environment in the soil, in which a special type of silt water appears, containing hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and metal ions in reduced form. In this case, sulfates and nitrates are reduced, and phosphates are released.
Organisms of the neuston, pelagic and benthos are affected to varying degrees by the discharged materials. In the case of the formation of surface films containing petroleum hydrocarbons and surfactants, gas exchange at the air-water interface is disrupted. This leads to the death of invertebrate larvae, fish larvae and fry, and causes an increase in the number of oil-oxidizing and pathogenic microorganisms. The presence of suspended pollutants in water worsens the conditions of nutrition, respiration and metabolism of aquatic organisms, reduces the growth rate, and inhibits sexual maturation of planktonic crustaceans. Pollutants entering the solution can accumulate in the tissues and organs of aquatic organisms and have a toxic effect on them. The discharge of dumping materials to the bottom and prolonged increased turbidity of the bottom water lead to the backfilling and death from suffocation of attached and sedentary forms of benthos. In surviving fish, mollusks and crustaceans, their growth rate is reduced due to deteriorating feeding and breathing conditions. The species composition of the benthic community often changes.
When organizing a control system for waste discharges into the sea, the determination of dumping areas taking into account the properties of materials and the characteristics of the marine environment is crucial. The necessary criteria for solving the problem are contained in the “Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Materials” (London Dumping Convention, 1972). The main requirements of the Convention are as follows.
1. Assessment of the quantity, condition and properties (physical, chemical, biochemical, biological) of discharged materials, their toxicity, stability, tendency to accumulation and biotransformation in the aquatic environment and marine organisms. Using the possibilities of neutralization, neutralization and recycling of waste.
2. Selection of discharge areas, taking into account the requirements for maximum dilution of substances, minimum distribution beyond the discharge limits, and a favorable combination of hydrological and hydrophysical conditions.
3. Ensuring the remoteness of discharge areas from fish feeding and spawning areas, from habitats of rare and sensitive species of aquatic organisms, from recreation and economic use areas.
Technogenic radionuclides. The ocean is characterized by natural radioactivity, due to the presence in it of 40 K, 87 Rb, 3 H, 14 C, as well as radionuclides of the uranium and thorium series. More than 90% of the natural radioactivity of ocean water is 40 K, which is 18.5-10 21 Bq. The unit of activity in the SI system is the becquerel (Bq), equal to the activity of an isotope in which 1 decay event occurs in 1 s. Previously, the extra-systemic unit of radioactivity curie (Ci), corresponding to the activity of an isotope in which 3.7-10 10 decay events occur in 1 s, was widely used.
Radioactive substances of technogenic origin, mainly fission products of uranium and plutonium, began to enter the ocean in large quantities after 1945, i.e., from the beginning of nuclear weapons testing and the widespread development of industrial production of fissile materials and radioactive nuclides. Three groups of sources are identified: 1) nuclear weapons testing, 2) dumping of radioactive waste, 3) accidents of ships with nuclear engines and accidents associated with the use, transportation and production of radionuclides.
Many radioactive isotopes with short half-lives, although detectable in water and marine organisms after an explosion, are almost never found in global radioactive fallout. Here, primarily 90 Sr and 137 Cs are present with a half-life of about 30 years. The most dangerous radionuclide from the unreacted remnants of nuclear charges is 239 Pu (T 1/2 = 24.4-10 3 years), very toxic as a chemical substance. As fission products 90 Sr and 137 Cs decay, it becomes a major component of pollution. By the time of the moratorium on atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons (1963), the activity of 239 Pu in the environment was 2.5-10 16 Bq.
A separate group of radionuclides is formed by 3 H, 24 Na, 65 Zn, 59 Fe, 14 C, 31 Si, 35 S, 45 Ca, 54 Mn, 57.60 Co and others, arising from the interaction of neutrons with structural elements and the external environment. The main products of nuclear reactions with neutrons in the marine environment are radioisotopes of sodium, potassium, phosphorus, chlorine, bromine, calcium, manganese, sulfur, zinc, originating from elements dissolved in sea water. This is induced activity.
Most of the radionuclides entering the marine environment have analogues that are constantly present in water, such as 239 Pu, 239 Np, 99 T C) transplutonium are not characteristic of the composition of sea water, and the living matter of the ocean must adapt to them anew.
As a result of nuclear fuel reprocessing, a significant amount of radioactive waste appears in liquid, solid and gaseous forms. The bulk of waste consists of radioactive solutions. Given the high cost of processing and storing concentrates in special storage facilities, some countries prefer to pour waste into the ocean with river flow or dump it in concrete blocks on the bottom of deep ocean trenches. Reliable concentration methods have not yet been developed for the radioactive isotopes Ar, Xe, Em and T, so they can end up in the oceans with rain and sewage.
During the operation of nuclear power plants on surface and underwater vessels, of which there are already several hundred, about 3.7-10 16 Bq with ion exchange resins, about 18.5-10 13 Bq with liquid waste and 12.6-10 13 Bq due to leaks. Emergencies also make a significant contribution to ocean radioactivity. To date, the amount of radioactivity introduced into the ocean by humans does not exceed 5.5-10 19 Bq, which is still small compared to the natural level (18.5-10 21 Bq). However, the concentration and unevenness of radionuclide fallout creates a serious danger of radioactive contamination of water and aquatic organisms in certain areas of the ocean.
2 Anthropogenic ocean ecology–a new scientific direction in oceanology. As a result of anthropogenic impact in the ocean, additional environmental factors arise that contribute to the negative evolution of marine ecosystems. The discovery of these factors stimulated the development of extensive fundamental research in the World Ocean and the emergence of new scientific directions. These include anthropogenic ocean ecology. This new direction is designed to study the mechanisms of response of organisms to anthropogenic impacts at the level of a cell, organism, population, biocenosis, ecosystem, as well as to study the features of interactions between living organisms and the environment in changed conditions.
The object of study of anthropogenic ocean ecology is changes in the ecological characteristics of the ocean, primarily those changes that are important for the ecological assessment of the state of the biosphere as a whole. These studies are based on a comprehensive analysis of the state of marine ecosystems, taking into account geographic zonality and the degree of anthropogenic impact.
Anthropogenic ecology of the ocean uses the following methods of analysis for its purposes: genetic (assessment of carcinogenic and mutagenic hazards), cytological (study of the cellular structure of marine organisms in normal and pathological states), microbiological (study of the adaptation of microorganisms to toxic pollutants), environmental (knowledge of the patterns of formation and the development of populations and biocenoses in specific living conditions in order to predict their condition in changing environmental conditions), ecological-toxicological (study of the response of marine organisms to the effects of pollution and determination of critical concentrations of pollutants), chemical (study of the entire complex of natural and anthropogenic chemicals in marine environment).
The main task of anthropogenic ocean ecology is to develop the scientific basis for determining critical levels of pollutants in marine ecosystems, assessing the assimilation capacity of marine ecosystems, normalizing anthropogenic impacts on the World Ocean, as well as creating mathematical models of environmental processes to predict environmental situations in the ocean.
Knowledge about the most important environmental phenomena in the ocean (such as production and destruction processes, the passage of biogeochemical cycles of pollutants, etc.) is limited by a lack of information. This makes it difficult to predict the environmental situation in the ocean and implement environmental measures. Currently, environmental monitoring of the ocean is of particular importance, the strategy of which is focused on long-term observations in certain areas of the ocean in order to create a data bank covering global changes in ocean ecosystems.
3 The concept of assimilative capacity. According to the definition of Yu. A. Israel and A. V. Tsyban (1983, 1985), the assimilation capacity of the marine ecosystem A i for this pollutant i(or the amount of pollutants) and for the m-th ecosystem - this is the maximum dynamic capacity of such a quantity of pollutants (in terms of the entire zone or unit volume of the marine ecosystem) that can be accumulated, destroyed, transformed (by biological or chemical transformations) per unit of time ) and removed through the processes of sedimentation, diffusion or any other transfer beyond the volume of the ecosystem without disrupting its normal functioning.
The total removal (A i) of a pollutant from a marine ecosystem can be written as
where K i is a safety factor reflecting the environmental conditions of the pollution process in various zones of the marine ecosystem; τ i is the residence time of the pollutant in the marine ecosystem.
This condition is met at , where C 0 i is the critical concentration of the pollutant in sea water. From here, the assimilation capacity can be estimated using formula (1) at ;.
All quantities included in the right side of equation (1) can be directly measured using data obtained in the process of long-term comprehensive studies of the state of the marine ecosystem. At the same time, the sequence of determining the assimilation capacity of a marine ecosystem for specific pollutants includes three main stages: 1) calculation of mass balances and lifetime of pollutants in the ecosystem, 2) analysis of the biotic balance in the ecosystem, and 3) assessment of critical concentrations of the impact of pollutants (or environmental MPCs ) on the functioning of biota.
To address issues of environmental regulation of anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems, the calculation of assimilation capacity is the most representative, since it takes into account the assimilation capacity of the maximum permissible environmental load (MPEL) of a polluting reservoir and is calculated quite simply. Thus, under a stationary regime of reservoir pollution, PDEN will be equal to the assimilation capacity.
4 Conclusions from the assessment of the assimilation capacity of the marine ecosystem for pollutants using the example of the Baltic Sea. Using the example of the Baltic Sea, the assimilation capacity values for a number of toxic metals (Zn, Cu, Pb, Cd, Hg) and organic substances (PCBs and BP) were calculated (Izrael, Tsyban, Ventzel, Shigaev, 1988).
The average concentrations of toxic metals in seawater turned out to be one to two orders of magnitude lower than their threshold doses, and the concentrations of PCBs and BPs were only an order of magnitude lower. Hence, the safety factors for PCBs and BP turned out to be less than for metals. At the first stage of the work, the authors of the calculation, using materials from long-term environmental studies in the Baltic Sea and literary sources, determined the concentrations of pollutants in the components of the ecosystem, the rate of biosedimentation, the flow of substances at the boundaries of the ecosystem and the activity of microbial destruction of organic substances. All this made it possible to draw up balances and calculate the “lifetime” of the substances in question in the ecosystem. The “lifetime” of metals in the Baltic ecosystem turned out to be quite short for lead, cadmium and mercury, somewhat longer for zinc and maximum for copper. The “lifetime” of PCBs and benzo(a)pyrene is 35 and 20 years, which determines the need to introduce a genetic monitoring system for the Baltic Sea.
At the second stage of research, it was shown that the most sensitive element of biota to pollutants and changes in the ecological situation are planktonic microalgae, and therefore, the process of primary production of organic matter should be chosen as a “target” process. Therefore, threshold doses of pollutants established for phytoplankton are used here.
Estimates of the assimilation capacity of zones in the open part of the Baltic Sea show that the existing runoff of zinc, cadmium and mercury is, respectively, 2, 20 and 15 times less than the minimum values of the assimilation capacity of the ecosystem for these metals and does not pose a direct threat to primary production. At the same time, the supply of copper and lead already exceeds their assimilation capacity, which requires the introduction of special measures to limit the flow. The current supply of BP has not yet reached the minimum value of assimilation capacity, but PCB exceeds it. The latter indicates an urgent need to further reduce PCB discharges into the Baltic Sea.
Plan
1. Characteristics and sources of pollution
2. Environmental problems caused by pollution
3. Pollution control methods
4. Applications
5. List of references used
Characteristics and sources of pollution
Every body of water or water source is connected with its surrounding external environment. It is influenced by the conditions for the formation of surface or underground water flow, various natural phenomena, industry, industrial and municipal construction, transport, economic and domestic human activities. The consequence of these influences is the introduction into the aquatic environment of new, unusual substances - pollutants that worsen the quality of water. Pollutants entering the aquatic environment are classified differently, depending on approaches, criteria and objectives. Thus, chemical, physical and biological contaminants are usually isolated.
Chemical pollution is a change in the natural chemical properties of water due to an increase in the content of harmful impurities in it, both inorganic (mineral salts, acids, alkalis, clay particles) and organic (oil and oil products, organic residues, surfactants, pesticides) .
The main inorganic (mineral) pollutants of sea waters are a variety of chemical compounds that are toxic to the inhabitants of the aquatic environment. These are compounds of arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, copper, fluorine. Most of them end up in water as a result of human activity. Heavy metals are absorbed by phytoplankton and then transferred along the food chain to higher organisms. The toxic effects of some of the most common hydrosphere pollutants are presented in Appendix 1.
In addition to the substances listed in the table, dangerous sources of infection in the aquatic environment include inorganic acids and bases that change the acidity of water.
Among the main sources of sea pollution with minerals and nutrients, food industry enterprises and agriculture should be mentioned.
Among the soluble substances brought into the seas from land, not only mineral and biogenic elements, but also organic residues are of great importance for the inhabitants of the aquatic environment. The removal of organic matter into the ocean is estimated at 300 - 380 million tons/year. Wastewater containing suspensions of organic origin or dissolved organic matter has a detrimental effect on the condition of water bodies. As they settle, the suspensions flood the bottom and delay the development or completely stop the vital activity of these microorganisms involved in the process of self-purification of water. When these sediments rot, harmful compounds and toxic substances, such as hydrogen sulfide, can be formed, which lead to complete pollution of the water in the river. The presence of suspensions also makes it difficult for light to penetrate into depth and slows down the processes of photosynthesis.
One of the main sanitary requirements for water quality is the content of the required amount of oxygen in it. All contaminants that, in one way or another, contribute to a decrease in the oxygen content in water have a harmful effect. Surfactants - fats, oils, lubricants - form a film on the surface of the water that prevents gas exchange between water and the atmosphere, which reduces the degree of oxygen saturation of the water.
A significant volume of organic substances, most of which are not characteristic of natural waters, is discharged into rivers along with industrial and domestic wastewater. Increasing pollution of water bodies and drains is observed in all industrial countries. Information on the content of some organic substances in industrial wastewater is provided in Appendix 2.
Due to the rapid pace of urbanization and the somewhat slow construction of treatment facilities or their unsatisfactory operation, water basins and soil are polluted by household waste. Pollution is especially noticeable in slow-flowing or non-flowing water bodies (reservoirs, lakes).
By decomposing in the aquatic environment, organic waste can become a breeding ground for pathogenic organisms. Water contaminated with organic waste becomes practically unsuitable for drinking and other needs. Household waste is dangerous not only because it is a source of certain human diseases (typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera), but also because it requires a lot of oxygen to decompose. If household wastewater enters a body of water in very large quantities, the content of dissolved oxygen may drop below the level necessary for the life of marine and freshwater organisms.
1) Oil and petroleum products – oil is a viscous oily liquid with a dark brown color. The main components of oil are hydrocarbons (up to 98%).
Oil and petroleum products are the most common pollutants. By the beginning of the 80s, about 6 million tons of oil entered the ocean annually, which accounted for 0.23% of world production.
The greatest oil losses are associated with its transportation from production areas. Emergency situations involving tankers draining washing and ballast water overboard - all this causes the presence of permanent fields of pollution along sea routes. Large masses of oil enter the seas through rivers, domestic wastewater and storm drains.
Once in the marine environment, oil first spreads in the form of a film, forming layers of varying thickness. You can determine its thickness by the color of the film (see Appendix 3).
The oil film changes the composition of the spectrum and the intensity of light penetration into water.
2) Pesticides– Pesticides constitute a group of artificially created substances used to control plant pests and diseases. Pesticides are divided into the following groups: insecticides - to combat harmful insects, fungicides and bactericides - to combat bacterial plant diseases, herbicides - against weeds.
It has been established that pesticides, while destroying pests, harm many beneficial organisms and undermine the health of biocenoses. In agriculture, there has long been a problem of transition from chemical (polluting) to biological (environmentally friendly) methods of pest control.
Industrial production of pesticides is accompanied by the emergence of a large number of by-products that pollute wastewater. Representatives of insecticides, fungicides and herbicides are most often found in the aquatic environment.
3) Synthetic surfactants (surfactants)– belong to a large group of substances that reduce the surface tension of water. They are part of synthetic detergents (SDCs), widely used in everyday life and industry. Together with wastewater, surfactants enter continental waters and the marine environment.
The presence of surfactants in industrial wastewater is associated with their use in processes such as the separation of chemical technology products, the production of polymers, improving the conditions for drilling oil and gas wells, and combating equipment corrosion. In agriculture, surfactants are used as part of pesticides.
4) Compounds with carcinogenic properties. Carcinogens are chemical compounds that disrupt development processes and can cause mutations.
Substances with carcinogenic properties include chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons, vinyl chloride, and especially polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The maximum amount of PAHs in modern sediments of the World Ocean (more than 100 μg/km of dry matter mass) was found in tentonically active zones.
5) Heavy metals. Heavy metals (mercury, lead, cadmium, zinc, copper, arsenic) are common and highly toxic pollutants. They are widely used in various industrial processes, therefore, despite treatment measures, the content of heavy metal compounds in industrial wastewater is quite high. Large masses of these compounds enter the seas through the atmosphere. The most dangerous: mercury, lead and cadmium.
Contamination of seafood has repeatedly led to mercury poisoning of coastal populations. By 1977, there were 2,800 victims of Minomata disease, which was caused by industrial waste. Insufficiently treated wastewater from factories flowed into Minomata Bay.
Lead is a typical trace element found in all components of the environment: rocks, soil, natural waters, atmosphere, living organisms. Finally, lead is actively dissipated into the environment during human economic activity.
6) Dumping of waste into the sea for the purpose of disposal (dumping). Many countries with access to the sea carry out marine disposal of various materials and substances, in particular dredging soil, drilling slag, industrial waste, construction waste, solid waste, explosives and chemicals, and radioactive waste. The volume of burials amounted to about 10% of the total mass of pollutants entering the World Ocean.
The basis for dumping at sea is the ability of the marine environment to process large quantities of organic and inorganic substances without much damage to the water. However, this ability is not unlimited.
Therefore, dumping is seen as a forced measure, a temporary tribute from society to the imperfection of technology. Industrial slag contains a variety of organic substances and heavy metal compounds.
During the discharge and passage of material through a column of water, some of the pollutants go into solution, changing the quality of the water, while others are sorbed by suspended particles and pass into bottom sediments.
There is a huge amount of water on Earth; images from space prove this fact. And there are currently concerns about the rapid pollution of these waters. Sources of pollution are emissions of domestic and industrial wastewater into the World Ocean.
Causes of pollution of the oceans
People have always strived for water; it was these territories that people tried to develop in the first place. About sixty percent of all large cities are located on the coastal zone. Thus, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea there are states whose population is two hundred and fifty million people. And at the same time, large industrial complexes throw about several thousand tons of all kinds of waste into the sea, including large cities that also dump sewage there. Therefore, you should not be surprised that when water is taken for testing, a huge number of various harmful microorganisms are found there.
As the number of cities grows, the amount of waste poured into the oceans also increases. Even such a large natural resource cannot process so much waste. There is poisoning of both coastal and marine fisheries, and a decline in fisheries.
The city is fighting pollution in the following way: waste is dumped further from the shore and to great depths using many kilometers of pipes. But this does not solve anything at all, but only delays the time of complete destruction of the flora and fauna of the sea.
Types of ocean pollution
One of the most important pollutants of ocean waters is oil. She gets there in every possible way: during the collapse of oil ore carriers; accidents in offshore oil fields when extracting oil from the seabed. Oil kills fish, and those that survive have an unpleasant taste and odor. Seabirds are dying out; last year alone, thirty thousand long-tailed ducks died near Sweden due to oil films on the surface of the water. Oil, floating on sea currents and floating to the shore, has made many resort areas unsuitable for recreation and swimming.
So the Intergovernmental Maritime Society created an agreement according to which it is forbidden to discharge oil into water fifty kilometers from the coast; most maritime powers signed it.
In addition, radioactive contamination of the ocean is constantly occurring. This occurs through leaks in nuclear reactors or from sunken nuclear submarines, which leads to radiation changes in flora and fauna, he was helped in this by the current and with the help of food chains from plankton to large fish. At the moment, many nuclear powers use the World Ocean to deploy nuclear missile warheads on submarines and dispose of spent nuclear waste.
Another of the ocean disasters is water bloom, which is associated with the growth of algae. And this leads to a reduction in salmon catches. The rapid proliferation of algae occurs due to the large number of microorganisms that appear as a result of industrial waste emissions. And finally, let’s look at the mechanisms of water self-purification. They are divided into three types.
- Chemical - salt water is rich in various chemical compounds, in which, when oxygen enters, oxidative processes occur, plus light irradiation, and as a result, anthropogenic toxins are effectively processed. The salts resulting from the reaction simply settle to the bottom.
- Biological - the entire mass of marine animals living on the bottom, pass all the water of the coastal zone through their gills and thereby work as filters, although they die in thousands.
- Mechanical - when the flow slows down, suspended matter precipitates. As a result, the final burial of anthropogenic substances occurs.
Chemical ocean pollution
Every year, the waters of the World Ocean are increasingly polluted by waste from the chemical industry. Thus, a tendency was noticed to increase the amount of arsenic in ocean waters. The ecological balance is significantly undermined by heavy metals lead and zinc, nickel and cadmium, chromium and copper. All kinds of pesticides, such as endrin, aldrin, dieldrin, also cause damage. In addition, the substance tributyltin chloride, which is used to paint ships, has a detrimental effect on marine life. It protects the surface from becoming overgrown with algae and shells. Therefore, all these substances should be replaced with less toxic ones so as not to harm marine flora and fauna.
Pollution of the waters of the World Ocean is associated not only with the chemical industry, but also with other areas of human activity, in particular, energy, automotive, metallurgy, food and light industry. Utilities, agriculture and transport have an equally detrimental impact. The most common sources of water pollution are industrial and sewage waste, as well as fertilizers and herbicides.
Water pollution is caused by waste generated by commercial and fishing fleets, as well as oil tankers. As a result of human activity, elements such as mercury, dioxins and PCBs enter water. Accumulating in the body, harmful compounds provoke the appearance of serious diseases: metabolism is disrupted, immunity is reduced, the reproductive system does not work properly, and serious problems with the liver appear. Moreover, chemical elements can influence and change genetics.
Plastic pollution of the world's oceans
Plastic waste makes up entire accumulations and spots in the waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. Most of the garbage is generated by the dumping of waste from densely populated areas of the coast. Often, marine animals swallow bags and small particles of plastic, confusing them with food, which leads to their death.
Plastic has spread so widely that it can already be found in subpolar waters. It has been established that in the waters of the Pacific Ocean alone the amount of plastic has increased 100 times (research conducted over the past forty years). Even small particles can change the natural ocean environment. It is estimated that about 90% of animals that die on the shore are killed by plastic debris that is mistaken for food.
In addition, the suspension that is formed as a result of the breakdown of plastic materials is dangerous. By ingesting chemical elements, marine inhabitants doom themselves to severe suffering and even death. Don't forget that people can also eat fish that is contaminated with waste. Its meat contains large amounts of lead and mercury.
Consequences of ocean pollution
Polluted water causes many diseases in humans and animals. As a result, populations of flora and fauna are declining, and some are even becoming extinct. All this leads to global changes in the ecosystems of all water areas. All oceans are sufficiently polluted. One of the most polluted seas is the Mediterranean. Sewage from 20 cities flows into it. In addition, tourists from popular Mediterranean resorts make a negative contribution. The dirtiest rivers in the world are the Citarum in Indonesia, the Ganges in India, the Yangtze in China and the King River in Tasmania. Among the polluted lakes, experts name the Great North American Lakes, Onondaga in the USA and Tai in China.
As a result, significant changes in the waters of the World Ocean occur, as a result of which global climatic phenomena disappear, garbage islands are formed, water blooms due to the proliferation of algae, and temperatures rise, provoking global warming. The consequences of these processes are too serious and the main threat is a gradual reduction in oxygen production, as well as a decrease in the resources of the ocean. In addition, unfavorable developments of events may be observed in different regions: the development of droughts in certain areas, floods, and tsunamis. The protection of the World Ocean should be a priority goal for all humanity.
Interesting video about ocean pollution
Introduction 3
Chapter I. World Ocean: current state 5
1.1.International legal regime for resource exploitation
World Ocean 5
1.2.Economic basis of resource use
World Ocean 14
Chapter II. Ocean pollution as a global problem 18
2.1.General characteristics of types and sources of pollution
World Ocean 18
2.2. Pollution zones of the World Ocean 27
Chapter III. Main directions of pollution control
World Ocean 34
3.1.Basic methods for eliminating pollution of the World Ocean 34
3.2.Organization of scientific research in the field of non-waste and
low-waste technologies 37
3.3.Use of energy resources of the World Ocean 43
Conclusion 56
References 59
Introduction
This work is devoted to pollution of the World Ocean. The relevance of the topic is determined by the general problem of the state of the hydrosphere.
The hydrosphere is an aquatic environment that includes surface and underground waters. Surface water is mainly concentrated in the oceans, which contain about 91% of all water on Earth. The ocean surface (water area) is 361 million square meters. km. It is approximately 2.4 times larger than the land area - an area occupying 149 million square meters. km. If you distribute the water in an even layer, it will cover the Earth with a thickness of 3000 m. The water in the ocean (94%) and underground is salty. The amount of fresh water makes up 6% of the total water on Earth, with a very small share (only 0.36%) available in places that are easily accessible to extraction. Most fresh water is found in snow, freshwater icebergs and glaciers (1.7%), found mainly in the Arctic Circle, and also deep underground (4%). The annual global river flow of fresh water is 37.3-47 thousand cubic meters. km. In addition, a part of groundwater equal to 13 thousand cubic meters can be used. km.
Not only fresh, but also salt waters are used by humans, in particular for fishing.
Pollution of water resources refers to any changes in the physical, chemical and biological properties of water in reservoirs in connection with the discharge of liquid, solid and gaseous substances into them that cause or may create inconvenience, making the water of these reservoirs dangerous for use, causing damage to the national economy, health and public safety. Sources of pollution are recognized as objects from which discharge or otherwise enter water bodies of harmful substances that worsen the quality of surface waters, limit their use, and also negatively affect the condition of the bottom and coastal water bodies.
The purpose of this work is a general description of pollution of the World Ocean, and the tasks of the work are assumed in accordance with this goal to be the following:
analysis of the legal and economic basis for the exploitation of the resources of the World Ocean (since water pollution is possible only in connection with the exploitation of its resources or the deployment of industry).
species and geographical characteristics of pollution of the World Ocean.
proposals to prevent pollution of the World Ocean, in particular, research and development in the field of low-waste technologies and renewable resources.
The work consists of three chapters. The first chapter examines the basics of exploitation of the resources of the World Ocean and gives a general description of the designated resources.
The second chapter is devoted to the pollution of the World Ocean itself, and this problem is considered in two aspects: types and sources of pollution and the geography of pollution.
The third chapter talks about ways to combat pollution of the World Ocean, about research and development on this issue, also in species and geographical aspects.
The sources for writing the work are divided into two groups - environmental and geographical. However, in most cases, both sides of the topic of work are present in them, this can be noted in such authors as N.F. Gromov and S.G. Gorshkov (“Man and the Ocean”), K.Ya. Kondratyev (“Key Issues of Global Ecology”), D. Cormack (“Combating Sea Pollution by Oil and Chemicals”), V.N. Stepanov (“World Ocean” and “Nature of the World Ocean”). Some authors also consider the legal aspect of the issue of hydrosphere pollution, in particular, K. Hakapaa (“Marine Pollution and International Law”) G.F. Kalinkin (“Regime of Marine Spaces”).
ChapterI.World Ocean: current state
1.1.International legal regime for the exploitation of the resources of the World Ocean
Of the 510 million km 2 of the globe's area, the World Ocean accounts for 361 million km 2, or almost 71%. . If you quickly spin the globe, it will seem as if it is one color - blue. And all because there is much more of this paint on him than yellow, white, brown, green. The Southern Hemisphere is more oceanic (81%) than the Northern Hemisphere (61%).
The United World Ocean is divided into 4 oceans: the largest ocean is the Pacific. It occupies almost a third of the entire earth's surface. The second largest ocean is the Atlantic. It is half the size of the Pacific Ocean. The Indian Ocean ranks third, and the smallest ocean is the Arctic Ocean. There are only four oceans in the world, but there are many more seas - thirty. But they are still the same World Ocean. Because from any of them you can get to the ocean via waterways, and from the ocean you can get to whichever sea you want. There are only two seas that are fenced off from the ocean on all sides by land: the Caspian and the Aral.
Some researchers identify a fifth - the Southern Ocean. It includes the waters of the Earth's southern hemisphere between Antarctica and the southern tips of the continents of South America, Africa and Australia. This region of the world's oceans is characterized by the transfer of water from west to east in the Western Winds current system.
Each of the oceans has its own unique temperature and ice regimes, salinity, has independent systems of winds and currents, characteristic ebbs and flows, specific bottom topography and certain bottom sediments, various natural resources, etc. Ocean water is a weak solution in which almost all chemicals. Gases, minerals and organic substances are dissolved in it. Water is one of the most amazing substances on earth. Clouds in the sky, rain, snow, rivers, lakes, springs - all these are particles of the ocean that have only temporarily left it.
The average depth of the World Ocean is about 4 thousand m - this is only 0.0007 of the radius of the globe. The ocean, given that the density of its water is close to 1, and the density of the Earth's solid body is about 5.5, accounts for only a small part of the mass of our planet. But if we turn to the geographical shell of the Earth - a thin layer of several tens of kilometers, then the largest part of it will be the World Ocean. Therefore, for geography it is the most important object of study.
The formation of the principle of freedom of the open sea dates back to the 15th-18th centuries, when a sharp struggle unfolded between large feudal states - Spain and Portugal, which divided the seas among themselves, with countries in which the capitalist mode of production was already developing - England, France, and then Holland. During this period, attempts were made to substantiate the idea of freedom of the high seas. At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. Russian diplomats wrote to the British government: “God’s road, ocean-sea, how can one take over, appease or close it?” In the 17th century G. Grotius, on the instructions of the United Dutch East India Company, which was extremely interested in unimpeded maritime trade, gave a detailed argument for the idea of freedom of the seas. In his work “Mare liberum”, the Dutch scientist sought to substantiate the freedom of the seas with the needs of realizing free trade. Many bourgeois jurists (L.B. Hautfeil, L. Oppenheim, F.F. Martens, etc.) pointed out the connection between the principle of freedom of the high seas and international trade, but they failed to reveal the true socio-economic reasons for the emergence of a new principle of relations between states . Only Marxist-Leninist science convincingly proved that the growth of productive forces in various countries and, as a result of this process, the international division of labor and access to new markets predetermined the development of worldwide economic relations of states, the implementation of which was unthinkable without the freedom of the high seas. The needs of developing global economic relations are the objective reason for the increasingly widespread recognition of the principle of freedom of the high seas. The development of capitalist relations and the formation of a world market were greatly facilitated by great geographical discoveries. The final establishment of freedom of the high seas as a customary norm of international law dates back to the second half of the 18th century.
Freedom of the high seas cannot be absolute, that is, implying unlimited actions of states in maritime space. G. Grotius wrote that the open sea cannot be the subject of seizure by states or private individuals; some states should not prevent others from using it. The content of the principle of freedom of the high seas gradually expanded and enriched. Initially, its elements that had independent significance (as less generalized principles) were considered to be freedom of navigation and fishing 1 .
Freedom of navigation means that every state, whether coastal or inland, has the right to have ships flying its flag sail on the high seas. This freedom has always extended to both commercial and military navigation.
Freedom of fishing is the right of all states to have their legal entities and individuals engage in fishing on the high seas. In connection with the improvement of fishing gear, the content of this principle gradually included the obligation of states to seek ways to cooperate in the protection of living resources of the high seas. In the last third of the 19th century. a new element of freedom of the high seas was formed - the freedom to lay submarine cables and pipelines. In the first quarter of the 20th century. International air law established the principle of complete and exclusive sovereignty of a state over the airspace above its territory and, at the same time, the principle of freedom of flight of aircraft (both civil and military) over the open sea.
By the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. refers to the establishment of the principle of freedom of scientific research on the high seas. Its compliance creates real opportunities for cooperation between states in using the World Ocean for various purposes in the interests of each of them and the entire international community as a whole.
In the pre-October period, the principle of freedom of the high seas did not exclude the “freedom” to turn this space into an arena of military operations. In modern conditions, it is applied in close connection with the basic principles and norms of general international law, including the prohibition of the use of force or the threat of force.
The principle of freedom of the high seas was formed and approved by the practice of states. International lawyers, including those working in international non-governmental organizations, made a great contribution to its scientific development. An attempt to define the content of freedom of the high seas in terms of unofficial codification was made, in particular, by the Institute of International Law in its declaration adopted in 1927 in Lausanne, and by the Association of International Law in the project “Laws of Maritime Jurisdiction in Times of Peace”, developed in 1926 The provisions formulated in these documents are very similar to those enshrined in the Geneva Convention on the High Seas of 1958. It establishes a list of freedoms of the high seas, including freedoms of navigation, fishing, laying submarine cables and pipelines, and flying over the high seas. The preamble to the said convention emphasizes that the Conference adopted resolutions of a general nature as a declaration of established principles of international law. The principle of freedom of the high seas was further developed in the new UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982. Thus, in Art. 87 of this document states that freedom of the high seas includes, in particular, for both coastal and landlocked states: a) freedom of navigation; b) freedom of flight; c) freedom to lay submarine cables and pipelines; d) freedom to construct artificial islands and installations permitted in accordance with international law; e) freedom of fishing; f) freedom of scientific research 2.
This list includes two freedoms that were not included in the Geneva Convention on the High Seas: freedom of scientific research and freedom to build artificial islands and installations. This is explained by the rapid development of science and technology, which has provided new opportunities for using the open sea. The reference to the right to create regulations only permitted by international law once again emphasizes that the exercise by states of this freedom cannot lead to a violation of the basic principles of international law, in particular, the principle of prohibition of the use of force or the threat of force. Artificial islands and installations may not house nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. When using this freedom, like other freedoms of the high seas, one should proceed from the combination of various types of activities of states on the high seas. Therefore, it is unacceptable to create artificial islands and installations on sea routes that, for example, are important for international shipping.
Freedom of scientific research, among other principles constituting the freedom of the high seas, was first specified in the universal international Convention. 1982. In addition, the Convention contains a special section (Part XIII) “Marine Scientific Research”. All this indicates the growing importance of such research as an important prerequisite for the further development of the World Ocean in the interests of all states and peoples.
Freedoms of navigation, flights and laying of submarine cables and pipelines also apply in the 200-mile economic zones created in accordance with the 1982 Convention. So, according to Art. 58 of the Convention, in the economic zone, all states enjoy the freedoms specified in Art. 87 and other legitimate uses of the sea from the point of view of international law related to these freedoms, in particular those related to the operation of ships, aircraft, submarine cables and pipelines.
It is also necessary to take into account that, according to paragraph 1 of Art. 87 of the 1982 Convention, all states enjoy the freedom to lay submarine cables and pipelines, subject to compliance with the rules contained in Part VI “Continental Shelf”, which stipulates that “the exercise of the rights of a coastal state in relation to the continental shelf should not infringe on the exercise of navigation and other, rights and freedoms of other states provided for in this Convention, or lead to any unjustified interference with their implementation” (Clause 2 of Article 78). All states have the right to lay submarine cables and pipelines on the continental shelf in accordance with the following provisions of Art. 79: 1) a coastal state may not interfere with the laying or maintenance of cables and pipelines, provided that its rights to take reasonable measures for the exploration of the continental shelf, the development of the natural resources of the latter and the prevention and control of pollution from pipelines are respected; 2) the determination of the route for laying such pipelines on the continental shelf is carried out with the consent of the coastal state.
In Art. 87 of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea states that all states enjoy freedom of fishing subject to the conditions set out in Section 2 of Chapter. VII, which is entitled “Conservation and Management of Living Resources of the High Seas”. The provisions of this section boil down to the following: 1) all states have the right for their citizens to engage in fishing on the high seas, subject to a number of conditions (Article 116); 2) all states take measures or cooperate with other states in taking such measures in relation to their citizens as are necessary for the conservation of the living resources of the high seas 3.
Thus, all States that exercise freedom of fishing simultaneously attach great importance to the conservation of the living resources of the high seas.
The new UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, as well as the Geneva Convention on the High Seas, confirms that all states exercise the freedoms discussed, taking due account of the interests of other states in enjoying the freedom of the high seas (paragraph 2 p. 87). This means that no state enjoying any freedom of the high seas; shall not interfere with the exercise of the same or any other freedom by all other States.
Freedom of the high seas is a universal principle of international law, designed to be applied by all states, regardless of their socio-economic systems, size, economic development or geographical location.
In addition, this is a mandatory principle, because states do not have the right to enter into agreements among themselves that violate the principle of freedom of the high seas. Such agreements are void. The imperative nature of freedom of the high seas is determined by the enormous importance of the exploration and use of the World Ocean, the development of global economic ties between states and their cooperation in a wide variety of fields. In Soviet literature it is noted that “the initial reason for the emergence of mandatory norms of international law is the growing internationalization of various aspects of the life of society, especially economic life, the increasing role of global international problems.” In the imperative of freedom of the high seas, such basic principles of general principles are expressed in relation to the maritime activities of states international law, as sovereign equality and equality of states, non-interference of one state in the affairs of another.
In modern conditions, the principle of freedom of the high seas operates as a customary peremptory norm of general international law, binding on all states regardless of their participation in the 1982 Convention. In Art. 38 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties refers to a norm of a treaty that may become binding on a third state as an ordinary norm of international law. An international custom becomes a rule of law if, as a result of repeated actions of states, a rule arises that they follow, and if the will of states is agreed upon to recognize the custom as legally binding on them.
During the work of the III UN Conference on the Law of the Sea, a modified rule on the content of freedom of the high seas was formed as a customary norm of international law. It was also possible to establish a balance between the rights of the coastal state and the rights of other states in the economic zone, that is, to reach a compromise on the issue of its legal status and legal regime. Until the completion of the Conference and the signing of the Convention, these provisions were essentially not changed, which indicates a uniform approach to them by all participants in the Conference.
The formation and approval of these norms occurred, therefore, as a result of repeated actions of states, and they were adopted at the Conference on the basis of consensus, allowing to take into account and balance the interests of all states to the maximum extent and to achieve a high degree of coordination of their wills on the recognition of these norms as legally binding. This was facilitated by the legislative practice of states, which reproduce the basic convention norms in their laws on the economic zone. The inclusion of such provisions in the legislative acts of many states does not cause protests from other countries. And vice versa, any deviations from them are met with objections from other states. Consequently, the legality of these acts is currently assessed based on the content of the norms formulated in the Convention and recognized as binding on all states as international legal customs. The significance of the new Convention is that it clearly defined the content of new customary legal norms and clarified the content of existing rules relating to the activities of states in the exploration and use of the World Ocean for various purposes 4 .
Finally, freedom of the high seas is a fundamental principle of international maritime law. From the moment it was formalized as a customary norm of international law, the principle of freedom of the high seas influenced the formation and approval of other principles and norms, which later became the basis of international maritime law as a branch of general international law. These include: the sovereignty of the coastal state over territorial waters, including the right of innocent passage of foreign ships through them; freedom of passage of all ships through international straits connecting two parts of the high seas; archipelagic passage along sea corridors and passage through air corridors established by an archipelagic state in its archipelagic waters, etc.
1.2.Economic basis for the use of the resources of the World Ocean
In our time, the “era of global problems,” the World Ocean plays an increasingly important role in the life of mankind. Being a huge storehouse of mineral, energy, plant and animal resources, which - with their rational consumption and artificial reproduction - can be considered practically inexhaustible, the Ocean is capable of solving some of the most pressing problems: the need to provide a rapidly growing population with food and raw materials for developing industry, danger of energy crisis, lack of fresh water.
The main resource of the World Ocean is sea water. It contains 75 chemical elements, including such important ones as Uranus, potassium, bromine, magnesium. And although the main product of sea water is still salt - 33% of world production, but magnesium and bromine are already being mined; methods for producing a number of metals have long been patented, including those needed by industry copper And silver, whose reserves are steadily depleting, when ocean waters contain up to half a billion tons of them. In connection with the development of nuclear energy, there are good prospects for uranium mining and deuterium from the waters of the World Ocean, especially since the reserves of uranium ores on earth are decreasing, and in the Ocean there are 10 billion tons of it, deuterium is generally practically inexhaustible - for every 5000 atoms of ordinary hydrogen there is one atom of heavy hydrogen. In addition to releasing chemical elements, seawater can be used to obtain the fresh water that people need. Many industrial methods are now available desalination: chemical reactions are used in which impurities are removed from water; salt water is passed through special filters; finally, the usual boiling is carried out. But desalination is not the only way to obtain potable water. Exist bottom sources, which are increasingly being found on the continental shelf, that is, in areas of continental shallows adjacent to the shores of land and having the same geological structure. 5
The mineral resources of the World Ocean are represented not only by sea water, but also by what is “under water”. The depths of the ocean, its bottom is rich in deposits mineral. On the continental shelf there are coastal placer deposits - gold, platinum; There are also precious stones - rubies, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds. For example, underwater diamond gravel mining has been going on near Namibia since 1962. Large deposits are located on the shelf and partly on the continental slope of the Ocean phosphorites, which can be used as fertilizers, and the reserves will last for the next few hundred years. The most interesting type of mineral raw materials in the World Ocean are the famous ferromanganese nodules, which cover vast underwater plains. Nodules are a kind of “cocktail” of metals: they include copper, cobalt,nickel,titanium, vanadium, but, of course, most of all gland And manganese. Their locations are generally known, but the results of industrial development are still very modest. But exploration and production of ocean resources is in full swing. oil And gas on the coastal shelf, the share of offshore production is approaching 1/3 of the world production of these energy resources. Deposits are being developed on a particularly large scale in Persian, Venezuelan, Gulf of Mexico, V North Sea; oil platforms stretch off the coast California, Indonesia, V Mediterranean And Caspian seas. The Gulf of Mexico is also famous for the sulfur deposit discovered during oil exploration, which is melted from the bottom using superheated water. Another, as yet untouched, pantry of the ocean is the deep crevices, where a new bottom is formed. For example, hot (over 60 degrees) and heavy brines Red Sea depression contain huge reserves silver, tin, copper, iron and other metals. Shallow water mining is becoming more and more important. Around Japan, for example, underwater iron-containing sands are sucked out through pipes; the country extracts about 20% of its coal from offshore mines - an artificial island is built over the rock deposits and a shaft is drilled to expose the coal seams.
Many natural processes occurring in the World Ocean - movement, water temperature - are inexhaustible energy resources. For example, the total tidal power of the Ocean is estimated at 1 to 6 billion kWh. This property of ebb and flow was used in France in the Middle Ages: in the 12th century, mills were built whose wheels were driven by tidal waves. Nowadays, in France there are modern power plants that use the same principle of operation: the turbines rotate in one direction when the tide is high, and in the other when the tide is low.
The main wealth of the World Ocean is its biological resources(fish, zoo- and phytoplankton and others). The ocean's biomass includes 150 thousand species of animals and 10 thousand algae, and its total volume is estimated at 35 billion tons, which may be enough to feed 30 billion people. By catching 85-90 million tons of fish annually, which accounts for 85% of the marine products used, shellfish, algae, humanity provides about 20% of its needs for animal proteins. The living world of the Ocean is huge food resources, which can be inexhaustible if used correctly and carefully. The maximum fish catch should not exceed 150-180 million tons per year: exceeding this limit is very dangerous, as irreparable losses will occur. Many varieties of fish, whales, and pinnipeds have almost disappeared from ocean waters due to excessive hunting, and it is unknown whether their numbers will ever recover. But the world's population is growing at a rapid pace, increasingly in need of seafood products. There are several ways to increase its productivity. The first is to remove from the ocean not only fish, but also zooplankton, some of which - Antarctic krill - have already been eaten. It is possible, without any damage to the Ocean, to catch it in much larger quantities than all the fish currently caught. The second way is the use of biological resources of the open Ocean. The biological productivity of the Ocean is especially great in the area of rising deep waters. One of these upwellings, located off the coast of Peru, provides 15% of the world's fish production, although its area is no more than two hundredths of a percent of the entire surface of the World Ocean. Finally, the third way is the cultural breeding of living organisms, mainly in coastal areas. All three of these methods have been successfully tested in many countries around the world, but locally, which is why fishing continues to be destructive in volume. At the end of the twentieth century, the Norwegian, Bering, Okhotsk, and Japanese seas were considered the most productive water areas. 6
The ocean, being a storehouse of diverse resources, is also free and convenient Expensive, which connects continents and islands distant from each other. Maritime transport accounts for almost 80% of transport between countries, serving the growing global production and exchange.
The world's oceans can serve waste recycler. Thanks to the chemical and physical effects of its waters and the biological influence of living organisms, it disperses and purifies the bulk of the waste entering it, maintaining the relative balance of the Earth's ecosystems. Over the course of 3,000 years, as a result of the water cycle in nature, all the water in the World Ocean is renewed.
ChapterII. Ocean pollution as a global problem
2.1. General characteristics of types and sources of pollution of the World Ocean
The main reason for the modern degradation of the Earth's natural waters is anthropogenic pollution. Its main sources are:
a) wastewater from industrial enterprises;
b) municipal wastewater of cities and other populated areas;
c) runoff from irrigation systems, surface runoff from fields and other agricultural facilities;
d) atmospheric fallout of pollutants onto the surface of water bodies and drainage basins. In addition, unorganized runoff of precipitation water (“storm runoff”, melt water) pollutes water bodies with a significant portion of man-made terrapollutants
Anthropogenic pollution of the hydrosphere has now become global in nature and has significantly reduced the available exploitable fresh water resources on the planet.
The total volume of industrial, agricultural and municipal wastewater reaches 1300 km 3 of water (according to some estimates, up to 1800 km 3), diluting which requires approximately 8.5 thousand km of water, i.e. 20% of the total and 60% of the sustainable flow of the world's rivers.
Moreover, in individual water basins the anthropogenic load is much higher than the global average.
The total mass of hydrosphere pollutants is enormous - about 15 billion tons per year 7 .
The main pollutant of the seas, the importance of which is rapidly increasing, is oil. This type of pollutant enters the sea in different ways: during the release of water after washing oil tanks, during ship accidents, especially oil tankers, during drilling of the seabed and accidents in offshore oil fields, etc.
Oil is a viscous oily liquid that is dark brown in color and has weak fluorescence. Oil consists primarily of saturated hydroaromatic hydrocarbons. The main components of oil - hydrocarbons (up to 98%) - are divided into 4 classes:
1.Paraffins (alkenes);
2. Cycloparaffins;
3.Aromatic hydrocarbons;
4.Olefins.
Oil and petroleum products are the most common pollutants in the World Ocean. Petroleum oils pose the greatest threat to the cleanliness of water bodies. These highly persistent pollutants can travel over 300 km from their source. Light oil fractions, floating on the surface, form a film that insulates and impedes gas exchange. In this case, one drop of petroleum oil, spreading over the surface, forms a spot with a diameter of 30-150 cm, and 1t - about 12 km? oil film. 8
The thickness of the film is measured from fractions of a micron to 2 cm. The oil film has high mobility and is resistant to oxidation. Medium fractions of oil form a suspended aqueous emulsion, and heavy fractions (fuel oil) settle to the bottom of reservoirs, causing toxic damage to aquatic fauna. By the beginning of the 80s, about 16 million tons of oil entered the ocean annually, which accounted for 0.23% of world production. During the period 1962-79. As a result of accidents, about 2 million tons of oil entered the marine environment. Over the past 30 years, since 1964, about 2,000 wells have been drilled in the World Ocean, of which 1,000 and 350 industrial wells have been equipped in the North Sea alone. Due to minor leaks, 0.1 million tons of oil are lost annually. Large masses of oil enter the seas through rivers, domestic wastewater and storm drains. The volume of pollution from this source is 2 million tons per year. 0.5 million tons of oil enters annually with industrial waste. Once in the marine environment, oil first spreads in the form of a film, forming layers of varying thickness. When mixed with water, oil forms two types of emulsion: direct “oil in water” and reverse “water in oil”. Direct emulsions, composed of oil droplets with a diameter of up to 0.5 microns, are less stable and are characteristic of oil containing surface substances. When volatile fractions are removed, oil forms viscous inverse emulsions that can remain on the surface, be transported by the current, washed ashore and settle to the bottom.
Off the coast of England and France, as a result of the sinking of the tanker Torrey Canyon (1968), 119 thousand tons of oil were thrown into the ocean. An oil film 2 cm thick covered the surface of the ocean over an area of 500 km. The famous Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl, in a book with the symbolic title “The Vulnerable Sea,” testifies: “In 1947, the Kon-Tiki raft covered about 8 thousand km in the Pacific Ocean in 101 days; the crew did not see any traces of human activity along the entire route. The ocean was clean and transparent. And it was a real blow for us when in 1969, while drifting on the papyrus boat “Ra,” we saw how polluted the Atlantic Ocean was. We overtook plastic vessels, nylon products, empty bottles, and cans. But what caught my eye was the fuel oil.”
But along with petroleum products, hundreds and thousands of tons of mercury, copper, lead, compounds that are part of chemicals used in agricultural practice, and simply household waste are literally dumped into the ocean. In some countries, under public pressure, laws have been passed prohibiting the discharge of untreated wastewater into inland waters - rivers, lakes, etc. In order not to incur “extra expenses” for the construction of necessary structures, the monopolies found a convenient way out. They are constructing diversion channels that carry wastewater directly... to the sea, and they do not spare resorts: a 450 m long canal was dug in Nice, and 1200 m in Cannes. As a result, for example, water off the coast of Brittany, a peninsula in the north- western France, washed by the waves of the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean have turned into a cemetery for living organisms.
The huge sandy beaches of the northern Mediterranean coast have become deserted even at the height of the holiday season, with boards warning that the water is dangerous for swimming.
The dumping of waste led to massive deaths of ocean inhabitants. The famous underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau, who returned in 1970 after a long voyage on the ship “Calypso” across three oceans, wrote in the article “The Ocean on the Path to Death” that in 20 years life has decreased by 20%, and in 50 years forever At least a thousand species of marine animals have disappeared.
The main sources of pollution of water bodies are enterprises of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, chemical and petrochemical, pulp and paper, and light industry 9 .
Ferrous metallurgy. The volume of wastewater discharged is 11934 million m3, the discharge of contaminated wastewater reached 850 million m3.
Non-ferrous metallurgy. The volume of polluted wastewater discharge exceeded 537.6 million m. The wastewater is contaminated with minerals, salts of heavy metals (copper, lead, zinc, nickel, mercury, etc.), arsenic, chlorides, etc.
Woodworking and pulp and paper industry. The main source of wastewater generation in the industry is cellulose production, based on sulfate and sulfite methods of wood pulping and bleaching.
Oil refining industry. Industry enterprises discharged 543.9 million m of wastewater into surface water bodies. As a result, significant quantities of petroleum products, sulfates, chlorides, nitrogen compounds, phenols, salts of heavy metals, etc. entered water bodies.
Chemical and petrochemical industry. 2467.9 million m3 were discharged into natural water bodies? wastewater, along with which oil products, suspended substances, total nitrogen, ammonium nitrogen, nitrates, chlorides, sulfates, total phosphorus, cyanides, cadmium, cobalt, copper, manganese, nickel, mercury, lead, chromium, zinc, hydrogen sulfide entered water bodies , carbon disulfide, alcohols, benzene, formaldehyde, phenols, surfactants, urea, pesticides, semi-finished products.
Mechanical engineering. The discharge of wastewater from pickling and galvanizing shops of mechanical engineering enterprises, for example, in 1993 amounted to 2.03 billion m, primarily petroleum products, sulfates, chlorides, suspended solids, cyanides, nitrogen compounds, salts of iron, copper, zinc, nickel, chromium , molybdenum, phosphorus, cadmium.
Light industry. The main pollution of water bodies comes from textile production and leather tanning processes. Wastewater from the textile industry contains suspended substances, sulfates, chlorides, phosphorus and nitrogen compounds, nitrates, synthetic surfactants, iron, copper, zinc, nickel, chromium, lead, fluorine. Tanning industry - nitrogen compounds, phenols, synthetic surfactants, fats and oils, chromium, aluminum, hydrogen sulfide, methanol, fenaldehyde. 10
Thermal pollution of water resources. Thermal pollution of the surface of reservoirs and coastal marine areas occurs as a result of the discharge of heated wastewater by power plants and some industrial production. The discharge of heated water in many cases causes an increase in water temperature in reservoirs by 6-8 degrees Celsius. The area of heated water spots in coastal areas can reach 30 square meters. km. More stable temperature stratification prevents water exchange between the surface and bottom layers. The solubility of oxygen decreases, and its consumption increases, since with increasing temperature the activity of aerobic bacteria decomposing organic matter increases. The species diversity of phytoplankton and the entire algal flora is increasing. eleven
Radioactive contamination and toxic substances. The danger that directly threatens human health is also associated with the ability of some toxic substances to remain active for a long time. A number of them, such as DDT, mercury, not to mention radioactive substances, can accumulate in marine organisms and be transmitted over long distances along the food chain. DDT and its derivatives, polychlorinated biphenyls and other persistent compounds of this class are now found throughout the world's oceans, including the Arctic and Antarctic. They are easily soluble in fats and therefore accumulate in the organs of fish, mammals, and seabirds. Being xenobiotics, i.e. substances of completely artificial origin, they do not have their “consumers” among microorganisms and therefore almost do not decompose in natural conditions, but only accumulate in the World Ocean. At the same time, they are acutely toxic, affect the hematopoietic system, suppress enzymatic activity, and greatly affect heredity. It is known that noticeable doses of DDT were discovered relatively recently in the bodies of penguins. Penguins, fortunately, are not included in the human diet, but the same DDT or lead accumulated in fish, edible shellfish and algae, when entering the human body, can lead to very serious, sometimes tragic, consequences. Cases of poisoning from mercury preparations administered through food occur in many Western countries. But perhaps the best known is Minimata disease, named after the city in Japan where it was reported in 1953.
Symptoms of this incurable disease are speech, vision, and paralysis. Its outbreak was noted in the mid-60s in a completely different area of the Land of the Rising Sun. The reason is the same: chemical companies dumped mercury-containing compounds into coastal waters, where they affected animals consumed by the local population as food. Having reached a certain level of concentration in the human body, these substances caused disease. The result is several hundred people confined to hospital beds and almost 70 dead.
Chlorinated hydrocarbons, widely used as means of controlling agricultural and forestry pests and carriers of infectious diseases, have been entering the World Ocean along with river runoff and through the atmosphere for many decades.
With the end of the First World War, the relevant authorities of the states of Atlanta faced the question of what to do with the stockpiles of captured German chemical weapons. It was decided to drown him in the sea. At the end of the Second World War, apparently remembering this. A number of capitalist countries dumped more than 20 thousand tons of toxic substances off the coast of Germany and Denmark. In 1970, the surface of the water where chemical warfare agents were dumped became covered with strange spots. Fortunately, there were no serious consequences. 12
Pollution of the World Ocean with radioactive substances poses a great danger. Experience has shown that as a result of the hydrogen bomb explosion carried out by the United States in the Pacific Ocean (1954), an area of 25,600 square meters. km. possessed deadly radiation. Within six months, the area of infection reached 2.5 million square meters. km., this was facilitated by the current.
Plants and animals are susceptible to contamination by radioactive substances. In their bodies there is a biological concentration of these substances, transmitted to each other through food chains. Infected small organisms are eaten by larger ones, resulting in dangerous concentrations in the latter. The radioactivity of some planktonic organisms can be 1000 times higher than the radioactivity of water, and some fish, which represent one of the highest links in the food chain, even 50 thousand times.
Animals remain contaminated in 1963. The Moscow Treaty banning the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, outer space and under water stopped the progressing radioactive mass pollution of the World Ocean.
However, the sources of this pollution remain in the form of plants for purifying uranium ore and processing nuclear fuel, nuclear power plants, and reactors.
Much more dangerous are the attempts made by some states to achieve a similar “solution” to the problem of radioactive waste disposal.
Unlike the relatively low-resistant toxic substances of the period of the two world wars, radioactivity, for example, strontium-89 and strontium-90, persists in any environment for decades. No matter how strong the containers in which waste is buried, there is always a danger of their depressurization as a result of the active influence of external chemical agents, enormous pressure in the depths of the sea, impacts on solid objects in a storm - you never know what reasons are possible? Not long ago, during a storm off the coast of Venezuela, containers with radioactive isotopes were found. A lot of dead tuna appeared in the same area at the same time. The investigation showed. That this particular area was chosen by American ships to dump radioactive substances. A similar thing happened with burials in the Irish Sea, where plankton, fish, algae, and beaches were contaminated with radioactive isotopes. In order to prevent the danger of both radioactive and other types of ocean pollution, the London Convention of 1972, the International Convention of 1973 and other international legal acts provide for certain sanctions for damage from pollution. But this is in case of detection of both contamination and the culprit. In the meantime, from an entrepreneur's point of view, the ocean is the safest and cheapest place to dump. Additional scientific research and development of methods for neutralizing radioactive contamination in water bodies are needed 13 .
Mineral, organic, bacterial and biological contamination. Mineral contaminants are usually represented by sand, clay particles, particles of ore, slag, mineral salts, solutions of acids, alkalis, etc.
Organic pollution is divided by origin into plant and animal. Pollution is caused by the remains of plants, fruits, vegetables and cereals, vegetable oil, etc.
Pesticides. Pesticides constitute a group of artificially created substances used to control plant pests and diseases. Pesticides are divided into the following groups:
1.insecticides to combat harmful insects;
2.fungicides and bactericides - to combat bacterial plant diseases;
3. herbicides against weeds.
It has been established that pesticides, while destroying pests, harm many beneficial organisms and undermine the health of biocenoses. In agriculture, there is already a problem of transition from chemical (polluting) to biological (environmentally friendly) methods of pest control.
Seaweed. Domestic wastewater contains a large amount of biogenic elements (including nitrogen and phosphorus), which contribute to the massive development of algae and eutrophication of water bodies.
Algae color the water in different colors, and therefore the process itself is called “blooming of reservoirs.” Representatives of blue-green algae color the water bluish-green, sometimes reddish, and form an almost black crust on the surface. Diatan algae gives the water a yellowish-brown color, chrysophytes give it a golden yellow color, and chlorococcal algae gives it a green color. Under the influence of algae, water acquires an unpleasant odor and changes its taste. When they die off, putrefactive processes develop in the reservoir. Bacteria that oxidize the organic substances of algae consume oxygen, as a result of which a deficiency of oxygen is created in the reservoir. The water begins to rot, emit an ammonia and methane stench, and black sticky hydrogen sulfide deposits accumulate at the bottom. During the decomposition process, dying algae also release phenol, indole, skatole and other toxic substances. Fish leave such reservoirs, the water in them becomes unsuitable for drinking and even for swimming 14.
2.2. Zones of pollution of the World Ocean
As noted above, the main source of pollution of the World Ocean is oil, therefore the main pollution zones are oil-producing areas.
Every year, more than 10 million tons of oil enter the World Ocean and up to 20% of its area is already covered with an oil film. This is primarily due to the fact that oil and gas production in the World Ocean has become the most important component of the oil and gas complex. By the end of the 90s. 850 million tons of oil were produced in the ocean (almost 30% of world production). About 2,500 wells have been drilled in the world, of which 800 are in the USA, 540 in Southeast Asia, 400 in the North Sea, 150 in the Persian Gulf. These wells were drilled at depths of up to 900 m.
Pollution of the hydrosphere by water transport occurs through two channels. Firstly, ships pollute it with waste generated as a result of operational activities, and, secondly, with emissions of toxic cargo, mostly oil and petroleum products, in the event of accidents. Ship power plants (mainly diesel engines) constantly pollute the atmosphere, from where toxic substances partially or almost completely enter the waters of rivers, seas and oceans.
Oil and petroleum products are the main pollutants of the water basin. On tankers transporting oil and its derivatives, before each regular loading, as a rule, containers (tanks) are washed to remove the remnants of previously transported cargo. The washing water, and with it the remaining cargo, is usually dumped overboard. In addition, after delivering oil cargo to destination ports, tankers are most often sent empty to the new loading point. In this case, to ensure proper draft and safe navigation, the ship's tanks are filled with ballast water. This water is contaminated with oil residues and is poured into the sea before loading oil and petroleum products. Of the total cargo turnover of the world maritime fleet, 49% currently falls on oil and its derivatives. Every year, about 6,000 tankers of international fleets transport 3 billion tons of oil. As oil cargo transportation grew, more and more oil began to end up in the ocean during accidents.
Huge damage to the ocean was caused by the crash of the American supertanker Torrey Canyon off the southwest coast of England in March 1967: 120 thousand tons of oil spilled onto the water and was set on fire by incendiary bombs from aircraft. The oil burned for several days. The beaches and coasts of England and France were polluted.
In the decade after the Torrey Canon tanker disaster, more than 750 large tankers were lost in the seas and oceans. Most of these crashes were accompanied by massive releases of oil and petroleum products into the sea. In 1978, a disaster occurred off the French coast again, with even more significant consequences than in 1967. Here the American supertanker Amono Kodis crashed in a storm. More than 220 thousand tons of oil spilled from the ship, covering an area of 3.5 thousand square meters. km. Enormous damage was caused to fishing, fish farming, oyster “plantations”, and all marine life in the area. For 180 km, the coastline was covered with black mourning “crepe”.
In 1989, the Valdez tanker accident off the coast of Alaska became the largest environmental disaster of its kind in US history. A huge tanker, half a kilometer long, ran aground about 25 miles from the coast. Then about 40 thousand tons of oil spilled into the sea. A huge oil slick spread over a radius of 50 miles from the accident site, covering an area of 80 square meters with a dense film. km. The cleanest and richest coastal areas of North America were poisoned.
To prevent such disasters, double-hulled tankers are being developed. In the event of an accident, if one hull is damaged, the second will prevent oil from entering the sea.
The ocean is also polluted by other types of industrial waste. Approximately 20 billion tons of garbage were dumped into all the seas of the world (1988). It is estimated that per 1 sq. km of ocean there is an average of 17 tons of waste. It was recorded that 98 thousand tons of waste were dumped into the North Sea in one day (1987).
The famous traveler Thor Heyerdahl said that when he and his friends sailed on the Kon-Tiki raft in 1954, they never tired of admiring the purity of the ocean, and while sailing on the papyrus ship Ra-2 in 1969, he and his companions , “We woke up in the morning to find the ocean so polluted that there was nowhere to dip a toothbrush...... From blue, the Atlantic Ocean became gray-green and cloudy, and lumps of fuel oil the size of a pinhead to a loaf of bread were floating everywhere. There were plastic bottles dangling in this mess, as if we had found ourselves in a dirty harbor. I didn’t see anything like this when I sat in the ocean on the Kon-Tiki logs for one hundred and one days. We have seen with our own eyes that people are poisoning the most important source of life, the mighty filter of the globe – the World Ocean.”
Up to 2 million seabirds and 100 thousand marine animals, including up to 30 thousand seals, die annually after swallowing any plastic products or becoming entangled in scraps of nets and cables 15 .
Germany, Belgium, Holland, England dumped toxic acids into the North Sea, mainly 18-20% sulfuric acid, heavy metals with soil and sewage sludge containing arsenic and mercury, as well as hydrocarbons, including toxic dioxin. Heavy metals include a number of elements widely used in industry: zinc, lead, chromium, copper, nickel, cobalt, molybdenum, etc. When they enter the body, most metals are very difficult to remove, they tend to constantly accumulate in the tissues of various organs, and when exceeded A certain threshold concentration causes severe poisoning of the body.
Three rivers flowing into the North Sea, the Rhine, Meuse and Elbe, annually brought 28 million tons of zinc, almost 11,000 tons of lead, 5,600 tons of copper, as well as 950 tons of arsenic, cadmium, mercury and 150 thousand tons of oil, 100 thousand. tons of phosphates and even radioactive waste in different quantities (data for 1996). Ships discharged 145 million tons of ordinary garbage annually. England discharged 5 million tons of sewage per year.
As a result of oil production from pipelines connecting oil platforms with the mainland, about 30,000 tons of petroleum products leaked into the sea every year. The consequences of this pollution are not difficult to see. A number of species that once lived in the North Sea, including salmon, sturgeon, oysters, stingrays and haddock, have simply disappeared. Seals are dying, other inhabitants of this sea often suffer from infectious skin diseases, have deformed skeletons and malignant tumors. Birds that eat fish or are poisoned by sea water die. There were toxic algae blooms that led to a decline in fish stocks (1988).
In the Baltic Sea during 1989, 17 thousand seals died. Studies have shown that the tissues of dead animals are literally saturated with mercury, which entered their bodies from water. Biologists believe that water pollution led to a sharp weakening of the immune system of sea inhabitants and their death from viral diseases.
Large oil spills (thousands of tons) occur in the Eastern Baltic once every 3-5 years, small spills (tens of tons) occur monthly. A large spill affects ecosystems over a water area of several thousand hectares, while a small spill affects several tens of hectares. The Baltic Sea, the Skagerrak Strait, and the Irish Sea are threatened by emissions of mustard gas, a toxic chemical created by Germany during the Second World War and sunk by Germany, Great Britain and the USSR in the 40s. The USSR sank its chemical munitions in the northern seas and the Far East, Great Britain - in the Irish Sea.
In 1983, the International Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution came into force. In 1984, the Baltic states signed the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea in Helsinki. This was the first international agreement at the regional level. As a result of the work carried out, the content of petroleum products in the open waters of the Baltic Sea decreased by 20 times compared to 1975.
In 1992, the ministers of 12 states and a representative of the European Community signed a new Convention for the Protection of the Environment of the Baltic Sea Basin.
The Adriatic and Mediterranean seas are being polluted. Through the Po River alone, 30 thousand tons of phosphorus, 80 thousand tons of nitrogen, 60 thousand tons of hydrocarbons, thousands of tons of lead and chromium, 3 thousand tons of zinc, 250 tons of arsenic enter the Adriatic Sea annually from industrial enterprises and agricultural farms.
The Mediterranean Sea is in danger of becoming a garbage dump, the sewer of three continents. Every year, 60 thousand tons of detergents, 24 thousand tons of chromium, and thousands of tons of nitrates used in agriculture enter the sea. In addition, 85% of the water discharged from 120 large coastal cities is not purified (1989), and self-purification (complete renewal of water) of the Mediterranean Sea is carried out through the Strait of Gibraltar in 80 years.
Due to pollution, the Aral Sea has completely lost its fishing significance since 1984. Its unique ecosystem has perished.
The owners of the Tisso chemical plant in the town of Minamata on the island of Kyushu (Japan) have been dumping wastewater laden with mercury into the ocean for many years. Coastal waters and fish were poisoned, and since the 50s, 1,200 people have died and 100,000 have suffered poisoning of varying severity, including psychoparalytic illnesses.
A serious environmental threat to life in the World Ocean and, consequently, to humans is posed by the burial of radioactive waste (RAW) on the seabed and the dumping of liquid radioactive waste (LRW) into the sea. Since 1946, Western countries (USA, UK, France, Germany, Italy, etc.) and the USSR began to actively use the ocean depths to get rid of radioactive waste.
In 1959, the US Navy sank a failed nuclear reactor from a nuclear submarine 120 miles off the US Atlantic coast. According to Greenpeace, our country dumped about 17 thousand concrete containers with radioactive waste into the sea, as well as more than 30 ship nuclear reactors.
The most difficult situation has developed in the Barents and Kara Seas around the nuclear test site on Novaya Zemlya. There, in addition to countless containers, 17 reactors, including those with nuclear fuel, several damaged nuclear submarines, as well as the central compartment of the Lenin nuclear-powered icebreaker with three damaged reactors were sunk. The USSR Pacific Fleet buried nuclear waste (including 18 reactors) in the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk, in 10 places off the coast of Sakhalin and Vladivostok.
The USA and Japan dumped waste from nuclear power plants into the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Arctic Ocean.
The USSR discharged liquid radioactive waste in the Far Eastern seas from 1966 to 1991 (mainly near the southeastern part of Kamchatka and in the Sea of Japan). The Northern Fleet annually dumped 10 thousand cubic meters into the water. m of liquid radioactive waste.
In 1972, the London Convention was signed, prohibiting the dumping of radioactive and toxic chemical waste on the bottom of the seas and oceans. Our country also joined that convention. Warships, in accordance with international law, do not need permission to discharge. In 1993, the dumping of liquid radioactive waste into the sea was prohibited.
In 1982, the 3rd UN Conference on the Law of the Sea adopted a convention on the peaceful use of the oceans in the interests of all countries and peoples, which contains about a thousand international legal norms regulating all major issues of the use of ocean resources 16 .
ChapterIII. The main directions of combating pollution of the World Ocean
3.1.Basic methods for eliminating pollution of the World Ocean
Methods for purifying the waters of the World Ocean from oil:
localization of the site (using floating barriers - booms),
burning in localized areas,
removal using sand treated with a special composition; As a result, oil sticks to the sand grains and sinks to the bottom.
absorption of oil by straw, sawdust, emulsions, dispersants, using gypsum,
the drug “DN-75”, which cleans the sea surface from oil pollution in a few minutes.
a number of biological methods, the use of microorganisms that are capable of decomposing hydrocarbons down to carbon dioxide and water.
the use of special vessels equipped with installations for collecting oil from the sea surface 17.
Special small vessels have been created that are delivered by plane to the site of tanker accidents; each such vessel can suck up to 1.5 thousand liters of oil-water mixture, separating over 90 oil and pumping it into special floating tanks, which are then towed to the shore; safety standards are established for the construction of tankers, for the organization of transportation systems, and movement in bays. But they all suffer from the disadvantage that vague language allows private companies to bypass them; There is no one other than the Coast Guard to enforce these laws.
Let's consider ways to combat ocean pollution in developed countries.
USA. There is a proposal to use wastewater as a breeding ground for chlorella algae used in livestock feed. During the growth process, chlorella releases bactericidal substances that change the acidity of the wastewater in such a way that pathogenic bacteria and viruses die in the water, i.e. wastewater is disinfected.
France : creation of 6 territorial committees that control the protection and use of water; the construction of treatment facilities to collect contaminated water from tankers, groups of planes and helicopters ensure that not a single tanker discharges ballast water or residual oil products on the approaches to ports, the use of dry paper forming technology. With this technology, the need for water disappears altogether, and there are no toxic waste.
Sweden : a certain group of isotopes is used to mark the tanks of each ship. Then, using a special device, the intruder vessel is accurately identified from the spot.
Great Britain : The Water Resources Council has been created, which is vested with great powers, including bringing to justice persons who allow the discharge of pollutants into water bodies.
Japan : A marine pollution monitoring service has been created. Special boats regularly patrol Tokyo Bay and coastal waters; robotic buoys have been created to identify the degree and composition of pollution, as well as its causes.
Methods for wastewater treatment have also been developed. Wastewater treatment is the treatment of wastewater to destroy or remove harmful substances from it. Cleaning methods can be divided into mechanical, chemical, physicochemical and biological.
The essence of the mechanical treatment method is that existing impurities are removed from wastewater by sedimentation and filtration. Mechanical treatment makes it possible to isolate up to 60-75% of insoluble impurities from domestic wastewater, and up to 95% from industrial wastewater, many of which (as valuable materials) are used in production 18 .
The chemical method involves adding various chemical reagents to wastewater, which react with pollutants and precipitate them in the form of insoluble sediments. Chemical cleaning achieves a reduction in insoluble impurities up to 95% and soluble impurities up to 25%.
With the physicochemical method of treatment, finely dispersed and dissolved inorganic impurities are removed from wastewater and organic and poorly oxidized substances are destroyed. Of the physicochemical methods, the most commonly used are coagulation, oxidation, sorption, extraction, etc., as well as electrolysis. Electrolysis involves breaking down organic matter in wastewater and extracting metals, acids and other inorganic substances by passing an electric current. Wastewater treatment using electrolysis is effective in lead and copper plants and in the paint and varnish industry.
Wastewater is also purified using ultrasound, ozone, ion exchange resins and high pressure. Cleaning by chlorination has proven itself well.
Among wastewater treatment methods, the biological method, based on the use of the laws of biochemical self-purification of rivers and other bodies of water, should play a major role. Various types of biological devices are used: biofilters, biological ponds, etc. In biofilters, wastewater is passed through a layer of coarse material coated with a thin bacterial film. Thanks to this film, biological oxidation processes occur intensively.
Before biological treatment, wastewater is subjected to mechanical treatment, and after biological treatment (to remove pathogenic bacteria) and chemical treatment, chlorination with liquid chlorine or bleach. Other physical and chemical techniques (ultrasound, electrolysis, ozonation, etc.) are also used for disinfection. The biological method gives the best results when cleaning municipal waste, as well as waste from oil refining, pulp and paper industries, and artificial fiber production. 19
In order to reduce hydrosphere pollution, it is desirable to reuse it in closed resource-saving, waste-free processes in industry, drip irrigation in agriculture, and economical use of water in production and in everyday life.
3.2.Organization of scientific research in the field of waste-free and low-waste technologies
Greening the economy is not a completely new problem. The practical implementation of the principles of environmental friendliness is closely related to the knowledge of natural processes and the achieved technical level of production. Novelty is manifested in the equivalence of the exchange between nature and man on the basis of optimal organizational and technical solutions for the creation, for example, of artificial ecosystems, for the use of material and technical resources provided by nature.
In the process of greening the economy, experts highlight some features. For example, in order to minimize environmental damage, only one type of product needs to be produced in a particular region. If society needs an expanded range of products, then it is advisable to develop waste-free technologies, effective cleaning systems and techniques, as well as control and measuring equipment. This will allow us to establish the production of useful products from by-products and industrial waste. It is advisable to review existing technological processes that are harmful to the environment. The main goals that we strive for when greening the economy are reducing the technogenic load, maintaining natural potential through self-healing and the regime of natural processes in nature, reducing losses, comprehensive extraction of useful components, and using waste as a secondary resource. Currently, the greening of various disciplines is rapidly developing, which is understood as the process of steady and consistent implementation of systems of technological, managerial and other solutions that make it possible to increase the efficiency of use of natural resources and conditions along with improving or at least maintaining the quality of the natural environment (or the living environment in general) in local, regional and global levels. There is also the concept of greening production technologies, the essence of which is the application of measures to prevent negative impacts on the natural environment. The greening of technologies is carried out by the development of low-waste technologies or technological chains that produce a minimum of harmful emissions at the output 20.
Research is currently being carried out on a broad front to establish limits for permissible loads on the natural environment and to develop comprehensive ways to overcome emerging objective limits in environmental management. This also applies not to ecology, but to ecology - a scientific discipline that studies “eco-ecology”. Ekonekol (economics + ecology) is a designation for a set of phenomena that includes society as a socio-economic whole (but above all economics and technology) and natural resources that are in a positive feedback relationship with irrational environmental management. An example is the rapid development of the economy in a region in the presence of large environmental resources and good general environmental conditions, and vice versa, the technologically rapid development of the economy without taking into account environmental limitations then leads to forced stagnation in the economy.
Currently, many branches of ecology have a pronounced practical orientation and are of great importance for the development of various sectors of the national economy. In this regard, new scientific and practical disciplines have emerged at the intersection of ecology and the sphere of practical human activity: applied ecology, designed to optimize the relationship between man and the biosphere, engineering ecology, which studies the interaction of society with the natural environment in the process of social production, etc.
Currently, many engineering disciplines are trying to isolate themselves within the framework of their production and see their task only in the development of closed, waste-free and other “environmentally friendly” technologies that reduce their harmful impact on the natural environment. But the problem of rational interaction between production and nature cannot be completely solved in this way, since in this case one of the components of the system - nature - is excluded from consideration. The study of the process of social production with the environment requires the use of both engineering and environmental methods, which led to the development of a new scientific direction at the intersection of technical, natural and social sciences, called engineering ecology.
A feature of energy production is the direct impact on the natural environment in the process of fuel extraction and combustion, and the changes in natural components that occur are very obvious. Natural-industrial systems, depending on the accepted qualitative and quantitative parameters of technological processes, differ from each other in structure, functioning and the nature of interaction with the natural environment. In fact, even natural-industrial systems that are identical in qualitative and quantitative parameters of technological processes differ from each other in the uniqueness of their environmental conditions, which leads to different interactions between production and its natural environment. Therefore, the subject of research in environmental engineering is the interaction of technological and natural processes in natural-industrial systems.
Environmental legislation establishes legal norms and rules, and also introduces liability for their violation in the field of protection of the natural and human environment. Environmental legislation includes the legal protection of natural resources, natural protected areas, the natural environment of cities (populated areas), suburban areas, green areas, resorts, as well as environmental international legal aspects.
Legislative acts on the protection of the natural and human environment include international or governmental decisions (conventions, agreements, pacts, laws, regulations), decisions of local government bodies, departmental instructions, etc., regulating legal relationships or establishing restrictions in the field of natural resource protection environment surrounding a person.
The consequences of disturbances of natural phenomena cross the borders of individual states and require international efforts to protect not only individual ecosystems (forests, reservoirs, swamps, etc.), but also the entire biosphere as a whole. All states are concerned about the fate of the biosphere and the continued existence of humanity. In 1971, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), which includes most countries, adopted the International Biological Program "Man and the Biosphere", which studies changes in the biosphere and its resources under human influence. These problems, important for the fate of humanity, can only be resolved through close international cooperation.
Environmental policy in the national economy is carried out mainly through laws, general regulatory documents (GND), building codes and regulations (SNiP) and other documents in which engineering and technical solutions are linked to environmental standards. The environmental standard provides for mandatory conditions for preserving the structure and functions of the ecosystem (from elementary biogeocenosis to the biosphere as a whole), as well as all environmental components that are vital for human economic activity. An environmental standard determines the degree of maximum permissible human intervention in ecosystems, at which ecosystems of the desired structure and dynamic qualities are preserved. In other words, impacts on the natural environment that lead to desertification are unacceptable in human economic activity. The indicated restrictions in human economic activity or the limitation of the influence of noocenoses on the natural environment are determined by the states of noobiogeocenosis desirable for humans, its socio-biological endurance and economic considerations. As an example of an environmental standard, one can cite the biological productivity of a biogeocenosis and economic productivity. The general environmental standard for all ecosystems is the preservation of their dynamic qualities, primarily reliability and sustainability 21 .
The global environmental standard determines the preservation of the planet’s biosphere, including the Earth’s climate, in a form suitable for human life and favorable for its management. These provisions are fundamental in determining the most effective ways to reduce the duration and increase the efficiency of the research-production cycle. These include reducing the duration of each stage of the cycle; The reduction in the stages of the analyzed cycle is due to the fact that the achievements of advanced industries are based on modern fundamental research in the field of physics, chemistry and technology, the updating of which is extremely dynamic. This accordingly leads to the need for dynamic improvement of organizational structures aimed at creating and mastering new technology. The greatest influence on reducing the duration of the stages of the research - production cycle is exerted by organizational measures, such as the level of the material and technical base of research and development, the level of management organization, the system of training and advanced training, methods of economic incentives, etc.
Improving the organizational and methodological foundations includes work related to the development of the industry, which includes the development of forecasts, long-term and current plans for the development of the industry, standardization programs, reliability, feasibility studies, etc.; coordination and methodological guidance of research work in areas, problems and topics; analysis and improvement of the mechanisms of economic activity of industry associations and their services. All these problems are solved in the industry by creating economic and organizational systems of various types - research and production associations (SPA), research and production sets (RPK), production associations (PO).
The main task of the NGO is to accelerate scientific and technological progress in the industry based on the use of the latest achievements in the field of science and technology, technology and production organization. Research and production associations have all the capabilities to implement this task, since they are unified scientific, production and economic complexes, which include research, design (design) and technological organizations and other structural units. Thus, objective prerequisites have been created for combining the stages of the research - production cycle, which is characterized by time periods of sequential-parallel carrying out individual stages of research and development.
Let us give examples of the development of low-waste and non-waste technologies related to the use of energy resources of the World Ocean.
3.3.Use of energy resources of the World Ocean
The problem of providing electrical energy to many sectors of the world economy, the constantly growing needs of more than six billion people on Earth, is now becoming more and more urgent.
The basis of modern world energy is thermal and hydroelectric power plants. However, their development is hampered by a number of factors. The cost of coal, oil and gas, on which thermal power plants operate, is rising, and the natural resources of these types of fuel are declining. In addition, many countries do not have their own fuel resources or lack them. Hydropower resources in developed countries are almost completely used: most river sections suitable for hydraulic engineering construction have already been developed. A way out of this situation was seen in the development of nuclear energy. At the end of 1989, more than 400 nuclear power plants (NPPs) were built and operating in the world. However, today nuclear power plants are no longer considered a source of cheap and environmentally friendly energy. The fuel for nuclear power plants is uranium ore - an expensive and difficult-to-extract raw material, the reserves of which are limited. In addition, the construction and operation of nuclear power plants are associated with great difficulties and costs. Only a few countries are now continuing to build new nuclear power plants. A serious obstacle to the further development of nuclear energy is the problem of environmental pollution.
Since the middle of our century, the study of ocean energy resources related to “renewable energy sources” began.
The ocean is a giant battery and transformer of solar energy, converted into the energy of currents, heat and winds. Tidal energy is the result of the tidal forces of the Moon and the Sun.
Ocean energy resources are of great value as they are renewable and practically inexhaustible. The operating experience of existing ocean energy systems shows that they do not cause any significant damage to the ocean environment. When designing future ocean energy systems, their environmental impacts are carefully considered.
The ocean serves as a source of rich mineral resources. They are divided into chemical elements dissolved in water, minerals contained under the seabed, both on continental shelves and beyond; minerals on the bottom surface. More than 90% of the total value of mineral raw materials comes from oil and gas. 22
The total oil and gas area within the shelf is estimated at 13 million sq. km (about ½ of its area).
The largest areas for oil and gas production from the seabed are the Persian and Mexican Gulfs. Commercial production of gas and oil from the bottom of the North Sea has begun.
The shelf is also rich in surface deposits, represented by numerous placers at the bottom containing metal ores, as well as non-metallic minerals.
Rich deposits of ferromanganese nodules, unique multicomponent ores containing nickel, cobalt, copper, etc., have been discovered in vast areas of the ocean. At the same time, research allows us to expect the discovery of large deposits of various metals in specific rocks lying under the ocean floor.
The idea of using thermal energy accumulated by tropical and subtropical ocean waters was proposed at the end of the 19th century. The first attempts to implement it were made in the 30s. of our century and showed the promise of this idea. In the 70s A number of countries have begun to design and build experimental ocean thermal power plants (OTPS), which are complex large-sized structures. OTES can be located on the shore or in the ocean (on anchor systems or in free drift). The operation of OTES is based on the principle used in a steam engine. A boiler filled with freon or ammonia - liquids with low boiling points - is washed with warm surface waters. The resulting steam rotates a turbine connected to an electric generator. The exhaust steam is cooled by water from the underlying cold layers and, condensing into liquid, is pumped back into the boiler. The design capacity of the designed OTES is 250 – 400 MW.
Scientists at the Pacific Oceanological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences have proposed and are implementing an original idea for generating electricity based on the temperature difference between subglacial water and air, which in the Arctic regions is 26 °C or more. 23
Compared to traditional thermal and nuclear power plants, OTES are assessed by experts as more cost-effective and virtually non-polluting to the ocean environment. The recent discovery of hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean gives rise to an attractive idea of creating underwater OTES operating on the temperature difference between the sources and the surrounding waters. The most attractive locations for OTES are tropical and arctic latitudes.
The use of tidal energy began already in the 11th century. for the operation of mills and sawmills on the shores of the White and North Seas. Until now, such structures serve the residents of a number of coastal countries. Currently, research on the creation of tidal power plants (TPPs) is being conducted in many countries around the world.
Twice a day at the same time, the ocean level rises and falls. It is the gravitational forces of the Moon and the Sun that attract masses of water. Far from the coast, fluctuations in water level do not exceed 1 m, but near the coast they can reach 13 m, as, for example, in Penzhinskaya Bay on the Sea of Okhotsk.
Tidal power plants operate on the following principle: a dam is built at the mouth of a river or bay, in the body of which hydraulic units are installed. A tidal pool is created behind the dam, which is filled by the tidal current passing through the turbines. At low tide, water flows from the pool into the sea, rotating the turbines in the opposite direction. It is considered economically feasible to build a tidal power plant in areas with tidal fluctuations in sea level of at least 4 m. The design capacity of a tidal power plant depends on the nature of the tide in the area where the station is being built, on the volume and area of the tidal basin, and on the number of turbines installed in the dam body.
Some projects provide for two or more basin TPP schemes in order to equalize electricity generation.
With the creation of special, capsule turbines operating in both directions, new opportunities have opened up to increase the efficiency of PES, subject to their inclusion in the unified energy system of a region or country. When the high or low tide coincides with the period of greatest energy consumption, the TPP operates in turbine mode, and when the high or low tide coincides with the lowest energy consumption, the TPP turbines are either turned off or they operate in pump mode, filling the pool above the high tide level or pumping water out of the pool .
In 1968, the first pilot industrial power plant in our country was built on the coast of the Barents Sea in Kislaya Bay. The power plant building houses 2 hydraulic units with a capacity of 400 kW.
Ten years of experience in operating the first TPP allowed us to begin drawing up projects for the Mezen TPP on the White Sea, Penzhinskaya and Tugurskaya on the Sea of Okhotsk. Harnessing the great forces of the tides of the world's oceans, even the ocean waves themselves, is an interesting problem. They are just beginning to solve it. There is a lot to be studied, invented, designed.
In 1966, the world's first tidal power plant was built on the Rance River in France, with 24 hydroelectric units producing an average of
502 million kW. hour of electricity. A tidal capsule unit has been developed for this station, allowing three direct and three reverse operating modes: as a generator, as a pump and as a culvert, which ensures efficient operation of the TPP. According to experts, PES Rance is economically justified. Annual operating costs are lower than for hydroelectric power plants and amount to 4% of capital investments.
The idea of generating electricity from sea waves was outlined back in 1935 by the Soviet scientist K.E. Tsiolkovsky.
The operation of wave energy stations is based on the effect of waves on working bodies made in the form of floats, pendulums, blades, shells, etc. The mechanical energy of their movements is converted into electrical energy using electric generators.
Currently, wave energy installations are used to power autonomous buoys, beacons, and scientific instruments. Along the way, large wave stations can be used for wave protection of offshore drilling platforms, open roadsteads, and mariculture farms. The industrial use of wave energy began. Around the world, about 400 lighthouses and navigation buoys are powered by wave installations. In India, the floating lighthouse of the port of Madras operates from wave energy. Since 1985, the world's first industrial wave station with a capacity of 850 kW has been operating in Norway.
The creation of wave power plants is determined by the optimal choice of ocean water area with a stable supply of wave energy, the effective design of the station, which includes built-in devices for smoothing the uneven wave regime. It is believed that wave stations can operate effectively using a power of about 80 kW/m. The experience of operating existing installations has shown that the electricity they generate is still 2-3 times more expensive than traditional ones, but in the future a significant reduction in its cost is expected.
In wave installations with pneumatic converters, under the influence of waves, the air flow periodically changes its direction to the opposite direction. For these conditions, a Wells turbine was developed, the rotor of which has a rectifying effect, maintaining the direction of its rotation unchanged when changing the direction of the air flow; therefore, the direction of rotation of the generator is also maintained unchanged. The turbine has found wide application in various wave power plants.
The wave power plant "Kaimei" ("Sea Light") - the most powerful operating power plant with pneumatic converters - was built in Japan in 1976. It uses waves up to 6 - 10 m high. On a barge 80 m long, 12 m wide, high 7 m in the bow, 2.3 m in the stern, with a displacement of 500 tons, 22 air chambers are installed, open at the bottom; each pair of chambers operates one Wells turbine. The total power of the installation is 1000 kW. The first tests were carried out in 1978 - 1979. near the city of Tsuruoka. The energy was transmitted to shore via an underwater cable about 3 km long,
In 1985, an industrial wave station consisting of two installations was built in Norway, 46 km northwest of the city of Bergen. The first installation on the island of Toftestallen worked on a pneumatic principle. It was a reinforced concrete chamber buried in the rock; a steel tower with a height of 12.3 mm and a diameter of 3.6 m was installed above it. The waves entering the chamber created a change in air volume. The resulting flow through the valve system rotated the turbine and the associated generator with a capacity of 500 kW, the annual output was 1.2 million kWh. A winter storm at the end of 1988 destroyed the station tower. A project for a new reinforced concrete tower is being developed.
The design of the second installation consists of a cone-shaped channel in a gorge about 170 m long with concrete walls 15 m high and 55 m wide at the base, entering a reservoir between the islands, separated from the sea by dams, and a dam with a power plant. The waves, passing through a narrowing channel, increase their height from 1.1 to 15 m and flow into a reservoir with an area of 5500 square meters. m, the level of which is 3 m above sea level. From the reservoir, water passes through low-pressure hydraulic turbines with a power of 350 kW. The station annually produces up to 2 million kW. h of electricity.
In the UK, an original design of a “clam”-type wave energy plant is being developed, in which soft shells are used as working bodies - chambers containing air under pressure slightly greater than atmospheric pressure. As the waves roll up, the chambers are compressed, forming a closed air flow from the chambers to the installation frame and back. Wells air turbines with electric generators are installed along the flow path.
An experimental floating installation of 6 chambers mounted on a frame 120 m long and 8 m high is currently being created. The expected power is 500 kW. Further developments showed that the greatest effect is achieved by placing the cameras in a circle. In Scotland, on Loch Ness, an installation consisting of 12 chambers and 8 turbines mounted on a frame with a diameter of 60 m and a height of 7 m was tested. The theoretical power of such an installation is up to 1200 kW.
The design of a wave raft was first patented in the territory of the former USSR back in 1926. In 1978, experimental models of ocean power plants based on a similar solution were tested in the UK. The Kokkerel wave raft consists of hinged sections, the movement of which relative to each other is transmitted to pumps with electric generators. The entire structure is held in place by anchors. The three-section Kokkerel wave raft, 100 m long, 50 m wide and 10 m high, can provide a power of up to 2 thousand kW.
IN THE TERRITORY OF THE FORMER USSR, the wave raft model was tested in the 70s. at the Black Sea. It had a length of 12 m, the width of the floats was 0.4 m. On waves 0.5 m high and 10 - 15 m long, the installation developed a power of 150 kW.
The project, known as the Salter duck, is a wave energy converter. The working structure is a float (“duck”), the profile of which is calculated according to the laws of hydrodynamics. The project provides for the installation of a large number of large floats, sequentially mounted on a common shaft. Under the influence of waves, the floats begin to move and return to their original position by the force of their own weight. In this case, pumps are activated inside a shaft filled with specially prepared water. Through a system of pipes of various diameters, a pressure difference is created, driving turbines installed between the floats and raised above the sea surface. The generated electricity is transmitted via an undersea cable. To distribute loads more efficiently, 20–30 floats should be installed on the shaft.
In 1978, a 50 m long installation model was tested, consisting of 20 floats with a diameter of 1 m. The generated power was 10 kW.
A project has been developed for a more powerful installation of 20 - 30 floats with a diameter of 15 m, mounted on a shaft, 1200 m long. The estimated power of the installation is 45 thousand kW.
Similar systems installed off the western coast of the British Isles can meet the UK's electricity needs.
The use of wind energy has a long history. The idea of converting wind energy into electrical energy arose at the end of the 19th century.
In the territory of the former USSR, the first wind power plant (WPP) with a capacity of 100 kW was built in 1931 near the city of Yalta in Crimea. At that time it was the largest wind farm in the world. The average annual output of the station was 270 MW.hour. In 1942, the station was destroyed by the Nazis.
During the energy crisis of the 70s. interest in energy use has increased. The development of wind farms has begun for both the coastal zone and the open ocean. Ocean wind farms are capable of generating more energy than those located on land, since the winds over the ocean are stronger and more constant.
The construction of low-power wind farms (from hundreds of watts to tens of kilowatts) to supply energy to coastal villages, lighthouses, and seawater desalination plants is considered profitable with an average annual wind speed of 3.5-4 m/s. The construction of high-power wind farms (from hundreds of kilowatts to hundreds of megawatts) to transmit electricity to the country's energy system is justified where the average annual wind speed exceeds 5.5-6 m/s. (The power that can be obtained from 1 square meter of cross-section of the air flow is proportional to the wind speed to the third power). Thus, in Denmark, one of the leading countries in the world in the field of wind energy, there are already about 2,500 wind installations with a total capacity of 200 MW.
On the Pacific coast of the United States in California, where wind speeds of 13 m/s or more are observed for more than 5 thousand hours a year, several thousand high-power wind turbines are already operating. Wind farms of various capacities operate in Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, China, Russia and other countries.
Due to the variability of wind speed and direction, much attention is paid to the creation of wind turbines that work with other energy sources. The energy of large ocean wind farms is supposed to be used in the production of hydrogen from ocean water or in the extraction of minerals from the ocean floor.
Back at the end of the 19th century. a wind electric motor was used by F. Nansen on the ship "Fram" to provide the participants of the polar expedition with light and heat while drifting in the ice.
In Denmark, on the Jutland Peninsula in Ebeltoft Bay, sixteen wind farms with a capacity of 55 kW each and one wind farm with a capacity of 100 kW have been operating since 1985. They produce 2800-3000 MWh annually.
There is a project for a coastal power plant using wind and surf energy simultaneously.
The most powerful ocean currents are a potential source of energy. The current level of technology makes it possible to extract the energy of currents at flow speeds of more than 1 m/s. In this case, the power from 1 sq.m of flow cross-section is about 1 kW. It seems promising to use such powerful currents as the Gulf Stream and Kuroshio, carrying respectively 83 and 55 million cubic meters of water at a speed of up to 2 m/s, and the Florida Current (30 million cubic meters/s, speed up to 1. 8 m/s).
For ocean energy, currents in the Straits of Gibraltar, the English Channel, and the Kuril Straits are of interest. However, the creation of ocean power plants using the energy of currents is still associated with a number of technical difficulties, primarily with the creation of large power plants that pose a threat to shipping.
The Coriolis program envisages the installation of 242 turbines with two impellers with a diameter of 168 m, rotating in opposite directions, in the Strait of Florida, 30 km east of the city of Miami. A pair of impellers is placed inside a hollow aluminum chamber that provides buoyancy to the turbine. To increase efficiency, the wheel blades are supposed to be made quite flexible. The entire Coriolis system, with a total length of 60 km, will be oriented along the main flow; its width with turbines arranged in 22 rows of 11 turbines each will be 30 km. The units are supposed to be towed to the installation site and buried 30 m so as not to interfere with navigation.
The net power of each turbine, taking into account operating costs and losses during transmission to shore, will be 43 MW, which will satisfy the needs of the state of Florida (USA) by 10%.
The first prototype of such a turbine with a diameter of 1.5 m was tested in the Strait of Florida.
A design for a turbine with an impeller with a diameter of 12 m and a power of 400 kW has also been developed.
The salty water of the oceans and seas contains huge untapped reserves of energy, which can be efficiently converted into other forms of energy in areas with large salinity gradients, such as the mouths of the largest rivers in the world, such as the Amazon, Parana, Congo, etc. Osmotic pressure arising when fresh river waters are mixed with salty ones, it is proportional to the difference in salt concentrations in these waters. On average, this pressure is 24 atm, and at the confluence of the Jordan River into the Dead Sea it is 500 atm. It is also proposed to use salt domes embedded in the thickness of the ocean floor as a source of osmotic energy. Calculations have shown that by using the energy obtained by dissolving the salt of a salt dome with average oil reserves, it is possible to obtain no less energy than by using the oil contained in it. 24
Work on converting “salty” energy into electrical energy is at the stage of projects and pilot plants. Among the proposed options, hydroosmotic devices with semi-permeable membranes are of interest. They absorb the solvent through the membrane into the solution. Fresh water - sea water or sea water - brine are used as solvents and solutions. The latter is obtained by dissolving salt dome deposits.
In the hydroosmotic chamber, the brine from the salt dome is mixed with seawater. From here, water passing through a semi-permeable membrane is supplied under pressure to a turbine connected to an electric generator.
An underwater hydroosmotic hydroelectric power station is located at a depth of more than 100 m. Fresh water is supplied to the hydraulic turbine through a pipeline. After the turbine, it is pumped into the sea by osmotic pumps in the form of blocks of semi-permeable membranes; the remaining river water with impurities and dissolved salts is removed by a flushing pump.
The biomass of algae found in the ocean contains a huge amount of energy. It is planned to use both coastal algae and phytoplankton for processing into fuel. The main methods of processing are the fermentation of algae carbohydrates into alcohols and the fermentation of large quantities of algae without air access to produce methane. Technology for processing phytoplankton to produce liquid fuel is also being developed. This technology is supposed to be combined with the operation of ocean thermal power plants. The heated deep waters of which will provide the process of breeding phytoplankton with heat and nutrients.
The project of the Biosolar complex substantiates the possibility of continuous cultivation of the microalgae chlorella in special containers floating on the surface of an open reservoir. The complex includes a system of floating containers connected by flexible pipelines on the shore or offshore platform and equipment for processing algae. Containers that act as cultivators are flat cellular floats made of reinforced polyethylene, open at the top to allow access to air and sunlight. They are connected by pipelines to the settling tank and regenerator. Part of the product for synthesis is pumped into the settling tank, and nutrients - the residue from anaerobic processing in the digester - are supplied to containers from the regenerator. The biogas produced in it contains methane and carbon dioxide.
Quite exotic projects are also offered. One of them considers, for example, the possibility of installing a power plant directly on an iceberg. The cold required to operate the station can be obtained from ice, and the resulting energy is used to move a giant block of frozen fresh water to places on the globe where there is very little of it, for example, to the countries of the Middle East.
Other scientists propose using the resulting energy to organize marine farms that produce food. Scientists' research is constantly turning to an inexhaustible source of energy - the ocean.
Conclusion
Main conclusions from the work:
1. Pollution of the World Ocean (as well as the hydrosphere in general) can be divided into the following types:
Pollution with oil and petroleum products leads to the appearance of oil slicks, which impedes the processes of photosynthesis in water due to the cessation of access to sunlight, and also causes the death of plants and animals. Each ton of oil creates an oil film over an area of up to 12 square meters. km. Restoration of affected ecosystems takes 10-15 years.
Pollution by wastewater as a result of industrial production, mineral and organic fertilizers as a result of agricultural production, as well as municipal wastewater leads to eutrophication of water bodies.
Pollution with heavy metal ions disrupts the life of aquatic organisms and humans.
Acid rain leads to the acidification of water bodies and the death of ecosystems.
Radioactive contamination is associated with the discharge of radioactive waste into water bodies.
Thermal pollution causes the discharge of heated water from thermal power plants and nuclear power plants into water bodies, which leads to the massive development of blue-green algae, the so-called water bloom, a decrease in the amount of oxygen and negatively affects the flora and fauna of water bodies.
Mechanical pollution increases the content of mechanical impurities.
Bacterial and biological contamination is associated with various pathogenic organisms, fungi and algae.
2. The most significant source of pollution of the World Ocean is oil pollution, therefore the main pollution zones are oil-producing areas. Oil and gas production in the World Ocean has become the most important component of the oil and gas complex. About 2,500 wells have been drilled in the world, of which 800 are in the USA, 540 in Southeast Asia, 400 in the North Sea, 150 in the Persian Gulf. These wells were drilled at depths of up to 900 m. However, oil contamination is also possible in random places - in the event of tanker accidents.
Another area of pollution is Western Europe, where pollution mainly occurs from chemical waste. EU countries dumped toxic acids into the North Sea, mainly 18-20% sulfuric acid, heavy metals with soil and sewage sludge containing arsenic and mercury, as well as hydrocarbons, including dioxin. In the Baltic and Mediterranean seas there are areas of pollution with mercury, carcinogens, and heavy metal compounds. Pollution with mercury compounds was found in the region of Southern Japan (Kyushu Island).
In the northern seas of the Far East, radioactive contamination predominates. In 1959, the US Navy sank a failed nuclear reactor from a nuclear submarine 120 miles off the US Atlantic coast. The most difficult situation has developed in the Barents and Kara Seas around the nuclear test site on Novaya Zemlya. There, in addition to countless containers, 17 reactors, including those with nuclear fuel, several damaged nuclear submarines, as well as the central compartment of the Lenin nuclear-powered icebreaker with three damaged reactors were sunk. The USSR Pacific Fleet buried nuclear waste (including 18 reactors) in the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk, in 10 places off the coast of Sakhalin and Vladivostok. The USA and Japan dumped waste from nuclear power plants into the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Arctic Ocean.
The USSR discharged liquid radioactive waste in the Far Eastern seas from 1966 to 1991 (mainly near the southeastern part of Kamchatka and in the Sea of Japan). The Northern Fleet annually dumped 10 thousand cubic meters into the water. m of liquid radioactive waste.
In some cases, despite the enormous achievements of modern science, it is currently impossible to eliminate certain types of chemical and radioactive pollution.
The following methods are used to purify the waters of the World Ocean from oil: localization of the area (using floating barriers - booms), burning in localized areas, removal using sand treated with a special composition; as a result of which oil sticks to sand grains and sinks to the bottom, oil absorption by straw, sawdust, emulsions, dispersants, with the help of gypsum, the drug “DN-75”, which cleanses the sea surface from oil pollution in a few minutes, a number of biological methods, the use of microorganisms , which are capable of decomposing hydrocarbons down to carbon dioxide and water, the use of special vessels equipped with installations for collecting oil from the surface of the sea.
Methods for treating wastewater, as another significant pollutant of the hydrosphere, have also been developed. Wastewater treatment is the treatment of wastewater to destroy or remove harmful substances from it. Cleaning methods can be divided into mechanical, chemical, physicochemical and biological. The essence of the mechanical treatment method is that existing impurities are removed from wastewater by sedimentation and filtration. The chemical method involves adding various chemical reagents to wastewater, which react with pollutants and precipitate them in the form of insoluble sediments. With the physicochemical method of treatment, finely dispersed and dissolved inorganic impurities are removed from wastewater and organic and poorly oxidized substances are destroyed.
List of used literature
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Application
Table 1.
Main zones of pollution of the World Ocean with oil and petroleum products
table 2
Main zones of chemical pollution of the World Ocean
|
Zone |
Nature of pollution |
|
North Sea (via the Rhine, Meuse, Elbe rivers) |
Arsenic pentoxide, dioxin, phosphates, carcinogenic compounds, heavy metal compounds, sewage waste |
|
Baltic Sea (Poland coast) |
Mercury and mercury compounds |
|
Irish sea |
Mustard gas, chlorine |
|
Sea of Japan (region of Kyushu Island) |
Mercury and mercury compounds |
|
Adriatic (via the Po River) and Mediterranean Sea |
Nitrates, phosphates, heavy metals |
|
Far East |
Toxic substances (chemical weapons) |
Table 3
Main zones of radioactive contamination of the World Ocean
Table 4
Brief description of other types of pollution of the World Ocean
1 International maritime law. Rep. ed. Blishchenko I.P., M., Peoples' Friendship University, 1998 – P.251
2 Molodtsov S.V. International maritime law. M., International relations, 1997 – P.115
3 Lazarev M.I. Theoretical issues of modern international maritime law. M., Nauka, 1993 – P. 110- Lopatin M.L. International straits and channels: legal issues. M., International Relations, 1995 – P. 130
4 Tsarev V.F. The legal nature of the economic zone and continental shelf under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and some aspects of the legal regime for marine scientific research in these spaces. In the journal: Soviet Yearbook of Maritime Law. M., 1985, p. 28-38.
5 Tsarev V.F.: Koroleva N.D. International legal regime of shipping on the high seas. M.: Transport, 1988 – P. 88; Alferova A.A., Nechaev A.P. Closed water systems of industrial enterprises, complexes and districts. M: Stroyizdat, 2000 – P.127
6 Hakapaa K. Marine pollution and international law. M.: Progress, 1986 – P. 221
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