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106 GLOBAL POLLUTION TRENDS: COASTAL ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT FOR THE PAST CENTURY GESAMP WORKING GROUP 39 REPORTS AND STUDIES AND REPORTS STUDIES AND REPORTS Published by the INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY Vienna International Centre PO Box 100 1400 Vienna, Austria Printed by Marketing and Sales Unit, Publishing Section International Atomic Energy Agency Vienna International Centre PO Box 100 1400 Vienna, Austria fax: +43 1 26007 22529, tel.: +43 1 2600 22417 email: [email protected] www.iaea.org/publications ISSN 1020-4873 Cover image: Mercury in LME23 (Baltic Sea) Joan-Albert Sanchez-Cabeza Notes: GESAMP is an advisory body consisting of specialized experts nominated by the Sponsoring Agencies (IMO, FAO, UNESCO-IOC, UNIDO, WMO, IAEA, UN, UNEP, UNDP, ISA). Its principal task is to provide scientific advice concerning the prevention, reduction and control of the degradation of the marine environment to the Sponsoring Agencies. The report contains views expressed or endorsed by members of GESAMP who act in their individual capacities; their views may not necessarily correspond with those of the Sponsoring Agencies. Permission may be granted by any of the Sponsoring Agencies for the report to be wholly or partially reproduced in publication by any individual who is not a staff member of a Sponsoring Agency of GESAMP, provided that the source of the extract and the condition mentioned above are indicated. Information about GESAMP and its reports and studies can be found at www.gesamp.org ISSN 1020-4873 (GESAMP Reports & Studies Series) Copyright © IMO, FAO, UNESCO-IOC, UNIDO, WMO, IAEA, UN, UNEP, UNDP, ISA 2018 For bibliographic purposes this document should be cited as: GESAMP (2018). “Global Trends in Pollution of Coastal Ecosystems”, (Ruiz-Fernández A.C. and Sanchez-Cabeza J.A., eds) (IMO/FAO/UNESCO-IOC/UNIDO/WMO/IAEA/UN/UNEP/UNDP/ISA Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection). Rep. Stud. GESAMP No. 106, 101 p. Report editors: Ana Carolina Ruiz-Fernández and Joan-Albert Sanchez-Cabeza Contributors to the report: Ana Carolina Ruiz-Fernández, Roberta Delfanti, José Marcus Godoy, Elvis Nyarko, Joan-Albert Sanchez-Cabeza, José L. Sericano, Elvira Sombrito, Norbert Theobald. CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ......................................................................................................................... 2 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 5 2. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................................ 7 2.1. Environmental archives ................................................................................................................ 7 2.2. Temporal framework ..................................................................................................................... 7 2.3. Target contaminants ..................................................................................................................... 8 2.4. Regions of interest ........................................................................................................................ 9 2.5. Information sources ...................................................................................................................... 9 2.6. Collection of information ............................................................................................................. 10 2.7. Storage, display and preliminary analysis .................................................................................. 12 2.8. Final analysis .............................................................................................................................. 13 2.9. LME reports ................................................................................................................................ 14 2.10. Uncertainties and limitations ..................................................................................................... 14 3. RESULTS .......................................................................................................................................... 15 3.1. Database description .................................................................................................................. 15 3.2. Trend analysis ............................................................................................................................. 17 4. CASE STUDIES ................................................................................................................................ 20 4.1. California Current (LME03) ......................................................................................................... 21 4.2. South Brazil Shelf (LME15) ........................................................................................................ 26 4.3. Canadian Eastern Arctic - West Greenland (LME18) ................................................................. 31 4.5. Arabian Sea (LME32) ................................................................................................................. 41 4.6. East China Sea (LME47) ............................................................................................................ 45 5. GLOBAL ASSESSMENT................................................................................................................... 52 5.1 Geographical Distribution ............................................................................................................ 52 5.2 Contaminant Trends .................................................................................................................... 53 5.3 Assessment ................................................................................................................................. 58 6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................... 60 7. RECOMMENDATIONS ..................................................................................................................... 61 REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................................... 65 GLOSSARY ........................................................................................................................................... 71 GESAMP Working Group 39 members. ................................................................................................ 73 BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATABASE .............................................................................................................. 74 GESAMP REPORTS AND STUDIES ................................................................................................... 96 GESAMP Report and Studies No. 106 - COASTAL CONTAMINATION TRENDS - 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY development in each region. Many of them started to be banned since the 1970s in The world population has risen dramatically developed countries, but are still produced and over the last century, as has humanity’s used in some developing countries. influence on the natural environment. Worldwide urbanization, agriculture and This work was based on the compilation of the industrialization cause a myriad of impacts on wealth of data already published in peer- our ecosystems. Coastal environments provide reviewed journals on contamination time series a large number of ecosystem services, but are from environmental archives (sediments and increasingly affected by multiple anthropogenic corals), and biota where available. Several stressors, including pollution. Owing to the uncertainties and limitations must be release of contaminants by many human acknowledged when using data from sediment activities, they can be good indicators of socio- records, including possible post-depositional economic development and the success of processes, and the use of data derived from environmental policies at local, regional and cores collected in different moments, since global scales. sampling and analytical techniques have evolved with time. Our assessment is based on Coastal zone management and protection must trend analysis of scaled contaminant data, be based on scientifically sound information. avoiding the evaluation of absolute Since several decades ago, policy makers have concentrations. designed and implemented national legislation and international agreements to protect coastal Trend analysis was performed on expert ecosystems. But have these policies really been defined time periods and regionally assessed effective? To answer this question, on the geographic regionalization of the NOAA contaminants can be used to reveal if (National Oceanic and Atmospheric anthropogenic effects are stable, decreasing or Administration) Large Marine Ecosystems increasing over time, which requires information (LME). Although contaminant normalization by to be collected over long time periods. Water diverse techniques (such as grain size, Al and and biota monitoring attempt to establish trends organic matter contents) is widely used, most (e.g. the Mussel Watch Programme), but time collected data were not normalized, used non- series are usually short and geographically very standard normalization methods or information sparse. to normalize data was not reported. Therefore, trend analysis was performed on The only available