Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …
Cabinet has approved the new draft National Marine Pollution Contingency Plan (NMPCP) to better deal with marine pollution, not only from oil spills in Namibian waters but also from hazardous and noxious substances. Namibia had to review its marine pollution preparedness and response system in order to make it more …
Plastics have boosted our economy because they are highly flexible, durable, and cheap. However, their massive use has created an enormous global problem with environmental, economic, social, and health repercussions. Existing international measures to deal with plastic pollution are insufficient to successfully addressing the problem. So legal provisions banning the …
A draft report on the state of three marine outfalls has been completed. The City of Cape Town commissioned the CSIR to study the sewage outfalls at Hout Bay, Green Point and Camps Bay last year. The CSIR has been monitoring over 80 sites in and around the outfalls, as …
In the last decade, the northern Arabian Sea has witnessed a radical shift in the composition of winter phytoplankton blooms, which previously comprised mainly of diatoms, the unicellular, siliceous photosynthetic organisms favoured by nutrient-enriched waters from convective mixing. These trophically important diatom blooms have been replaced by widespread blooms of …
Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are becoming an increasing problem to human health and environment, including harmful effects on natural and cultured resources, tourism and ecosystems all over the world. Marine raphidophycean algae, Chattonella spp., have been implicated in major fish deaths in various parts of the world and are regarded …
Oxygen-deficient waters are expanding globally in response to warming and coastal eutrophication. Coastal ecosystems provide valuable services to humans, but these services are severely reduced with decreasing oxygen conditions. In the Baltic Sea, oxygen-deficient waters have expanded from 5,000 to over 60,000 km2 with large decadal fluctuations over the last …
Order of the National Green Tribunal (Western Zone Bench, Pune) in the matter of Santosh Daundkar Vrs. Secretary, MoEF, New Delhi & Others dated 23/03/2017. The present Application has been filed to seek shutting down of the manufacturing plant of Indian Rayon on the banks of Devaka River at Junagadh-Veravel, …
Degradation of coastal water quality in the form of low dissolved oxygen levels (hypoxia) can harm biodiversity, ecosystem function, and human wellbeing. Extreme hypoxic conditions along the coast, leading to what are often referred to as “dead zones,” are known primarily from temperate regions. However, little is known about the …
Question raised in Rajya Sabha on Damage to Marine Ecosystem, 09/03/2017. The Ministry has been implementing a program for assessment of health of the coastal waters of India by periodically monitoring the pollutant levels in the seawaters of India. There were occasionally marginal increases in the levels of pollutants in …
Caribbean coral reefs have transformed into algal-dominated habitats over recent decades, but the mechanisms of change are unresolved due to a lack of quantitative ecological data before large-scale human impacts. To understand the role of reduced herbivory in recent coral declines, we produce a high-resolution 3,000 year record of reef …
The Deepwater Horizon blowout released more oil and gas into the deep sea than any previous spill. Soon after the well was capped, a deep-sea community 13 km southwest of the wellhead was discovered with corals that had been damaged by the spill. Here we show this was not an …
The Deep Water Horizon oil spill of 2010, prompted concern about health risks among seafood consumers exposed to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) via consumption of contaminated seafood. The objective of the study was to conduct population-specific probabilistic health risk assessments based on consumption of locally harvested white shrimp (Litopenaeus setiferus) …
Chinese coastal waters support vast fisheries and vital economies, but their productivity is threatened by increasingly frequent harmful algal blooms (HABs). Here we provide direct experimental evidence that atmospheric deposition, along with riverine input, opens new niches for bloom-forming dinoflagellates and diatoms in the East China Sea (ECS) by increasing …
The input of mercury (Hg) to ecosystems is estimated to have increased two- to fivefold during the industrial era, and Hg accumulates in aquatic biota as neurotoxic methylmercury (MeHg). Escalating anthropogenic land use and climate change are expected to alter the input rates of terrestrial natural organic matter (NOM) and …
The world’s coral reefs are being degraded, and the need to reduce local pressures to offset the effects of increasing global pressures is now widely recognized. This study investigates the spatial and temporal dynamics of coral cover, identifies the main drivers of coral mortality, and quantifies the rates of potential …
Plastic, as a form of marine litter, is found in varying quantities and sizes around the globe from surface waters to deep-sea sediments. Identifying patterns of microplastic distribution will benefit an understanding of the scale of their potential effect on the environment and organisms. As sea ice extent is reducing …
When sea ice forms it scavenges and concentrates particulates from the water column, which then become trapped until the ice melts. In recent years, melting has led to record lows in Arctic Sea ice extent, the most recent in September 2012. Global climate models, such as that of Gregory et …
Ocean acidification threatens the survival of coral reef ecosystems worldwide. The negative effects of ocean acidification observed in many laboratory experiments have been seen in studies of naturally low-pH reefs, with little evidence to date for adaptation. Recently, we reported initial data suggesting that low-pH coral communities of the Palau …
Anthropogenic emissions completely overwhelmed natural marine lead (Pb) sources during the past century, predominantly due to leaded petrol usage. Here, based on Pb isotope measurements, we reassess the importance of natural and anthropogenic Pb sources to the tropical North Atlantic following the nearly complete global cessation of leaded petrol use. …
