'Health Examination' - a semi-enclosed coastal environment: a new concept for marine environmental monitoring

摘要

The problem in water quality has become obvious in the coastal waters of Japan since about 1970. Some areas developed an unpleasant odour and a lot offish died in many areas where industrial activity was flourishing. The monitoring of these areas started together with missions designed to deal with this water pollution. As a result, the water quality recovered to a constant or decreased level but fishery resources have not recovered to a level to support the Japanese demand for consumption. Was there a problem in the ideal way of restriction and monitor that focused on the water quality? We propose a "Health Examination of the sea" as a new oceanic environmental diagnosis to monitor and evaluate water quality. This diagnosis focuses on biological production and the purification ability of the sea. The "Health Examination of the sea" method covers ecosystem stability and smoothness of material cycling. This method was devised to understand at an early stage trends in environmental deterioration by using a standard which focuses on the range of variation in the environment parameter of each area, and not a standard that uses an absolute value. In effect, this new evaluation method incorporates the concept of preventive medicine. Our objective is to clarify the points of difference between the established monitoring method to redress water pollution, and to introduce a new approach to marine environment protection.