Contamination of Populated Estuaries and Adjacent Coastal Ocean--A Global Review

摘要

A comparison of the contamination of coastal marine waters in the New York Bight with that of other populated coastal and estuarine marine areas demonstrates that the New York Bight does not appear to be more polluted, nor suffer from pollution impacts to any greater degree, than many other studied regions. Toxic contaminant levels, including concentrations of heavy metals and PCBs in sediments and water, found in the New York Bight are similar to those in many of the world's heavily populated coastal areas. The New York Bight is not among the most pollution-susceptible regions of the world ocean (e.g., Saronikos Gulf, Guanabara Bay, Brazil, and New York, Singapore, and Hong Kong harbors), but, instead, is comparable to the large, but poorly flushed, semi-enclosed seas (e.g., the Baltic, Mediterranean, Irish, North, and Seto Inland seas).