Baltic sea. The main problem is the pollution of oil and its products

di Agata Jevstignejeva

    Baltic sea is sea of Atlantic Ocean ant takes place in northeast of Europe. From one side of it is located Scandinavian peninsula, from another – east and central Europe countries. 98 kilometres of Baltic sea seaside belongs to Lithuania. It is only 1,5 persents of Baltic sea area, but it does not mean Lithuania is not responsible of taking care about its pollution problems. The main reason of pollution is growth of biological productivity, another – pollution of petroleum and its products.

Human influence for sea pollution

85 millions of people live around Baltic sea, from them 15 milions in the 10 kilometres distance from seaside.  In this are husbandry, industry, land and sea transport, recovery of energy, commercial fishing are developed, also mineral resourses are digging, underwater gas pipelines are building. It affects sea enviroment and organisms living inside. Motre than 200 rivers flow into Baltic sea. According researches, 660 thousand tones of nitrogen and 28 thousand tones of phosphorus got in with river water. The main sources of pollution – husbandry and domestic and industrial  waste water. Lot of nutriens go in to Baltic sea too and because of this reason seaweed started grow up exspecially in the seasides. This process resulted in a low water transparency and oxygen decrease. It stifles the fish and other water organisms.

Petroleum and its products

20 – 70 thousand tones of petroleum products go to Baltic sea every year. This is one of  the main  pollution reasons. It is result of growing transport of ships which provides risk of accidents. According to researches, petroleum level in the sea will increase 25 percents in few years.

Other chemical materials such as copper, lead, zinc  pollute Baltic sea. This chemicals is accumulating in surroundings, in the organism and became threat for human.  Other chemical materials, military ammunition, increasing water level, the effects of flood are also reason of pollution. All mention reasons affect quolity of water and seasides, biological resources and natural landscape.