Hoogenboom, Mia O., Osipova, Liudmila, Nordborg, Mikaela, Schlaefer, Jodie A., and Critchell, Kay (2024) Dispersal and Environmental Impacts of Pan-Oceanic Contaminants. In: Wolanski, Eric, and Kingsford, Michael J., (eds.) Oceanographic Processes of Coral Reefs: Physical and Biological Links in the Great Barrier Reef. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, pp. 143-150.

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Abstract

Environmental impacts from pollution depend on the concentrations and longevity of pollutants present in the environment and the sensitivity of the local fauna and flora. Detailed knowledge of the dispersal of pollutants is fundamental to assessing the risk that pollution poses to marine life. Here, we present new perspectives on how to assess the risks that contaminants with pan-oceanic sources and complex behaviours in water pose to marine life. We focus on plastic debris and pollution from shipping, including fuel oils and exhaust gas cleaning system washwater, and identify the key information required for further development of the environmental risk assessment framework for application to pan-oceanic contaminants. We conclude that for marine plastics, a major challenge to understanding environmental risk is linked to difficulties in modelling the dispersal of particles that have different sizes, shapes, and buoyancy, which accumulate on and resuspend from beaches, and that undergo complex mechanical breakdown. For scrubber washwater, there are limited publicly available data that describe the composition of washwater in tropical regions in general, and for the Great Barrier Reef specifically, and a deficiency of knowledge of how washwater exposure impacts tropical marine organisms. Finally, for fuel oils, information remains limited on how oil toxicity is affected by the higher light levels present in tropical marine environments and how toxicity could change under the higher temperatures expected with projected climate change. For all three pollutants, data quantifying the rates of breakdown of materials/compounds in the natural environment are also needed to enable the development and accurate parameterisation of particle dispersal models that incorporate these complex behaviours.

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