Marine pollution involves the pollution of sea water and the coastal zones. Marine pollution is termed as the changes developed in the coastal sea water and coastal land zones by the industrial wastes, oil spills etc that are harmful.

Sources

The industrial effluents are dumped into the sea through some water ways like river. Every year thousands of tons of heavy toxic metals mines into the sea wtare. These toxic metal industrial wastes mainly include metals like lead, copper, zinc , arsenic, barium, chromium, antimony, manganese, tin, mercury and iron. Besides this, various toxic chemicals sucha s acids alkalies, pesticides, distillery wastes, tannery wastes, mine drainage, waste of paper, soap, sugar, varnish and plastic industries, wastes of rubber,paint and varnish industries, wastes from textile industries, drug and chemical sea waters and also affect the interior part of the sea water. Most of the rivers passing through big cities are highly polluted containing domestic sewage and mix with the sea water. Oil spills also mainly contribute to the marine pollution. Oil pollution is due to the leakage’s in oil tanker during transportation, oil production platforms and oil tankers disaster.

India has a coast line of 6090 km. Many of the nearby coastal areas are affected by industrial, agricultural and residential built up areas that greatly pollutes the coastal areas.

 Effects

1. The major effects of marine pollution is contributing to the marine organisms mainly fishes and then gets into the human system through food chain.
2. The pollution of sea water causes ecological disturbance in the marine environments. Many of the sea organisms develop resistance to pollutants whereas some of them get killed. But these species can become victims of their predators.
3. The pollutants in the air gets settled or washed by rain. Along with this the river carries pollutants like solid waste, sewage polymers, pesticides etc into the sea or ocean. Besides these, wastes from petroleum refineries etc can cause thermal pollution in sea water thus affecting the temperature of the coastal sea water the other related qualities of water.
4. The coastal lands are mainly polluted by the insecticides and pesticides, fertilizers etc. The toxic substances from industries also get into coastal wastes and get fixed into coastal lands. Coast lands are also polluted by the urbanization and the release of sewage and garbage. Off shore structure interfere with coastal current patterns producing serious erosions in the coastal stretches. Pollution of coastal waters make the beaches contaminated and the underground waters near coastal lands have the sea water getting percolated and mixed into the ground water system and destroys the quality of ground water.
5. Soil erosion in the coastal land has to be stopped by using specific techniques involved in it.
6. Off shore and on shore projects should be approved only after the clearance of the environment authorities.
7. The oil pollution in the marine environment has to be protected using suitable measures (refer oil pollution).
8. The Public beaches has to be maintained in a neat and tidy manner making use of latest cleaning techniques and main power. This will create a tourist attraction.