GEO-6 Regional Assessment for Latin America and the Caribbean


(ACS 2015) accounting for about 4 per cent of the world’s trade (Scherer et al. 2014). The new locks of the canal allows the traffic of “Post-Panamax” ships through deeper and wider navigational channels. “Post-Panamax” ships have a cargo capacity of 13 000 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEU), in contrast to the 5 000 TEU ships that currently cross the canal.


The pressures that sea transport and shipping have on the environment are mostly related to the waste and residues that their normal operations involve. This includes ballast water, sewage, solid waste, hazardous materials and old/ broken/rotten parts of the ships or cargo. The maritime transportation of main commodities of LAC (minerals, grains, and oil and gas) tend to have a higher proportion of return journeys in ballast (UN 2016). Therefore, monitoring and inspection of ships are fundamental to maintain the health of the ocean.


Accidents on the sea can have acute effects on the integrity of marine areas and ecosystems. In the Wider Caribbean only 51 ship accidents have been registered in the period 2002 – 2013, of which 3 occurred in 2013 (UN 2016). In this region, ships are more vulnerable during the hurricane season.


2.3.3 State and trends Marine water quality


The state of marine water quality of the LAC region has not been assessed thoroughly and with enough continuity. Therefore complete, open, updated and relevant information is not always available, as was confirmed in UNDESA (2015). The World Oceans Assessment (UN 2016) is the latest attempt to fill this gap, although specific data for the region is not included. Previously, Halpern et al. (2012) developed the Ocean Health Index, an indicator-based assessment of all Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) and high seas of the world. Combining indicators on water pollution and water


governance16


a “Clean Waters” score was calculated. The


results show that, with 100 being the best score, EEZ in the Caribbean, Mesoamerica and South America had an average score of 55.13, 63.88 and 68.36, respectively. According to this study, the “cleanest” marine area in LAC is the South Pacific coast.


Marine water quality is mostly affected in the near-shore areas (direct dumping of solid and liquid waste from ships, abandoned and lost fishing gear as well as ballast water discharges) except for specific pollution events such as oil spills. Near-shore marine water quality depends on the effluent that is released from rivers and flows into marine areas. Some of the major activities that impact water quality are runoff of agricultural chemicals, improper wastewater treatment, deforestation and coastal development. It


is


believed that, because of the vast volume of the marine water, these pollutants are diluted. However, there are instances where the natural dilution capacity of the sea is being exceeded by the concentration of effluents (Campuzano et al. 2013).


Naturally, mangrove forests and sea grass beds act as filters to remove harmful pollutants, absorb nutrients from runoff and trap sediments helping to increase the clarity and quality of marine waters. Unfortunately, due to the development of some ports, harbours, marinas, tourism infrastructure and charcoal production these systems have been degraded or destroyed.


Data on salinity, nutrients, sea surface temperature, chlorophyll concentration and eutrophication for the region is derived mostly from global models, satellite products available from NOAA (2016), ESA (2016), WRI (2008) and other providers.


16 Indicators on pollution: chemical pollution and trend, nutrient pollution, pathogen pollution, trash pollution, trend in the use of fertilizers, coastal population trend. Indicators on governance: access to sanitation, weakness/strength of governance, Convention of Biological Diversity´s survey on water.


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