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Health & the Atlantic Coast
Atlantic coastal conditions conducive to illness are widespread, says a new summary report issued by Paul R. Epstein of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard Medical School. And there is no getting away from what appears to be a growing problem: "No coastal bay, harbor, or inlet, from Labrador to Venezuela, is immune to the impact of algal blooms and marine-based disease events."
The report on the "Health, Ecological, and Economic Dimensions of Global Change" is entitled Marine Ecosystems: Emerging Diseases As Indicators of Change: Health of the Oceans from Labrador to Venezuela. It results from three years of research supported by the Office of Global Programs at NOAA and by NASA.
Mounting stresses on marine ecosystems, it notes, include "excessive nutrients, decline in predators, loss of natural filters, warming and weather extremes, introduced species, and altered nutrient balances." These all "may be contributing to the reported increase in the frequency, extent, and persistence" of red tides and other kinds of harmful algal blooms (HABs).
Consequences for human health are on the rise, the study continues: "Reports of human gastrointestinal and neurological diseases associated with HABs, bacteria, and viruses increased during the 1980s and again during the 1990s. Beach and shellfish closures have become increasingly common." The report also notes the incidence of health problems among marine mammals, birds, sea turtles, and shellfish, as well as the well-established relationship between toxins from the dinoflagellate Pfiesteria piscicida and finfish illness and dieoffs. "1998," it adds, "May be a record year for both coral reef bleaching and the advent of diseases in tropical marine ecosystems." The report cites examples of "economic consequences of diminished ecological health" that "are often overlooked on traditional economic literature." One example: the $20 million hit the Chesapeake Bay fishing industry suffered after a Pfiesteria outbreak, and related effects on tourism and sportfishing.
What is refreshing about the study is not so much its compilation of information about the health problems, which have been extensively reported elsewhere, as its recommendations. Traditional remedies and procedures will no longer carry the day, the report suggests; the increasing severity of the situation demands what Principal Investigator Epstein calls a "three-track approach" involving new and extended forms of international and inter-agency collaboration. The tracks:
vMore intensive collaborative monitoring, "using diseases and disturbances as biological indicators of ecological conditions," to be presented "for everybody" in the form of a GIS (Geographic Information System) display on the World Wide Web. To date most of the monitoring has been based on chemistry and physics," Epstein says. "The biology has been very spotty."
vAn expanded set of public health early warning systems involving cooperation between NASA and NOAA , using imagery from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and the Sea Wide Field Sensor (SeaWiFS) satellite programs to accompany ship-based sampling in efforts to detect and track algal blooms.
vEnvironmental policies that more clearly recognize the environmental services that coastal and marine ecosystems provide and help "prevent the proliferation of pests and pathogens." Such policies, Epstein stresses, need to be "systemically based" rather than limited to a specific nutrient or species.
Finally, Epstein sees a close correlation between the ongoing international negotiations on global climate change and the outlook for marine environments which are "vulnerable to increased climate variability" and to pollution from many of the same sources that also contribute to the "greenhouse effect." In sum, while the report hardly understates the health threats accompanying coastal and marine decline, it also notes the "enormous capacity" of marine ecosystems to "rebound and regenerate." With enough international will and money, it concludes, there can be a "significant reduction" in the global and local stresses now besetting them. URL: www.med.harvard.edu/chge. |
