Emerging problems in the coastal zone for the twenty-first century

The continued availability of some marine resources is threatened by the increased fluxes to the oceans of identifiable and measurable collections of pollutants, which include plant nutrients, plastics, environmental oestrogens, and organisms contained in ship-ballast waters. Characteristic of these societal discards that will guide research progress are long residence times; slow accumulation rates; increasing fluxes with time; and dissemination over large areas. The resolution of these problems will require data collections over decadal time-scales. Finally, some classical and some perceived marine pollution problems, such as those involving specific metals, can now be discontinued in the face of the absence of unacceptable impacts on living organisms.