The Black Sea Environment

Based on a wealth of primary data collected by expeditions as well as archive data from Russia, this fascinating book features a systematic description of the knowledge accumulated on the physical oceanography, marine chemistry and pollution, marine biology and geology, meteorology and hydrology of the Black Sea. It presents the principal characteristic features of the environmental conditions of the sea and their changes in the second half of the 20th century.

This book underpins the geography of the Black Sea, covering topics such as morphology, morphography, geology, and history of the Black Sea. It also discusses environmental aspects affecting the population in the Black Sea's coastal settlements and looks to the future of the Black Sea region. This book covers a gap in research in the field of world regional geography of the Black Sea by providing a comprehensive methodology and terminology to readers, students and teachers in the field.

This book provides information on the causes, consequences, and possible solutions to modern environmental problems associated with ocean pollution with a particular focus on the Back Sea. The oceans are a vast but fragile complex. In recent decades, it has become especially manifest when ocean pollution has reached an unparalleled situation. Meanwhile, not only the well-being of ecosystems depends on the state of ocean waters, but human civilization largely depends on the oceans as a consequence of environmental dependence. This book examines the consequences of pollutants such as oil and hydrocarbon products (including plastics and microplastics), water acidification, sewage, wastewaters discharge into the ocean, thermal pollution, nuclear pollution, and biological pollution. Beyond the types of pollutants and their consequences, this book outlines the state of the art of the legal situation internationally regarding ocean pollution. The authors also show the current pollution of the inland seas, taking as an example of the Black Sea (anthropogenic and natural sources of pollution, its shelf, and shallow waters as well as international legislation). A part of the book analyzes the main types of environmental monitoring of the oceans and their role in solving ocean pollution problems with a particular interest in the Black Sea. The book is of interest to specialists in ocean pollution, ecologists, oceanologists, students, and graduate students studying oceanography, marine ecology, current methods of environmental monitoring, and legal problems related to the oceans and seas pollution, as well as to anyone interested in modern problems of the oceans.

The Black Sea currently faces severe ecological disequilibrium due primarily to eutrophication and other types of contamination from atmospheric, river and land-based sources. Among the most critical contemporary concerns are eutrophication and associated deterioration of water quality, plankton blooms, hypoxia and anoxia, loss of biodiversity and decline of living resources.

In Regional Co-operation and Protection of the Marine Environment Under International Law: The Black Sea, Nilufer Oral examines the regional co-operation mechanism for protection and preservation of the Black Sea marine environment within the framework of international law, and subsequently identifies the necessary components for a robust regional regime based on best legal practices. The book provides a thorough review of the complex modern challenges related to the Black Sea, with particular emphasis on biodiversity, fisheries, land-based pollution and vessel-based sources of pollution. A history of regional co-operation in the Black Sea offers an enlightening comparison to the development of regional co-operation in international law, in particular, to Part IX of the 1982 United Nations (Montego Bay) Convention on the Law of the Sea. Further comparative analyses, such as the existing regional regime of the Black Sea as established under the 1992 UNEP Regional Seas Programme, and selected regional seas programmes, including the acquis communautaire of the European Union, cohere into a firm foundation of present findings, upon which basis the author makes recommendations for the future. All those interested in the Law of the Sea, international environmental law, and fisheries management will find a critical new text in Regional Co-operation and Protection of the Marine Environment Under International Law: The Black Sea.

Environment and human habitation have become principal topics of research with the growing interest in the Black Sea region in antiquity. This book highlights their interaction around all the coasts of the region, from different perspectives and disciplines. Here, archaeological excavation and survey combine with studies of classical texts, cults, medicine, and more, to explore ancient experiences of the region. Accordingly, the region is examined from external viewpoints, centred in the Mediterranean (Herodotus, the Hippocratics, ancient geographers, and poets), and through local lenses, particularly supplied by archaeology. While familiar disconnects emerge, there is also a striking coherence in the results of these different pathways into the study of local environments, which embrace not only Graeco-Roman settlement, but also a broader range of agricultural and pastoralist activities across a huge landscape which stretches as far afield as ancient Hungary. Throughout, there are methodological implications for research elsewhere in the ancient world. This book shows people in landscapes across a huge expanse, in local reality and in external conceptions, complete with their own agency, ideas, and lifestyles.

This book brings together eastern and western scholarship on a controversial subject: a catastrophic inundation of the Pontic basin which might have inspired the biblical story of Noah’s flood. In 35 papers, many previously unavailable in English, experts in oceanography, marine geology, paleoclimate, paleoenvironment, archaeology, and linguistic spread offer data and arguments for or against the flood hypothesis. Appendices include 600 radiocarbon dates from the region, obtained by USSR and western labs.