Radioecological Assessment of the Black Sea Marine Ecosystem

The Black Sea has experienced the worst environmental degradation of all of the world's oceans. The situation has become so severe that it has affected the health and standard of living of the people in the immediate area It has suffered from extensive pollution over the last years due to unmanaged fishing, unrestricted shipping, mineral exploitation, dumping of toxic wastes, discharge of wastes from coastal cities and pollutants carried by rivers. The Black Sea is one of the most contaminated with nuclides marine basins in the Northern Hemisphere; since 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Black Sea has been a sink for Chernobyl-associated radionuclides. The environmental crisis and subsequent changes in Black Sea's ecosystem and resources are a direct effect of both natural and anthropogenic causes: an enormous increase in nutrient and heavy metal pollutant load from three major rivers, Danube, Dniester, Dnieper; from industrial and municipal wastewater pollution sources along the coast. This work is dedicated to measuring the content of different nuclides and heavy metals in the Black Sea ecosystem - sediments and algae for a long time period, in order to assess the risk for the population.