Green method of stemming the tide of invasive marine and freshwater organisms by natural filtration of shipping ballast
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Green method of stemming the tide of invasive marine and freshwater organisms by natural filtration of shipping ballast water Jebarathnam Prince Prakash Jeba Kumar 1 & Shunmugavel Ragumaran 1 & Ganesan Nandagopal 1 & Vijaya Ravichandran 1 & Ramana Murthy Mallavarapu 2 & Thomas M. Missimer 3 Received: 19 February 2020 / Accepted: 13 September 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Marine and freshwater pollution caused by transport of invasive species in shipping ballast water is a major global problem and will increase in magnitude as shipping of commodities increases in the future. An economical method to preclude biological organisms in the seawater used for ballast is to exclude them at the source port. Integrated natural filtration using onshore wells or seabed gallery systems has been thoroughly investigated for use as pretreatment for seawater desalination systems and has proven to be environmentally acceptable and economic. Thus, the use of this proven filtration technology to another issue, ballast water treatment, is an innovative method of providing marine organism free seawater by non-destructive means in port-based facilities. This method is ecosystem-friendly in that no chemicals or destructive processes are used. Design and construction of well or seabed gallery intake systems for production of ballast seawater are feasible in virtually all global port facilities. Keywords Ballast water . Invasive species . Environmental impacts . Subsurface intake systems
Introduction Seawater used for ballast typically contains numerous macroscopic and microscopic organisms, which are discharged into the oceans worldwide. Thus, ballast water disposal is believed to be a primary vector for the spread of aquatic invasive species globally (Carlton 1985, 1999; Endresen et al. 2004; Takahashi et al. 2008; Tsolaki and Diamadopoulos 2010; Seebens et al. 2016; Carney et al. 2017; Seebens et al. 2017). Marine ship traffic is a critical part of the global economy by providing
Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues * Thomas M. Missimer [email protected] 1
Coastal Environmental Engineering Division, National Institute of Ocean Technology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India, Pallikaranai, Chennai 600100, India
2
National Center for Coastal Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India, NIOT Campus, Chennai, India
3
U. A. Whitaker College of Engineering, Emergent Technologies Institute, Florida Gulf Coast University, 16301 Innovation Lane, Fort Myers, FL 33913, USA
international delivery of goods and commodities. Each year between 3 and 5 billion metric tons of seawater are utilized as ballast water in shipping (Tsolaki and Diamadopoulos 2010). Global maritime traffic has been projected to increase 20-fold by 2050 to account for 80% of world trade, which could lead to a sharp rise in invasive species by 90% around the world if not controlled (Sardain et al. 2019). The magnitude and diversity of marine organisms delivered in ballast water throughout the world include about 10,000 species tran
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