Waste Assimilation and Management in the North Sea

The North Sea is a semi-enclosed ocean situated on the continental shelf of northwest Europe. It is fed by waterways from eight countries, a catchment area of 850,000 km2 with an estimated population of some 164 million people. The embanked floodplains of the rivers Elbe, Wesser, Rhine, Meuse, Scheldt, Seine, Thames and Humber in particular, are densely populated, highly industrialised and intensively farmed. It is from these major rivers that more than ninety-nine percent of freshwater-borne input are discharged of which more than half is supplied to the southern North Sea. The input from the waterways are the main source of large quantities of waste products and nutrients, but pollutants also enter via a number of other pathways: atmospheric fallout, and direct discharges from land and offshore installations, dumping at sea, shipping and aquaculture.