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**Chapter 11** 

© 2012 de Moura et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2012 de Moura et al., licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Marine Environment and Public Health** 

sedimentation, mobilization of contaminants and climate changes [7, 8].

Salvatore Siciliano and Dalia dos Prazeres Rodrigues

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/48412

**1. Introduction** 

ecological system [3, 10].

Jailson Fulgencio de Moura, Emily Moraes Roges, Roberta Laine de Souza,

The oceans represent a significant source of biological diversity, water, biomass, oxygen, and other important aspects to human health [1-3]. The quality of the ocean is essential for maintaining the planet, and thus to public health. However, the complex and fragile evolutionary stabilization of the ocean and coastal regions has been disrupted by human activities in a short time scale [4]. The vast majority of waste produced by human activities for centuries has reached the oceans, even over long distances and in inhospitable places [3, 5]. In recent decades there have been evident the vast scope of the changes of the marine environment caused by anthropogenic activities, as well as the many responses to these changes that tend to impact ecological processes, putting endangered species susceptible and producing various diseases in the human population [3, 6]. These changes are not restricted to oceanic scale, but are strongly associated with the continents, consequently, strong pressure on the health of terrestrial ecosystems, with impacts on socioeconomic and cultural activities and, finally, to public health. Recently, the trend has grown to incorporate the term health within the definitions of environmental health. The term health of the oceans, the second definition of the Panel on Health of the Oceans (HOTO/GOOS), refers to the condition of the marine environment from a perspective of adverse effects caused by anthropogenic activities, in particular: habitat destruction, changes in the proportion of

Indeed, the human utilization of ocean environment has negatively and extensively impacted the ecological system that people are connected. The human activities in coastal zones, such as agricultures, urban development, fisheries, coastal industries and aquacultures, have contributed to chemical, physical and ecological impacts that may be interconnected [8, 9]. For example, the human activities cited generate a significant input of chemical pollutants (e.g. metals, persistent organic pollutants, nanoparticles, radionuclides and nutrients) that is known to impact the biodiversity and the marine
