Abstract
Greece is a Mediterranean country which is surrounded by sea and with a coastline of approximately 18,000 km. Medium and severe marine and coastal environmental pollution has become a serious problem for Greece in the last decades. A large percentages (estimated at 30%) of the Greek coastline is affected by erosion involving vulnerable coastal ecosystems and marine protected areas. The most important marine pollution involves discharges of ship fuel, untreated discharges of municipal and industrial liquid and solid waste, agricultural and stock farming effluents, depletion of marine species by overfishing, overexploitation of living marine resources and coastal loss of marine habitat. The rapid expansion of tourism and urbanization (roads, houses and hotels) in coastal areas threatens marine and coastal degradation. Sewage remains the largest source of pollution. In the last decades Greek scientists established monitoring projects for the most important marine gulfs in Greece. The state of pollution in the most ports, gulfs, estuaries and marine coastal areas in Greece varied substantially. Improvements in the quality of seawater was established in the last decade with the completion of sewage works in many Greek cities. There are numerous research reports and monitoring of Greek gulfs with industrial facilities and ports, such as Eleufsis Bay, Patras port, Corinth Gulf, Euvoicos Gulf, Keratsini Gulf and port, Thermaikos Gulf and Thessaloniki port, Piraeus port, Saronikos Gulf, Amvrakicos Gulf, Volos port, and others. Also, environmental monitoring og pollution was our in islands like Mytilini, Rhodes, Crete and others. A selection of these studies of the last 20 years are presented in this review and their main conclusions.
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