Studies of the pollution of the Baltic Sea

This document consists of two separate reports dealing with different aspects of identification and quantification of pollutants in the Baltic Sea and its living resources. The reports are presented separately and no attempt has been made to cross-interpret the results of the studies with one another. 

The first report, on the Replies to the Questionnaire to Determine Sources of Input to the Baltic Sea, provides a follow-up to the earlier ICES Report on Pollution of the Baltic Sea (Coop.Res.Rep., Ser.A, No.15 (1970)), which presented estimates of the amounts of pollutants discharged into the Baltic primarily from sewage and industrial wastes. This follow-up report presents data, accurate to the end of 1972, provided by all Baltic Sea States in response to a questionnaire circulated by

the ICES/SCOR Working Group on the Study of Pollution in the Baltic. Data from each country are presented as to the amount of sewage and industrial waste flowing into the Baltic, both directly from land and also through rivers. Additional information is provided regarding certain specific pollutants, nutrients, and oxygen demand in these inputs to the Baltic. 

The second report, on the Baseline Study of the Level of Contaminating Substances in Living Resources of the Baltic 1974/75, and on the Intercalibration Exercise connected with it, contains the results of a coordinated survey of the levels of selected metals and organochlorine compounds in certain species of fish and shellfish in the Baltic Sea. Included in the report are the results of the intercalibration exercises for the determination of concentrations in fish tissue of trace metals and of the organochlorine compounds DDT, its metabolites, and PCBs. This study was conducted under the auspices of the ICES/SCOR Working Group on the Study of Pollution in the Baltic, and was executed by various laboratories in the Baltic Sea States. 

The ICES/SCOR Working Group is very grateful to Dr HJ Brosin and his collaborators for their work on the study of inputs to the Baltic, and to Professor K Grasshoff and his collaborators on the Baseline Study for their work.