Shipping transport
Britain’s maritime sector is the largest in Europe, employing nearly half a million people and with a turnover of over £56 billion. The seas are vital to our trade, energy, defence, leisure, as a source of minerals and a sink for our wastes – most of what goes down the household or street drain ends up in the sea, not always with the intervention of a sewage treatment plant.
The vast majority of the goods and raw materials that enter or leave the country do so by sea, with aviation or the Channel Tunnel accounting mainly for passengers and a portion of container traffic. Therefore marine science has an important role in working with this large maritime sector to maximise benefit for the UK and our trading partners, but also in ensuring that the oceans are not unduly impacted by all of that activity.
Research activities include the impact of plastics on the marine environment, the growing problem of micro-plastics impacting marine life at the cellular level, and a number of activities related to impact of pollutants from ship’s exhausts, anti-fouling paints and underwater noise. We advise governments, local authorities and ports and harbours about aspects of marine environmental science and work closely with legal experts in marine planning, Law of the Sea and Shipping Law.
New issues are also arising as a consequence of the opening of shipping routes across the Arctic as summer ice recedes. The northern route to China is thousands of kilometres shorter than sailing via Suez or South Africa and avoids piracy risks in the Indian ocean.
Maritime links:
Marine Vision UK: www.seavisionuk.org
Chamber of Shipping: http://www.british-shipping.org/home/
IMarEST: www.imarest.org
International Maritime Organisation: http://www.imo.org/Pages/home.aspx
