Mediterranean Sea Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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The Mediterranean Sea is a sea of the temperate zone located between Europe to the north and west, Africa to the south, and Asia to the east. It represents approximately 0.8 percent of the total marine waters of the earth but contains 7 percent of global marine flora and fauna.

The region surrounding the sea and the numerous islands also contain one of the richest natural and cultural heritages of the earth, now threatened by phenomena such as pollution by agricultural and industrial discharges as well as that derived from oil tankers (25 percent of world traffic); urbanization linked to mass tourism; loss of natural and agricultural land; and possibly also sea level rise linked to climate change. The Mediterranean also presents one of the main socioeconomic fractures of the globe, with income differences of 1 to 5 between the northern and richer shore versus the southern and poorer shore. Hence the legal and, above all, illegal tide of immigrants from the south to the north.

The physical environment of the Mediterranean reflects the great complexity of an extremely dynamic natural setting. With over 28,520 miles (46,000 kilometers) of coasts, the sea is surrounded by high mountains, hills, and coastal plains and fragmented into several smaller water bodies separated by large land masses (peninsulas such as Iberia, Italy, and Greece and large islands such as Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily). Climatically the most relevant characteristic is the presence of a distinctive summer drought, which historically has conditioned agricultural production, making irrigation necessary. Together with thermal conditions, however, it has also prompted the consolidation of mass tourism (228 million tourists in 2003 or more than 30 percent of the world total).

The combination of an active physiography (earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions) and climate (dominated by the hydrological extremes of floods and droughts)-plus a long history of human settlement-has produced one of the highest biodiversity rates of the planet. The Mediterranean is the home of 10 percent of the world’s higher plants and ranks second only to tropical rain forests in the diversity of its many other plant and animal species.

In 2003 the 22 countries bordering the Mediterranean had an estimated population of 427 million (about 7 percent of the world total). Because of agricultural and tourist demand, water, which traditionally has been a limited resource in this region, has become critical, especially in the southern and eastern parts. Access to water and adequate wastewater systems represents perhaps the most important environmental challenge of the region. Most of the water is used for irrigation, and in many countries, available resources are unable to compensate for a growing demand. Thus it is estimated that about 108 million people in Mediterranean countries live with less than 264,172 gallons (1,000 cubic meters) per year available, and that about 45 million do with less than 132,086 gallons (500 cubic meters) per year (this figure is considered the “extreme scarcity” threshold). By 2025, the number of people with less than this threshold amount per year will rise to 63 million.

Alternative plans to correct growing water scarcities have tended to focus on the supply side through the building of dams and long-distance water transfers. Because of economic, social, and environmental reasons, however, these alternatives are being abandoned for demand management, and above all for new sources such as desalinized water.

In Spain in 2004, the socialist government commissioned the construction of some 18 desalinization plants with an estimated capacity of 35 billion cubic feet (1,000 cubic hectometers) per year. In some islands (such as Majorca and Malta) desalinization is already a regular source of water supply, and some oil-rich North African countries (Algeria and Libya) are also stimulating the development of this resource.

Land management, and particularly agricultural land management, is also a source of important environmental problems, although these assume different forms depending on the area. In the north, the rural population decreased 74 percent between 1960 and 2000. Abandonment has been particularly acute in the mountainous hinterlands where soil erosion, forest fires, and desertification are becoming serious environmental threats. In the south, despite migration, rural population still increased during the same period. However, intensive agriculture in some cases leads to soil salinization (affecting some 3.7 million acres [1.5 million hectares] in Turkey alone).

Urbanization and the related infrastructures are also destroying prime agricultural land. About 65 percent of the Mediterranean population lived in cities in 2002, but the patterns of settlement are again very different depending on the shore. In the north, the traditionally “compact” urbanization is changing to urban sprawl based on single-family houses (many of them with gardens and swimming pools) and the proliferation of the private car. Besides the loss of agricultural land and increase in energy consumption and emissions, an important effect of urbanization in the north is the production of waste (up to a ton per person per year in Monaco). In the south, cities are growing much faster, but 30 to 60 percent of their dwellers live in informal settlements. In 2025, 75 percent of the population will live in cities, especially those of the south.

In 1975, the Mediterranean countries and the European Community (EC) signed the Mediterranean Action Plan in Barcelona under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The main objectives of this plan (later to be known as “The Blue Plan”) were to protect the sea from pollution and to ensure development consistent with environmental protection. In the Monaco meeting of 2001, it was agreed to prepare a Mediterranean Strategy of Sustainable Development, which was presented in June 2005 in Athens and officially ratified by all member states in Slovenia in November 2005. Peace, political and social stability, and economic prosperity are seen as key factors in achieving sustainability, especially after the Balkan wars of the 1990s and continuing conflicts on the eastern shores.

Bibliography:

Russell King, Lindsay Proudfoot, and Bernard Smith, The Mediterranean: Environment and Society (Halsted Press, 1997);
John D. Milliman et , eds., Climatic Change and the Mediterranean: Environmental and Societal Impacts of Climatic Change and Sea-Level Rise in the Mediterranean Region (Edward Arnold, 1993);
L. Nicolaou and A.D. Andreadakis, eds., Pollution of the Mediterranean Sea (Elsevier Science & Technology, 1996).