A global analysis of seawater has revealed the pervasive reach of human-made chemicals across the world’s oceans, with coastal and estuarine environments bearing the heaviest burden – findings that scientists say are increasingly tied to a broader and more urgent public health concern.
The study, published on March 16 in Nature Geoscience, examined more than 2,300 seawater samples collected between 2017 and 2022, making it one of the most comprehensive chemical meta-analyses of the marine environment to date.
Led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside, with contributions from scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the work highlights the widespread presence of industrial compounds that are rarely included in routine monitoring.
