Environmental effects of oil pollution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Environmental effects of oil pollution - Essay Example The coastal vegetations, tidal forest, and marine ecology are worse hit. It is widely known that oil spills are causing wide-ranging destruction to wild animals and marine life. Hence considerable preparation and rigid laws are required to conquer this huge problem. Attempts are being made to predict the oil spills and their devastating effects, which can curb the menace of oil pollution to some extent. Still, the international community is required to remain more alert and agile. Apparently, the best approach to deal with the detrimental impact of oil spills to the environment is to significantly lessen oil spills. To effectively minimize oil spillage demands appropriate training and effectual planning. Environmental Effects of Oil Pollution Introduction Combustion of fossil fuels is a major problem in the context of today’s environment. This major threat to the environmental sustainability is indeed an indirect result of oil pollution. Oil pollution has direct effects too. T here are numerous sources of oil pollution. Oil pollution can pollute the oceans, seas, soil, and underground water streams. Moreover, combustion of petroleum, gasoline, and diesel causes large scale air pollution. The pollutants in the air again settle into the water bodies and soil with the lapse of time by means of convection, condensation, and rain. Oil pollution due to the oil spills caused by the accidents of oil tankers and rigs is another major threat to the environment. Since the conveyance of crude oil and petroleum is mainly conducted through the waterways, accidents of oil tankers cause huge amounts of oil to get mixed in the waters of the seas and oceans (Fleming 2010). This is the main feature of oil pollution – even through pollution in the soil; the petroleum agents ultimately reach the underground water streams. In the case of the oil spills, varieties of the sea birds and animals are immensely affected. Oil pollution adversely affects the marine ecology, cau sing death to thousands of organisms (Baker 1978). It damages the natural treasures like coral reef and harms the aquatic animals like fishes, plankton, reptiles, etc. Humans can be seriously affected by taking polluted sea food. Moreover, pollution caused by the combustion of petroleum is also highly injurious to human health. In this relation, it can be further mentioned that the economic dimensions of losses due to major oil spills are considerably high (Pezeshki et al. 2000). The economic losses hamper both the industries and the financial expenditure in the various environmental reconstruction processes. Sometimes, the estimation of these losses is rather difficult. In a nutshell, effects of oil pollution are multifaceted and need to be discussed in detail. Literature Review Large scale of oil pollution particularly due to the oil spills and tanker accidents damages the oceans and seas considerably. Not only that, the petroleum agents would reach the shores and harm the coastal ecology as well. Hundreds and thousands of aquatic animals, sea birds, and plants are adversely affected. This effect of oil pollution is discernable in the US Gulf coast (Pezeshki et al. 2000). Oil spills have taken place in this region, so the effects of oil spills and clean up have manifested as environmental hazard in this part of the world. Hence, plant response to