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At EWG, our team of scientists, engineers, policy experts, lawyers and computer programmers pores over government data, legal documents, scientific studies and our own laboratory tests to expose threats to your health and the environment, and to find solutions. Our research brings to light unsettling facts that you have a right to know.
Dead in the Water: Dead Zones Worldwide
The BBC reported on March 29, 2004:
Since the 1960s the number of oxygen-starved areas has doubled every decade, as human nitrogen production has outstripped natural sources.
About 75% of the world's fish stocks are already being overexploited, but UNEP (UN Environmental Program) says the dead zones, which now number nearly 150 worldwide, will probably prove a greater menace.
It quotes research by a team of scientists at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in the US.
They concluded: "The history and pattern of human disturbance in terrestrial, aquatic, coastal and oceanic ecosystems have brought us to a point at which oxygen depletion is likely to become the keystone impact for the 21st Century, replacing the 20th Century keystone of overfishing."
Read more from the BBC.
Read the report from the UNEP.
