Environmental Threats Crossing National Borders
- Imagine waking up to a hazy sky, the air thick with smoke from fires burning hundreds of kilometers away.
- Or consider the invisible threat of radiation spreading silently across borders, affecting millions.
- These scenarios highlight a critical issue: environmental threats don't respect national boundaries.
What Are Transboundary Environmental Threats?
- Transboundary environmental threats are issues that cross national borders, affecting multiple countries. They include:
- Pollution: Air, water, and soil contamination spreading across regions.
- Natural Disasters: Events like wildfires or floods that impact neighboring countries.
- Resource Depletion: Overfishing or deforestation affecting shared ecosystems.
These threats require international cooperation because no single country can solve them alone.
Examples of Transboundary Environmental Threats
1. Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster (1986)
- On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in USSR (contemporary Ukraine) exploded, releasing radioactive materials into the atmosphere.
- The fallout spread across Europe, affecting millions.
Radioactive particles can travel thousands of kilometers, carried by wind and rain. This makes nuclear disasters a global concern, not just a local one.
2. Haze Pollution in Southeast Asia
- Every year, forest fires in Indonesia (mostly on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra) create a thick haze that blankets significant share of Southeast Asia.
- These fires are often set intentionally to clear land for agriculture.
- Haze created by forest fires bring severe air pollution to Indonesia and to neighboring countries like Malaysia and Singapore.
Haze pollution highlights the interconnectedness of ecosystems and economies in the region.
3. Acid Rain
- Acid rain was first observed in Manchester, UK in 1852, but it was not properly studied until the 1960s.
- Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are the two main chemicals that react with water to make acid rain with pH levels as low as 3.0 or even 2.0.
- Traditionally sulfur dioxide (released mostly by coal-based power plants) was the biggest contributor to acid rain, however now nitrogen oxides (coming from car fumes) have become more important.
- Acid rain can cause many problems: damage to buildings and infrastructure, lakes, rivers and soil can become acidic, vegetation can be damaged and plant growth reduced.
- There is a strong relationship between economic activity and acid rain. Economic activities such as industrial manufacturing, fossil fuel combustion, and transportation release significant amounts of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides causing acid rain.
- Acid rain is considered a transboundary pollution because it involves pollutants released into the atmosphere in one country that can be carried by wind and weather patterns across national borders, affecting air, water, and soil in neighboring regions.
4. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
- Garbage patches are found in the calm, stable centers of many of the world's ocean gyres.
- The largest one (an area the size of Texas) is located in the North Pacific Ocean.
- Most debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is plastic - old fishing nets and debris from land activities in North America and Asia.
- Marine debris can prevent algae and plankton, the photosynthetic producers in the marine food web, from receiving enough sunlight to create nutrients. It also devastates marine life as plastic is eaten by fish and birds, as well as animals (e.g. turtles, seals, fish) are entangled in discarded fishing nets.
How Are Countries Responding?
1. International Agreements and Cooperation
ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution
- In 2002, ASEAN countries signed this agreement to tackle haze pollution through:
- Prevention: Promoting sustainable land management.
