Abstract

The Black Sea is a closed basin which is connected to Aegean Sea through Bosporus and Dardanel Straits: The basin is encircled with six countries from which major rivers Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, YeÅŸilirmak, Kizilirmak and Sakarya run through to the sea, which carry and discharge pollution from industrial, agricultural and domestic sources to Black Sea Basin that grows cumulatively. They discharge into virtually enclosed Black Sea on the wastes of a combined population of 165 m people in 17 countries. Sewage washes up on the beaches, spreading disease and making the shores unsafe for residents and tourists. Pesticides and fertilizers are often over-applied and run into the rivers. The dimensions of pollution come from rivers in to Black Sea Basin, and impacts of that on human settlements and the environment in the basin and Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) and Strategic Action Plan are the main concern of this paper, which will be evaluated with the data available. 150 million ton solid matters carried by erosion in to Black Sea, 17% of that came from Turkey. 75% of land based pollution came from Danube, 20% from independent states of former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and 5% came from rivers of Turkey and Bulgaria.

Key words: Black sea basin, river basin, pollution, hot point, heavy metal.