The Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP), with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), constituted Working Group 39 on Global Trends in Pollution of Coastal Ecosystems: Retrospective Ecosystem Assessment. The goal of the working group was to contribute to the reduction of coastal ecosystem stress globally by providing stakeholders, scientists, and society in general an objective and global assessment of coastal ecosystem pollution trends during the last century (1900 – 2015). This was done through retrospective ecosystem analysis by using dated environmental archives and time series data, where available. This work was achieved mainly by using the wealth of knowledge of dated coastal marine sediments, already published in peer-reviewed scientific documents up to 2015.
This assessment was aimed to provide United Nations regulators, international, regional, national and local decision-makers with predictive knowledge and a management tool on contaminants trends worldwide to support decisions of socio-economic value at all scales. This report contains a detailed description of the established methodology, an overall description of the database, six case studies among the Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs; selected based on geographic distribution and information availability), a global assessment, conclusions, and recommendations.