G.Info:State of the Environment Georgia - The Black Sea 

The Black Sea

Almost one third of the entire land are of continental Europe drains into the Black Sea. It is an area which includes major parts of seventeen countries, thirteen capital cities and some 160 million persons. The second, third and fourth major European rivers, the Danube, Dnieper and Don, discharge into this sea, but its only connection to the world's oceans is the narrow Bosphorus Channel. The Bosphorus is as little as 70 metres deep and 700 metres wide but the depth of the Black Sea itself, exceeds two kilometres in places.

The large natural river supply of phosphorus and nitrogen, essential nutrients for marine plants and algae, has always made the Black Sea very fertile. The tiny floating marine plants known as phytoplankton which form the base of the marine food chain are either eaten or die and gradually fall to deeper waters where bacteria take care of decomposing them, almost completely. Replenishment of the bottom waters of sea with new seawater from the Mediterranean takes hundreds of years. The bacteria in the bottom waters quickly consume all the oxygen and the sea is virtually dead below a depth of about 180 metres. The Black Sea is the biggest natural anoxic basin in the world. Despite this situation, for millennia, its surface waters supported a rich and diverse marine life. Its coastal inhabitants prospered from the abundant fisheries and, more recently, from the millions of tourists who flocked from all over eastern and central Europe to bathe in its warm waters and enjoy the beauty of its shorelines, plains and mountains.

Home 
The Black Sea Environmental Programme 
Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Georgia