The role of nuclear derived applications for health and the oceans was the focus of an IAEA presentation delivered at the first International Symposium on Human Heath and the Ocean in a changing world, organized by the Scientific Centre of Monaco from 2 to 3 December.
It discussed the work of the IAEA Environment Laboratories in Monaco and how the IAEA assists governments around the world with knowledge and tools to better understand marine ecosystems, vital for human health and well-being.
"Nuclear and isotopic techniques are instrumental in understanding and proposing marine pollution mitigation strategies and providing tools to deal with the environmental impact of various contaminants, habitat destruction, biodiversity loss and climate change," said Florence Descroix-Comanducci, Director of the IAEA Environment Laboratories.
Descroix-Comanducci shared the IAEA’s experience of nearly sixty years in delivering nuclear science-based solutions to experts in countries around the world and helping to address their most pressing marine environmental challenges.
“Atomic-scale analytical tools, such as radiotracers, allow scientists to accurately trace the movement of various contaminants in the environment and marine organisms and assess their transfer to the food chain, including to humans,” she said.
At the plenary session on ocean health and threats to human health, Descroix-Comanducci talked of the role of nuclear science and applications for advancing knowledge of the processes related to climate- and ocean-change, as well as to pollution that threaten seafood and human health.
She explained that a changing climate is also changing an ocean chemistry as the ocean absorbs one fourth of the carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere by human activities.
“A process, known as ocean acidification, negatively impacts certain marine organisms with wide ranging implications to coastal communities and associated economies reliant on a healthy ocean,” she said. “Nuclear derived techniques are powerful tools to study how the ocean is changing in the short- and long-term and can offer methods to build resilience in coastal and marine ecosystems. They offer a unique capability to study the rates of biological processes in marine organisms, such as mussels, oysters and corals,” she said.
The presentation session allowed participants to understand anthropogenic perturbations that threaten global seafood and impact human health and ways how global scientific community can make a positive shift.
“We work with a wide array of scientific partners, including scientific community in Monaco, on solutions to address diverse marine stressors such as deoxygenation, ocean acidification, contamination, harmful algal blooms, and marine plastics drawing on our unique expertise in nuclear science and technology,” Descroix-Comanducci said.
