China Closely Monitoring Red TideChina's State Oceanic Administration has called on the coastal areas to strengthen their round-the-clock monitoring against red tide, which kills fish and other organisms in sea waters.The urgent call was made with the approaching of the season of red tide outbreak in offshore areas. A number of large-scale red tides have been reported at the Zhoushan Islands, east China's Zhejiang Province, since May, said Li Hang, an official from the China Maritime Supervision Corps. And outbreak of large-scale red tides is possible in Bohai sea area in July and August, said Li. Experts predict that about 20 to 30 red tides are expected to occur this year in the coastal sea waters, and aquacultural and sewage discharge areas as well as ports are listed as the most dangerous regions. Satellite remote sensing technology is used to monitor red tides in China's coastal areas, together with planes and ships. A red tide is a dense population of aquatic microscopic organisms that breed in the abundance of salt in surface water. The micro-organisms appear in most of the world's waters and most are harmless. However, some single-cell organisms produce a poison that paralyzes and kills fish. These organisms may also suffocate fish by consuming nearly all the oxygen in the water. According to experts, red tide is mainly caused by pollution from land and the large-scale farming in coastal waters, which produce too much nitrogen and phosphorus. China has experienced increasing red tides off the coast since the 1990s due to increasing pollution caused by industrial waste water, according to a recent report issued by the State Oceanic Administration. China registered more than 200 red tides in the past decade. A total of 45 large-scale red tides occurred between 1997 and 1999, causing direct economic losses of 240 million US dollars. |
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