No other planet, as far as we know, has anything resembling an ocean, and the fact that more than seven-tenths of the Earth’s surface is covered with water is quite evident. The ocean reservoirs hold about 97% of the planet’s stock of water- some 330 million cubic miles of it spread over an area of 139,440,000 square miles (Oceanography). Water pollution progresses every day in our lakes, oceans, rivers, and other bodies of water that we see and use in many ways. Human beings are the most superior race existing in this world. While we regularly implement consuming abilities of valuable resources we also pollute our environments. Water is essential for all living things to survive, yet people still pollute it. There are a wide variety of pollutants that can affect water and the plants and animals that live in the water. This pollution can be divided into three groups: chemical pollution, thermal pollution, and ecological pollution. Since not all pollution is human produced we need to understand that there are sometimes "natural" reasons for some pollution.
The term “marine pollution” was not widely used until 1967, when the tanker Torrey Canyon spilled more then 36 million gallons of crude oil just 20 miles off the coast of Cornwall, England. The United Nations Joint Group of experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution (GESAMP) defined marine pollution in 1972 as “the introduction by man, directly or indirectly, of substances or energy to the marine environment (including estuaries) resulting in deleterious effects such as: harm to living resources: hazards to human health; hindrance of marine activities including fishing; impairing the quality use of seawater and reduction of amenities (Clark)”. A few years later, scientists began to distinguish between marine contamination and pollution, defining contamination as “the presence of elevated concentrations of substances in the water, sediments or organisms (Marine Pollution One)”. This definition suggest that contamination was seen only as a warning sign of possible pollution, and that in most cases, waste disposal in the ocean was seen as essentially “free”. The marine environment is both fragile and more resistant than the terrestrial ecosystem. It is fragile for the reasons that nutrients are generally present in very low concentrations, permanently consumed by living organisms and pollutants diffuse rapidly
