A literature search was conducted to summarize studies that quantified the efficacy of ballast water exchange. Here, a number of parameters were collated from 68 studies to provide a meta-analysis of the efficacy of exchange. The percent removal of ballast water, organisms, and various physical parameters was investigated to quantify exchange efficacy in terms of volumetric, biological, and wat...

abstract

Currently, seawater flushing is the only management strategy for reducing the number of viable organisms in residual sediments and water of ballast tanks of vessels declaring no ballast on board (NOBOB) that traffic ports of the eastern United States. Previously, we identified several species of freshwater and brackish-water peracarid crustaceans able to survive the osmotic shock that occurs du...

Many transoceanic vessels enter the Great Lakes carrying residual ballast water and sediment that harbours live animals and diapausing eggs. In this study, we examine the potential for sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) to reduce the risk of species introductions from diapausing invertebrate eggs in residual ballast sediment. We collected sediment from three transoceanic vessels and from Lake Erie and...

To limit the spread of non-indigenous marine species, ships can be legally required to conduct ballast water exchange (BWE) prior to discharging ballast water. It has been proposed to verify BWE by measuring concentrations of coastal tracers in ballast tanks, which should track their removal. Using 3 Australian ports as case studies (Port Botany, Port Curtis and Port Phillip Bay), each represen...

Biological invasions from ballast water are a severe environmental threat and exceedingly costly to society. We identify global hot spots of invasion based on worldwide patterns of ship traffic. We then estimate the rate of port-to-port invasion using gravity models for spatial interactions, and we identify bottlenecks to the regional exchange of species using the Ford-Fulkerson algorithm for n...

© The Ecological Society of America www.frontiersinecology.org B invasions, a major and increasing agent of global biodiversity change, are often the result of inadvertent releases from trade and travel pathways (Levine et al. 2003; Ruiz and Carlton 2003; Drake and Lodge 2004). Empirical and theoretical evidence indicate that invasion risk can be decreased by reducing propagule pressure, specif...

Ballast water contains a variety of organisms including bacteria, viruses and the adult and larval stages of the many marine and coastal plants and animals. As such, it poses serious ecological, economic and health problems and has serious negative effects on the global environment. This paper presents a new efficient ballast water analysis and heat treatment system using waste heat recovery sy...