Monitoring the accumulation of chemical substances in marine organisms off Tokohoku after the 2011 tsunami event

TEAMS

The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake" affected the coast of northern Japan on March 11, 2011, resulting in an extremely destructive tsunami that washed away as much as 25 million tons of debris from the Pacific coast of the Tohoku area. The debris included a number of pieces of old electric equipment containing high-level polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that had been stored in the coastal areas. We are monitoring PCBs in benthic fish and invertebrates and surface sediments off Tohoku after the earthquake. We will continue this monitoring at least until 2021. This activity contributes to the achievement of one of the SDG goals (14).

A temporal change in total concentration of PCBs in both biological and sediment samples across the tsunami event associated with the earthquake.

Research Institute for Marine Resources Utilization (MRU)
Biogeochemistry Program (BGC)
Research Institute for Global Change (RIGC)
Marine Biodiversity and Environmental Assessment Research Center (BioEnv) Analyses of Changes in East Japan Marine Ecosystems Research and Development Group (JAM-TEAMS)