Concluding remarks

Abstract

The new millennium started with a legacy of unprecedented contamination of the world ecosystems left in the wake of the various activities of humankind. Chemical pollutants have become so diverse (see Chapter 1) and widespread that there is hardly any region of the world that is not currently affected by their impacts. With the exception, perhaps, of the desert wilderness areas (for which information on pollution is still lacking), every other ecosystem on earth, from the polar regions to the tropics, whether on land or in the oceans, has been shown to contain residues or traces of organic and inorganic pollutants of anthropogenic origin.