The Biological Efficacy of Open Ocean Exchange — Implications for Ballast Water Management

Abstract

The urgent need to control ballast-mediated bioinvasions prompted the maritime industry and the legislators to adopt open-ocean ballast water exchange without rigorously testing its effectiveness in terms of eliminating ballast-entrained biota. A review of recent studies of biota entrained in ballast water and sediments following open-ocean exchange raised questions as to the reliability of the procedure as an effective control measure.