Since 2011 there has been an explosion in the quantity of Sargassum Seaweed reaching the shores of countries in the Caribbean and West Africa inflicting severe socio-economic impacts, particularly to the tourism sector and coastal fisheries. Pelagic Sargassum is free-floating brown seaweed that blossoms naturally in the warm waters of the Sargasso Sea of the Northern Atlantic Ocean. The unprecedented recent invasion of Sargassum seaweed on coastal shores in West Africa and Caribbean shores is being attributed to factors that include warming of the ocean due to global climate change, discharge of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) from agricultural run-off and wastewater originating from point sources and from major river basins such as the Congo and Amazon Rivers, and the deposition of iron and nutrient-rich Saharan dust on the ocean.
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