 Tunisia has a very long coastline, about 1,300 km, and also 80% of the Tunisian population live in coastal cities. So basically Tunisia depends on the sea for fishing, for jobs, for tourism. Anything related to the sea is very important to Tunisians. Pollution is a combined issue. There are consequences from previous activities. Even if you stop those activities, the consequences are still there. But also there are new activities that come up and contribute to pollution. I can think of the increased maritime transportation and all the pollution that result from the hydrocarbons and possible oil spills and whatever. This is very important. But also the increased tourism activities on the coast leads to increased construction on the seashore, marines and leisure boat activities. All of these contribute to pollution. And another factor which is important also is the land generated waste. If it's not carefully managed then it may end up to the sea and it will contribute to pollution. When the marine environment gets polluted, everyone suffers. We start from the environment itself, the fish, the fauna living there, but also the fishermen who may lose job because of loss of income. Also the tourism industry may suffer if the beach is closed due to some contamination. Pollution if not controlled in the marine environment can affect human health. It could be of a bacteriological origin and if the water is infected with dangerous bacteria it may lead to skin rash or even more serious health problems. And it could be also due to some toxic elements they found their way through the food chain in the marine environment. And if the diet of the fish is contaminated with toxic elements that element may get passed to the humans because they eat fish. And that may result in health problems to humans feeding on those contaminated fish. Nuclear analytic techniques using nuclear instruments and also based on the measurements and quantification of radionucleides can help and actually do help a lot in monitoring and studying marine pollution. In order to measure the radionucleides you need some nuclear instruments. For example for the alpha emitters we use alpha spectrometry. We take a sample, we digest it, prepare it, put the sample into the chamber of the detector and then from the energy measure that we can identify the radionucleides. And from the number of counts we measure we can quantify the radionucleides. That means the concentration of the radionucleides. In a similar way also we have another technique we call gamma spectrometry which measures the gamma emitters. Same principle, the energy of the photons will give us identity of the radionucleides because each radionucleides has a specific energy attached to it. And also by counting the number of photons we collect on the detector it gives us an idea about the concentration of that radionucleide. The data we collect on the fate of contaminants, the concentration or even you know dynamical data for the processes you know it should get passed on to various institutions. Each institution is interested in certain aspects of the marine environment. Either health institutions they issue warnings to people if the water is contaminated or some fish are not suitable for consumption. Environmental authorities also are concerned to see if there are some hot spots, if regulations are being observed. The most important thing from our work is to feel that we're doing something. We're helping preserve the environment and we're helping increase awareness of people. Show them that you know if we're not careful we can contaminate the environment and it can lead to serious problems. When you go out in the field and you take a sample whether it be sediment or contaminated water and you measure it and you discover what's going on in it and you tell decision makers and they take a decision and some people will avoid getting sick because of that. I'll be very happy and that's very gratifying to me.