The Istanbul Strait, which separates the European and the Asian parts of Istanbul, is one of the narrowest straits in the world that is used for international shipping. The Strait has very special ecological conditions in terms of marine environment (atmospheric/oceanographic conditions, plant and animal diversity) and terrestrial environment. It also has roles as biological corridor and biological barrier between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea and form an acclimatization zone for migrating species. Due to being the only maritime access for the neighboring Black Sea states and the Central Asian Turki Republics, the Istanbul Strait has been exposed to dense marine traffic for centuries and substantial increase has occurred in size and tonnage of the ships passing through the Strait with hazardous cargo varieties and amounts they carry. Increase in the number of vessels that navigates on the Strait and being on the transportation way of hazardous and dangerous materials pose serious environmental and safety hazards for the Istanbul Strait, Marmara Sea and the surrounding residential areas. Geographic and oceanographic features of the Istanbul Strait makes the navigation on the Strait rather difficult and consequently the Strait has faced many casualties that caused severe environmental problems due to thousands tons of oil spill occurring in recent decades.

Formate ion (HCO2-) occurs in natural waters as a result of photooxidation of humic substances. Under UV irradiation, as applied in water purification (253.7 nm), formate ion decomposed following split-rate pseudo-zero-order kinetics (k1 and k2 are initial and final rate constants, respectively). In the presence of dissolved oxygen (DO), it was found that (a) k1 < k2, (b) k1 and k2 increased with initial formate ion concentration ([HCO2-]0 = (1.73-38.3) x 10(-5) mol L(-1)) and absorbed UV intensity (Ia = (1.38-3.99) x 10(-6) mol quanta L(-1) s(-1)), and (c) k1 and k2 were relatively insensitive to initial pH (pHo = 5.41-8.97) in buffer-free solutions. Both rate constants decreased with increasing carbonate alkalinity ((0-1.0) x 10(-3) mol L(-1)) and k1 was virtually unchanged in phosphate buffer at pH0 between 5.25 and 9.92. Carbonate buffer lowered the rate of formate ion decay, possibly due to scavenging of OH* radicals. Initial rate constant k1 slightly increased with temperature (15-35 degrees C), while k2 remained unchanged. The reaction pH increased rapidly during irradiation of buffer-free NaHCO2 solution to approach an equilibrium level as [HCO2-] reached the method detection level (MDL). The pH profile of buffer-free formate ion decay was estimated using closed-system equilibrium analysis. DO utilization during UV irradiation was 0.5 mol of O2/mol of HCO2-, while nonpurgeable organic carbon (NPOC) measurements on kinetic samples closely followed the HCO2- profile, thus strongly suggesting the transformation of HCO2- -C to CO2 in the presence of DO. In DO-free water, k1 > k2 was observed. Furthermore, k(1,DO FREE) > k(1,DO) (k(1,DO) = k1) and k(2,DO FREE) < k(2,DO) (k(2,DO) = k2). The effect of dual acid solutions on HCO2- decay was examined in a mixture of NaHCO2 and sodium oxalate (Na2C2O4). HCO2- decomposed readily until [HCO2-] approximately equal to MDL but at a lower rate than in buffer-free HCO2- solutions, while C2O4(2-) remained virtually unchanged. C2O4(2-) decay commenced following near complete conversion of HCO2-.

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