Buffer Zone Lab

Government agencies carefully monitor water quality and its effect on wetlands (Reference: Environment Protection Agency Wetland Report EPA 832-R-93-005). Of particular concern is the concentration of nitrogen in water draining from fertilized lands. Too much nitrogen can kill fish and wildlife. Twenty-eight samples of water were taken at random from a lake. The nitrogen concentration (milligrams of nitrogen per liter of water) was determined for each sample. The variable in this information is nitrogen concentration (mg nitrogen/l water).

Overall, the more macroinvertebrates in the water, the healthier the stream. pH is a measure of how acidic or basic water is. It is measured on a scale from 0-14. 0 is the most acidic, 14 is the most basic, and 7 is neutral. It is the measure of the relative amount of free hydrogen and hydroxide ions in the water. Acidic water has more hydrogen ions, and basic water has more hydroxide ions. When water’s pH is around neutral (7), that is a suitable and healthy living environment for fish, and indicates a healthy stream. If the water is too acidic or too basic, it can be harmful to the aquatic life. Dissolved oxygen is a measure of how much oxygen is dissolved in the water. As the amount of dissolved oxygen drops below normal levels in water bodies, the water quality is harmed and creatures begin to die off as a result of eutrophication. The higher the level of dissolved oxygen, the healthier the stream. When there is a lot of dissolved oxygen present it makes for a safe environment for fish to live and reproduce. Having all this healthy fish can provide us with food, so overall the more dissolved oxygen, the better. Nitrates are a compound found in fertilizers that is used to help plants grow. It is what is given off as a result of the use of nitrogen in water. The organisms in the soil eat the nitrates and it helps the metabolism and the health of organisms. Plants, such as Algae use nitrates as a source

A comprehensive investigation on how nutrients in waterways were increasing, was undertaken by a body of individual scientists and their findings were as follows;

Hydrologic studies has always been the subdiscipline of environmental science that has most intrigued me; probably because the eco- and geological systems that comprise surface and shallow groundwater systems are so inexorably entwined and very delicate. Both of the virtual labs were interesting, and paint a clear picture of how we affect our hydrosphere and how that, in turn, affects us. Spotsylvania County and the city of Fredericksburg share four water treatment facilities that pull water from the Mott's Run Reservoir, the Ni River, and the Rappahannock River, which is the largest river in the local area, the other two being smaller tributaries that feed into it. The Rappahannock River is a significant body of water, providing the potable water for roughly a quarter-million people. Toward the coast the river sees mostly recreational and some light industrial use, and further upstream it is affected by many small to midsized agricultural operations that take place on the land adjacent to the river.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), "High levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in our lakes, rivers, streams, and drinking water sources cause the degradation of these water bodies and harm fish, wildlife, and human health." In the 2000 National Water Quality Inventory, states reported that agricultural nonpoint source (NPS) pollution was the leading source of water quality impacts on surveyed rivers and lakes, as well as the second largest source of impairments to wetlands, and a major contributor to contamination of surveyed estuaries and groundwater. Agricultural activities that cause NPS pollution include poorly located or managed animal feeding operations; overgrazing; plowing too often or at the wrong time; and improper, excessive or poorly timed application of pesticides, irrigation water and fertilizer. Since the 1960s, the high input of agriculture production has resulted in the surplus of nitrogen and phosphorus in farm fields, which run off into surface waters. High concentrations of nitrates and phosphates in surface waters could lead to eutrophication and instability of the aquatic ecosystems. Eutrophication is caused by the over-enrichment of water with phosphates and nitrates, a problem that has become a widespread in rivers, lakes, estuaries, and coastal

One of the reasons why the San Joaquin Valley is highly susceptible to water contamination is because of agriculture pesticides such as the nitrogen-based fertilizer called “nitrate.” Nitrates, once they 've entered the body, are converted to “nitrites” (Basic Info. About Nitrate in Drinking Water). If a baby younger than six months consumes water with more nitrate than the

The North Raccoon River is one of the many rivers in Iowa that have high Nitrogen levels. Journalist Mike Klein's article “The North Raccoon: A River of Controversy and Undiscovered beauty” (2016) states “we took a water sample that measured nitrates at 15 milligrams per liter — 5 milligrams higher than the level the Environmental Protection Agency

If you wish to avoid nitrates in your body, it is recommended to “eat as little as possible any processed foods and cured meats, reading labels for any nitrates and nitrites, organics, sometimes the water may also be contaminated with nitrates or

Using a small back hoe or excavator the soils can be pulled into the stream and compacted by rollers to prevent down cutting in the future. The natural stream depth can then be restored and the hazard to people or animals falling into the stream prevented. Further, by restoring sinuosity of the stream down cutting can be slowed or even halted completely. By compacting the soils in the centerline of the stream and, also, restoring sinuosity the water velocity will be slowed and the soils resistant to down-cutting. These steps limit the influence of soil erosion to the water

The concern was based on fertilizer runoff from farm grounds based upstream from Des Moines. Des Moines Water Works officials blamed the agricultural drainage districts for the high nitrate levels in the Raccoon River, and sought reparations for their expenses in upgrading their nitrate removal systems.

Natural habitat is limited on campus to a small tallgrass prairie plot that was established in the mid-2000s. That area is used as a teaching space for many environmental science classes and is maintained through yearly burnings. Otherwise, the campus commons are dominated by lawn grasses that receive routine mowing and aeration. The campus has the most concentrated greenspace in the surrounding neighborhood, which is dominated my roads, residential and commercial areas that are principally impermeable. Thus, the precipitations that does fall on the green spaces of campus percolates into the ground or runoffs into either a Drake or city of Des Moines owned drainage pipe. Moreover, precipitation that falls onto one of the campus’s roofs or parking lots typically flows directly into drainage pipes. Some of these drainage pipes flow directly into a ravine that has a stream. The stream is approximately two blocks north of the campus behind the Tennis Center Field between 27th and 24th Street and eventually joins with the Des Moines

Nitrates in groundwater have become a major issue around the world and have held people back from drinking clean water. One of the many places being affected by this issue, is a city in the state of Minnesota by the name, Cold Spring.The main issue for such high capacities of nitrate in water is cropland agriculture. Cold Spring has had to forcefully shut down a couple of their city wells due to these high levels of nitrate in their water, leaving the city with a very low capacity of water to use, and drink. This issue has gotten very far, to the point that the safest level for drinking water is 10 milligrams. Drinking water that contains nitrates can be very harmful to the body and can also develop syndromes in babies.

– it doesn’t necessarily have a strong effect on the water, but the surrounding marsh land can be significantly impacted by potassium nitrate. This is because potassium is a mineral commonly contained in fertilisers, which help the growth of plants. Its intended use is to increase crop yields but when washed into rivers or lakes it causes the problem of eutrophication. This is basically where the environment becomes enriched with nutrients. The increase of nitrate in the water would enhance algae growth, which creates a bloom over the surface of the water. This bloom prevents any sunlight from reaching other water plants, depriving them of oxygen and sunlight and eventually killing them. Bacteria then decomposes the dead plants and consumes

Groundwater pollution is a prominent problem in most areas of the world. High nitrate concentrations have been identified as one of the main culprits of groundwater pollution. Agriculture is a primary anthropogenic source involved in the spreading and distribution of nitrates in rural areas. China is considered one of the largest in terms of agricultural production. As the population of China increased over time, the recycling of plant nutrients could no longer renew the loss of nutrients from harvesting. The famine between 1960 and 1970 caused radical changes when it came to policies about population control and large efforts were made to increase agricultural yields. This was encouraged by increasing the application rate of chemical fertilizers, especially ones that were nitrogen based (Emteryd, Lu and Nykyist, 1998). However, higher irrigation and nitrogen fertilizer inputs results in decreased water and nitrogen use efficiency (Hu, Li, and Chen, 2010). Currently China is the leading producer of rice, wheat onion cabbage and the second largest producer of corn (See Appendix). Presently the average annual nitrogen fertilizer application is 200 kg N/ha in China (Zhang, Xu, XIaomin, Dong and Ballantine, 2013). As a result of this, China unsurprisingly suffers from large amounts of nitrate pollution in its groundwater, especially in northern China. The main focus of this paper will therefore be on the North China Plain and the provinces surrounding the Yangtze River as

The increasing use of artificial fertilizers, the disposal of wastes (particularly from animal farming) and changes in land use are the main factors responsible for the progressive increase in nitrate levels in groundwater supplies over the last 20 years.” (Asami et al.) It is no easy task to discover a solution to agricultural nitrogen runoff that improves the water and organisms while also appeasing the industry. What we want to know is how can we help make a difference in these habitats right now that can be carried out with as little opposition from the agricultural industry as possible. We propose an experiment that may help to alleviate some of the nitrogen amounts washed into streams while the bigger problems are being addressed by other institutions. It could be a quicker way to help the ecosystems than waiting until one solution is reached. Our hypothesis is that with the addition of natural and native vegetation, the amount of nitrogen present in streams due to runoff will decrease more than if imported substances like gravel and sand were introduced. We believe this option will prove the most successful because it may cause less of a disturbance in the surrounding environment. The vegetation will be native, so the problem of introducing a non-native species won’t need to be addressed. The organisms in the stream also need to be taken into consideration and the addition of