Saltwater Intrusion Into Freshwater Habitats

The Bay’s salinity varies widely from season to season and from year to year, depending on the amount of fresh water flowing from its rivers. The Bay tends to be fresher in spring, when snow melts and heavy rainstorms frequently fall. During the drier months, the Bay is usually saltier. Salinity also increases with depth. Fresh water remains at the surface because it is less dense than salt water. The water on the Bay’s eastern shore tends to be saltier than the water on the western side. This is due to two factors; most fresh water enters the Bay from its northern and western tributaries, and The Coriolis Force, a phenomenon caused by the earth’s rotation, pushes flowing water in the Northern Hemisphere to the right, causing saltier water to move up the Bay veers toward the eastern shore.

If saltwater is applied to a plant, the plant would shrivel up and die. This is a result of the water moving out of the cells in order to try to balance the concentration of solute compared to inside the cell. The water movement out of the cell would cause the cell to shrink and the lack of water would eventually cause the plant to die.

Oil and gas exploration, pipeline canals, and navigation channels have allowed saltwater to intrude into freshwater areas.2

When salinity increases, warning signs appear in the landscapes of the affected areas. These warning signs include things like sick and/or dying trees, declining vegetation, colonisation of tolerant weed-like plants, bare patches where vegetation has died and saline pools in creek beds. These show that the ecosystem is being affected and at a high rate.

(Salton Sea Symposium, 1998) However , the condition of the Sea has drastically changed and so has the amount of healthy living organisms in the Sea. By the 1980�s the water level rose greatly and gave way to abandoned businesses, deteriorating structures and empty beaches. The above was due to the fact that evaporation is the only outlet to the Salton Sea , in fact 1.35 million acre feet of water is lost each year , thus increasing its salinity even more. The salinity of the Salton Sea has increased to 45,000 parts per thousand or 45 PPT; the Pacific Ocean is currently 35 PPT.

The daphnia relies on an osmotic gradient, as they are able to take in ions with their chloride absorbing glands, which help the organism to secrete and absorb ions by supporting the inadequate effectiveness of excretory organs to complete homeostasis under dehydration and extreme conditions. Therefore under the influence of increasing salinity, daphnia will face dehydration from high levels of concentration and will lead to the death of the species (Komnick, 1986).

Saltwater intrusion leading to contaminated drinking water wells has long been feared in South Florida. Saltwater intrusion occurs naturally to some degree in most coastal aquifers, owing to the hydraulic connection between groundwater and seawater. Because saltwater has a higher mineral content than freshwater, it is denser and has a higher water pressure. There are three primary mechanisms by which saltwater contaminates the freshwater reservoir in the unconfined, surficial aquifers of the region: one, subsurface movement of seawater (lateral large-scale intrusion), two, seepage of seawater from tidal canals and streams, and three, upward movement of connate saltwater (water remaining from the

Could you imagine what happened to translucent and glistened Florida’s springs? Florida was floating on the water, it has more than 900 freshwater springs (Guest, 2014). Unfortunately, many studies show there are several threats such as drawing out tremendous amount of water, and the absent of regulation laws, lead to Contamination of Florida’s springs, loose business.

As the earth's global temperature rises, the ocean is expected to encroach upon population-dense coastal areas because of melting permafrost and the thermal expansion of the water. When water in rivers cannot flow into the

I think it's kinda scary if you ask me because when the water floods it causes big problems.Salt marsh can be bad because it takes 18% of water.Some people can't swim in saltwater so that can be bad too.I don’t like the smell of saltwater so i stay way from salt water if i can.It can effect my life because salt marsh floods and flooding causes a bunch of danger to peoples homes and some people lose all there stuff by the flooding so salt marsh is bad for life because people that house sits right on the ground is in trouble because water can get in very

Some ideas to help stop this issue is that The State of California agreed 15 years ago to have a plan in place by 2017 to preserve wildlife habitat and public health by restoring at least part of the Salton Sea. New state and federal laws should clearly define reasonable and beneficial water use. With this standard, farmers will enact water-saving practices. The local water district, California, and the U.S. must immediately fund Salton Sea restoration. The Salton Sea is not well known and we have very few people to help so the people who are trying to help the Salton Sea want to let more people know about it and let people know what is happening to the Salton Sea.

The combination of these and other trends was an estimated average sea-level increase of 1.5mm per year between 1961 and 2003, which reached 2.4mm per year in the decade from 1993 to 2003. The decades prior to this trend showed only minor fluctuations in sea-level, suggesting that the current rate exceeds what could be caused by natural cycles. While the exact impact of rising oceans is difficult to determine, it is certain that the consequences will include some degree of flooding, integration of salt water into water tables, and a loss of land due to coastal erosion and submersion.6

This contributes to the increase in flooding and the costliness of flooding as mentioned earlier. e. The flooding and rising sea levels also displaces the fresh water supply. And as we all know, humans and animals depend on fresh water in order to live.

The San Francisco Bay estuarine system has experienced many threats from human activities over the last few centuries. Currently, the two most imminent threats to this Bay area estuarine system are being recognized as a result of global climate change. The first major water-related threat is associated with rising sea levels along the bay and outer coastal shorelines. This is problematic for many different reasons, including coastal and bay-side flooding and shoreline erosion. The second major water-related threat, which can be attributed to both rising sea levels and a reduction of fresh water runoff into the estuarine system is salt water intrusion into ground water reserves. With the recognition and acknowledgement of these serious

One of the most serious effects of global warming, as it continues to intensify, is the increase in the ocean levels. Thermal expansion of the ocean and glacial melting are likely to cause a .5 to 1.5 meter rise in the ocean level by the year 2100. As the ocean level rises and if no protection is provided, many freshwater supplies could be jeopardized. Tens and possibly hundreds of millions of