The Effects Of Nutrient Enrichment And Eutrophication

The purpose of this is experiment is to more closely understand the effects of nutrient enrichment on samples of water from Encanto Park Lake and the Rio Salado River. More specifically the concentration of nitrogen, phosphorus, and nitrogen and phosphorus together were altered and the effects this had upon algal growth were then observed. The results indicated that an increase in nitrogen concentration showed minimal

Eutrophication is when there is too much nutrients in the water, as stated above. Eutrophication can come from farmers fertilizing their fields and some detergents. We tested for phosphates, salts or ester of phosphatidic acid. We also tested for nitrates, salts or ester of nitric acid. The more the phosphates and nitrates, the more eutrophication is present in the stream. We tested for dissolved oxygen, the amount of oxygen in the water, as well. We found found a very low level of phosphates with an average of 0.1 parts per million (ppm). We also found a very low level of nitrates with an average of 0.9 ppm. The dissolved oxygen level was 9.8 ppm. The higher the velocity of the water, the more dissolved oxygen it will contain. All of these measurements are very good and show that there is little or no eutrophication in the

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

Our end results only supported to some extent our hypothesis that increasing numbers of brine shrimp would directly cause decreases in algae concentration. Our hypothesis, if applied to only the jars of 3 and 6 brine shrimp, would be highly supported, due to the significant difference in algae concentrations. Evidently, the more shrimp that were present in the ecosystem, the less algae that were available at the end. In an ecosystem with more consumers, the consumers demand a higher amount of nutrients from the environment, or more specifically, the producers. And as the consumers develop and grow, those demands also grow. And thus, when we increased the amount of brine shrimp, more algae were consumed per unit time. Though the rate of consumption from the brine shrimp did not exceed the rate of growth of the algae in any jar, the

Back to the history, the eutrophication problem was first time concerned by public on Great lakes at the 1960s, the Lake Erie was covered by algae as a result of over dumped phosphorus from the sewage and other waste water, at that time, the Lake Erie was known as the “Dead Sea of North America”(Fitzpatrick, J. J., and Di Toro 1999). The reason cause this problem can be concluded in 2 points, 1. the stresses of overfishing, 2. development of phosphorus-based detergents. At the end of 1960, the Canada and the United States have realized the penetrance of this problem and finally sit on the table to sign an agreement that limiting phosphorus dumps to the Lake Erie, and plan to control existing unstoppable algal growth. Because of the awareness of Canada and US government, the concentration of phosphorus got a significant success. And this problem happened again during the 1990s, but this time the reason why this happen is more complexly.

Sediments are the main source of water pollution, contributing to turbidity issues as well as irregular or harmful nitrite/nitrate, phosphorus, and pH levels. This contributes to the death of marine organisms and can also change which organisms can survive in the body of water as its conditions change due to runoff. Anthropogenic runoff is also a contributor of adverse water effects, such as cultural eutrophication from fertilizer runoff, and also results in the death of aquatic animals and shifts in which organisms are more prominent in the ecosystem. This lab will address the effects soil will have on variables concerning water quality. There is also the option of including fish and/or aquatic plants in the water column, which are independent variables as well as the soil. The pH, ammonia levels, nitrite levels, temperature, D.O., and physical attributes are the dependent variables that will be measured during the lab. The qualitative physical tests (turbidity and odor) will portray the physical state and cleanliness of the water, as well as the level of runoff from the soil.

Response to Feedback Statement The feedback from Scientific Writing Assignment 1 provided me an insight of the areas I need to improve on when writing scientific reports. The main theme of feedback was I was not descriptive enough, particularly in the assignment title and research aims. To avoid this from occurring again I asked other people to read through my work and asked them if more information need to be provided to improve the readers understanding of the experiment. Another area I improved on was the layout of the results through figures and tables.

In the creek, Eutrophication is a common problem in many creeks and lakes. Eutrophication is the abundance of nutrients and chemicals in bodies of water. The causes of eutrophication is generally caused by sewage

Eutrophication is the slow process that occurs naturally in aquatic ecosystems, such as lakes and ponds. It is a result of an aging body of water gradually increasing its concentration of nutrients. This happens because the intervaling death and growth of organisms that, for whatever given reason, don’t cancel each other out, and modify the fertility of the ecosystem. Eutrophication is not inherently bad, but the hastening of this process through artificial means can be very harmful to the ecosystem, and ultimately end in failure.

As presented in the article “ How Products Are Made” they state, “The supply of these components in soil is limited, however, and as plants are harvested, it dwindles, causing a reduction in the quality and yield of plants.” This reasoning explains why fertilizers have always been in demand. Although discoveries in 1960 have brought arguments against fertilizers when 10 “dead zones” were discovered in the Atlantic Ocean. “Dead zones” or Hypoxic zones are areas in the water that have little to no oxygen .This occurs because of excess nutrients that feed the growth of plants such as cyanobacteria and blue-green algae that take in more oxygen than normal. Consequently, the fact that very few aquatic organisms can survive in hypoxic zones most organisms die off; hence the name “dead zones”. These negative effects fertilizers have on the environment overweigh the benefits in the eyes of several environment preservation organizations. Enough research has been done to get a better understanding of what other chemicals go into our crops and land. As

When phosphate enter enter the waterway from humans, animal, fertilizers runoff, laundry, cleaning, and industrial effluents, it can over fertilize the aquatic plants and cause eutrophication. If there is too much phosphate in the water, the algae and the weeds will grow rapidly. This could block the waterway and/or suffocate the aquatic life. Phosphates help the growth of plankton and aquatic plants which is food for fish, but if there is too much phosphate they will grow rapidly, using a lot of oxygen. As all the plants die, it uses up oxygen which in turn lowers the dissolved oxygen in the water, killing the aquatic life.

In addition, Some Vallisneria leaves changed colour from green to yellow-brownish as shown in figure 8. Plant nutrients, nitrate and phosphate supported production of chlorophyll, increasing rate of photosynthesis. However, excess of these nutrients reduced amount of chlorophyll and photosynthesis stopped. Green Algae formed

Eutrophication, the enrichment of aquatic environments with excess nutrients, is a naturally occurring phenomenon characterized by excessive plant and algae growth. Eutrophication initially increases productivity and limits light penetration, and subsequently results in reduced growth, depleted inorganic carbon, and anoxic “dead zones” (Chislock, Doster, Zitomer, & Wilson, 2013). Historically, primary productivity has been considered limited by an individual nutrient (Gooddy et al., 2016). Schindler (1974) established the highly influential paradigm that phosphorus (P) is generally considered limiting in freshwater environments. However, this has been subject to debate by evidence of freshwater nitrogen (N) limitation, N/P co-limitation, and the role of spatial and temporal variation (Xu, Paerl, Qin, Zhu, & Gao, 2010; Hundey, Moser, Longstaffe, Michelutti, & Hladyniuk, 2014) Cultural eutrophication, resulting from anthropogenic nutrient pollution, and has increased in both frequency and intensity over the past century due to intensification of agriculture, industry and sewage disposal (Schindler, 1974). The causes and consequences of eutrophication are important to study because of the resulting direct and indirect effects on ecosystems alongside societal impacts (Chrislock et al., 2013). Further, the importance of this research should be emphasized in the context of climate change, human population growth and the associated environmental consequences of the 21st century.

A recent increase in algae could be caused by excessive nutrients in the water, and the high concentration of these nutrients can also cause an increase in algae production. Another way that algae could increase would be if there is a high water temperature,which can cause algae to increase throughout the year. In addition, low light conditions can rapidly increase the population of algae. Lastly, when turbidity( which is the presence of matter and particles) is low it establishes an optimal environment for algal growth.

Nitrogen is the most abundant element found in our atmosphere and it is also the most important for a plant’s growth and one of the elements that a plant intakes in large amounts. “It is one of the basic components of chlorophyll, the compound by which plants use sunlight energy to produce sugars during the process of photosynthesis.” (House & Garden, n.d.) Nitrogen can enter the soil in many ways such as rainfall, which may deposit some atmosphere nitrogen into the soil or some organisms such as, bacteria, actinomycetes and cyanobacteria are known to convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium so that plants can absorb easily. High rates of photosynthesis will occur when a plant receives sufficient amounts of nitrogen (N). (CTAHR, n.d)