The Gulf Of Mexico Dead Zone

The importance of the Chesapeake Bay is introduced. The bay is home to a large amount of seafood businesses, and many people fish the bay and its tributaries for sport. Grass beds are essential to many of the organisms living in this ecosystem, but are being destroyed by pollution. Agriculture involves more than a fourth of the bay's watershed. This makes agricultural runoff a big focus. Excessive nitrogen and phosphorus causes eutrophication. These nutrients come from pesticides and sewage also. A goal was set in 1985 to cut back the percent of nutrients being put into the bay by these two sources. It is thought that redirecting the flow of soil with nutrients in them will reduce the runoff, but if the nutrients seep into groundwater they still get into the Chesapeake Bay. Farmers have ways to help reduce these nutrient levels, but it is not the cheapest way to farm, so not all farmers are doing their part to save the bay. Another contributor of runoff land development. Runoff can occur from exposed land being prepared to be developed, or because of what has been used to replace what used to naturally be.

As it stands today the U.S. coast of the Gulf of Mexico is losing more and more land; the amount of land lost each year may seem relatively small to the average person, but to scientists who understand the unprecedented rate at which this is happening, there is reason to be alarmed. On the U.S. coast of the Gulf of Mexico there are more reasons for the rising sea level than simply global warming and melting ice sheets or ice caps. In the Mississippi delta, for example, the oil industry is taking so much fluid (oil) out of the ground that the land is sinking and compacting further. There is also a decrease in the amount of sediment reaching the delta due to many man-made structures, such as levees, drudging, dikes, and

Hypoxia has become a large problem in the Gulf of Mexico, especially along the coast of Louisiana. When there is a large region of water with a low oxygen level it is said to be hypoxic, where as regions with no oxygen are anoxic (Rabalais). The Gulf of Mexico is home to the second largest zone of costal hypoxia in the world, more specifically the continental shelf along the coast of Louisiana (Rabalais). With this change in environment the wildlife inhabiting it have two choices either emigrate or die(Rabalais). Both of those options lead to a wildlife dead zone which in turn leads to a decrease in fishing, shrimping, and crabbing all of which play a major part in south Louisiana’s economy. The best way to reduce hypoxia as well as the size

Lastly, I will explain the dead zone of the chesapeake Bay. Excessive Nitrogen and Phosphrous pollution from human activities cause “Dead Zones” , which are areas with low amounts of oxygen. With little or no oxygen, fish, crabs, oysters, and other aquatic animals literally suffocate. Further excess in nutrients also fuels the growth of dense algae blooms that block sunlight that underwater grasses need to grow in order to continue providing food for waterfowl and shelter for blue crabs and juvenile fish. (Chesapeake Bay Foundation) (Dead Zones)

Human activities such as the use of fertilizers in yard soil contribute to the accumulation of nutrients. When using fertilizers, the ground can only absorb so much. The use of excess fertilizers on crops allows for nitrogen to vaporize in the atmosphere through a process called volatilization (Olascoaga, 2010). Crop fertilizer also leaches nitrogen into groundwater, which eventually ends up in the ocean. When the ground is at its maximum absorbance, high concentration levels are obtained and carried through the waste system into rivers. Another factor is sewage from the increasing human population. Septic tanks are widely used unless a household is connected to wastewater treatment plants. Septic tanks purify waste by leaching the waste through soil. Storm water runoff is another source of nutrient for algal blooms. Rainfall picks up nutrients from yards and flushes these nutrients into

As humanity continues to prosper agriculturally, industrially, and in population, companies, as well as local communities, have obsessively used the Ocean to toss their waste without consequences. The formation of dead zones has been intensified by the increase runoff of fertilizers and the burning of fossil fuels. Enhanced primary production causes algae to bloom at a constant rate creating a layer near the surface. This layer acts as a roof to vegetation below resulting in a lack of oxygen which organisms use to live. According to Robert Diaz and Rutger Rosenberg, “Dead zones have now been reported from more than 400 systems, affecting a total area of more than 245,000 square kilometers, and are probably a key stressor on marine ecosystems.” Specifically, the Chesapeake Bay has been polluted to the point where areas have now been uninhabitable to marine life. Although waste disposal is a difficult issue to solve, polluting bodies of water endangers the marine life, environment, and health of organisms.

Gulf “dead zone”= a region of water so depleted of oxygen that kills or drives away marine organisms

The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is a human problem, like most other disasters. What this means is that once the place thrived and was ecologically balanced, but we tipped the balance slightly and wrecked havoc upon the environment. It has been noted to occur since the 1950’s and is ongoing. The reason that this dead zone occurs is because of a phenomenon known as eutrophication. Eutrophication is when there is an excessive amount of nutrients in a body of water and it causes an abundance of plants to grow. In this case the nearby farms had been using nitrogen in their fertilizers. The nitrogen got carried into the ocean through rain and other forms of

Eutrophication, a term that derives from two greek words, eu, meaning “good,” and trophic, meaning nutrition or nourishment, is the enrichment of water bodies with nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous that stimulate plant growth. Nitrogen is often found in rocks, soils, organisms, and the atmosphere; phosphorous resides mostly in rocks/soils and organisms. Having nitrogen and phosphorus in the ecosystem isn 't necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it 's required. Nitrogen is needed for the production of proteins and amnio acids, while phosphorous is required for the synthesis of DNA and RNA, and is involved in energy transfers. (Danver & Burch, 2011) However, too much of a good thing, can be a bad thing.

This spring, record breaking floodwaters along the Mississippi River caused massive damage in nine states, totaling over $25 billion dollars in damage (Watts, 2011). In most areas the floodwaters have receded, however there is concern that even a little rain could cause more flooding due to the already saturated land. As cities and towns are beginning the restoration process, one thing caused by the flooding waters cannot be restored. Pollutants’ such as nitrogen from fertilizer, due to this area being primarily composed of farming land, is making its way toward the Gulf of Mexico. Every year pollutants traveling in the Mississippi River enter the Gulf and contribute to the Coastal Dead Zone; however, this year the Dead Zone in the Gulf

Throughout human history there have been many disasters that have plagued humanity. These disasters have caused an untold amount of damages and an untold number of lives lost. Each disaster is different from each other and each can leave their own impact on human civilization. Many of these disasters are of the nature variety, these typically include your hurricanes, tornados, tsunamis, and many others that can impact humanity. We can’t control these types of disasters, any many of them can strike at any time with little to no warning. The best that we can do is learn from them and our past mistakes, in order to prepare for the next time one of these types of disasters strikes an area. There is, however another type of disaster that plagues mankind, and that is called man-made disasters. One of the biggest man-made disasters to have occurred in more recent time, was the “Event Horizon” disaster or as it is better known as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This was one the worst because millions upon millions of barrels of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, which not only damages the surrounding waters, but also killed marine life, destroyed many fishing businesses’ around the Gulf, and in some cases destroyed the tourism around the gulf as well. In order to get a better understanding of why this event was important we need to look at what caused the event to happen in the first place, could have anything been done to prevent it from happening in the first

The Oceans Troubled Waters are mainly caused by dead zones. Dead zones are a specific area in a ocean that has dissolved oxygen. Dissolved oxygen means there is no oxygen in that area in the ocean. Every ten years the amount of dead zones have doubled and there is twice as many dead zones in the world right now. Sea animals are dying in those zones right now because they swim right up into them and they have no air to breath so they have to try to get out of the dead zone as fast as they can.The nutrient availability has gone down in dead zones. So for the little tiny animals in dead zones they can eat because their nutrient availability has gone down so they will eventually die.

Many have described the post-spill Gulf as a gigantic chemical experiment, with as yet unknown effect on its delicate ecosystem. By July 2010, one third of the Gulf’s fishing area—more than 80,000 square miles—had been closed, affecting the livelihood of thousands in coastal Louisiana and Mississippi.

Dead zones in the ocean are so called because of the lack of oxygen in the seawater according to Karstensen. Oxygen is obviously needed to support all marine life in these areas. The article also mentions dissolved oxygen is

With the huge impact of the oil spill on marine life and coastal regions, fishing and tourism industries of the places affected in the Gulf Coast severely declined. In the fishing industry, the incident led to an approximate $2.5 billion loss, while tourist industries experienced a loss of a predicted $23 billion (Jarvis, 2010). In addition, the moratorium placed on deep water drilling left 58,000 workers unemployed (ibid).