Report 1

Biogeochemical Cycle (Nitrogen Cycle, Oxygen Cycle, Carbon Cycle)

Nitrogen Cycle

The main component of the nitrogen cycle starts with the element nitrogen in the
air. Two nitrogen oxides are found in the air as a result of interactions with oxygen.
Nitrogen will only react with oxygen in the presence of high temperatures and pressures
found near lightning bolts and in combustion reactions in power plants or internal
combustion engines. Nitric oxide, NO, and nitrogen dioxide, NO2, are formed under
these conditions. Eventually nitrogen dioxide may react with water in rain to form nitric
acid, HNO3. The nitrates thus formed may be utilized by plants as a nutrient.

Nitrogen in the air becomes a part of biological matter mostly through the actions
of bacteria and algae in a process known as nitrogen fixation. Legume plants such as
clover, alfalfa, and soybeans form nodules on the roots where nitrogen fixing bacteria
take nitrogen from the air and convert it into ammonia, NH3. The ammonia is further
converted by other bacteria first into nitrite ions, NO2-, and then into nitrate ions, NO3-.
Plants utilize the nitrate ions as a nutrient or fertilizer for growth. Nitrogen is incorporate
in many amino acids which are further reacted to make proteins.

Ammonia is also made through a synthetic process called the Haber Process.
Nitrogen and hydrogen are reacted under great pressure and temperature in the
presence of a catalyst to make ammonia. Ammonia may be directly applied to farm fields
as fertilizer. Ammonia may be further processed with oxygen to make nitric acid. The
reaction of ammonia and nitric acid produces ammonium nitrate which may then be used
as a fertilizer. Animal wastes when decomposed also return to the earth as nitrates.

To complete the cycle other bacteria in the soil carry out a process known as
denitrification which converts nitrates back to nitrogen gas. A side product of this
reaction is the production of a gas known as nitrous oxide, N2O. Nitrous oxide, also
known as "laughing gas" - mild anesthetic, is also a greenhouse gas which contributes to
global warming.

Oxygen Cycle

Oxygen, like carbon and hydrogen, is a basic element of life. In addition, in the
form of O3, ozone, it provides protection of life by filtering out the sun's UV rays as they
enter the stratosphere. In addition to constituting about 20% of the atmosphere, oxygen
is ubiquitous. It also occurs in combination as oxides in the Earth's crust and mantle, and
as water in the oceans. Early in the evolution of the Earth, oxygen is believed to have
been released from water vapor by UV radiation and accumulated in the atmosphere as
the hydrogen escaped into the earth's gravity. Later, photosynthesis became a source of
oxygen. Oxygen is also released as organic carbon in CHO, and gets buried in
sediments. The role of oxygen in life is describe in the unit on Biological Systems.
 Oxygen is highly reactive. A colorless, odorless gas at ordinary temperatures, it
turns to a bluish liquid at -183° C. Burning or combustion is essentially oxidation, or
combination with atmospheric oxygen. Figure O1 shows a very broad overview of
oxygen cycling in nature. The environment of oxygen in numerous reactions makes it
hard to present a complete picture.

Oxygen is vital to us in many ways (beside the most obvious--for breathing).

Water can dissolve oxygen and it is this dissolved oxygen that supports aquatic life.
Oxygen is also needed for the decomposition of organic waste. Wastes from living
organisms are "biodegradable" because there are aerobic bacteria that convert organic
waste materials into stable inorganic materials. If enough oxygen is not available for
these bacteria, for example, because of enormous quantities of wastes in a body of
water, they die and anaerobic bacteria that do not need oxygen take over. These
bacteria change waste material into H2S and other poisonous and foul-smelling
substances. For this reason, the content of biodegradable substances in waste waters is
expressed by a special index called "biological oxygen demand" (BOD), representing the
amount of oxygen needed by aerobic bacteria to decompose the waste. The result of not
meeting the oxygen demand is described in the section on the water cycle.

Carbon Cycle

Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe, and is absolutely
essential to life on earth. In fact, carbon constitutes the very definition of life, as its
presence or absence helps define whether a molecule is considered to be organic or
inorganic. Every organism on Earth needs carbon either for structure, energy, or, as in
the case of humans, for both. Discounting water, you are about half carbon. Additionally,
carbon is found in forms as diverse as the gas carbon dioxide (CO 2), and in solids like
limestone (CaCO3), wood, plastic, diamonds, and graphite. The movement of carbon, in
its many forms, between the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere, and geosphere is
described by the carbon cycle (Figure 1). This cycle consists of several storage pools of
carbon (black text) and the processes by which the various pools exchange carbon
(purple arrows and numbers). If more carbon enters a pool than leaves it, that pool is
considered a net carbon sink. If more carbon leaves a pool than enters it, that pool is
considered net carbon source. The global carbon cycle, one of the major
biogeochemical cycles, can be divided into geological and biological components. The
geological carbon cycle operates on a time scale of millions of years, whereas the
biological carbon cycle operates on a time scale of days to thousands of years.

The geological carbon cycle:

The geological component of the carbon cycle is where it interacts with the rock
cycle in the processes of weathering and dissolution, precipitation of minerals, burial and
subduction, and volcanism (see our The Rock Cycle module for information). In the
atmosphere, carbonic acid forms by a reaction with atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2)
and water. As this weakly acidic water reaches the earth as rain, it reacts with minerals
at the earth’s surface, slowly dissolving them into their component ions through the
process of chemical weathering. These component ions are carried in surface waters
like streams and rivers eventually to the ocean, where they precipitate out as minerals
like calcite (CaCO3). Through continued deposition and burial, this calcite sediment
forms the rock called limestone.
 This cycle continues as seafloor spreading pushes the seafloor under continental
margins in the process of subduction. As seafloor carbon is pushed deeper into the earth
by tectonic forces, it heats up, eventually melts, and can rise back up to the surface,
where it is released as CO2 and returned to the atmosphere. This return to the
atmosphere can occur violently through volcanic eruptions, or more gradually in seeps,
vents, and CO2-rich hotsprings. Tectonic uplift can also expose previously buried
limestone. One example of this occurs in the Himalayas where some of the world’s
highest peaks are formed of material that was once at the bottom of the ocean.
Weathering, subduction, and volcanism control atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentrations over time periods of hundreds of millions of years.

The Biological carbon cycle:

Biology plays an important role in the movement of carbon between land, ocean,
and atmosphere through the processes of photosynthesis and respiration. Virtually all
multicellular life on Earth depends on the production of sugars from sunlight and carbon
dioxide (photosynthesis) and the metabolic breakdown (respiration) of those sugars to
produce the energy needed for movement, growth, and reproduction. Plants take in
carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere during photosynthesis, and release CO2 back
into the atmosphere during respiration through the following chemical reactions:

Respiration:
C6H12O6 (organic matter) + 6O2 6CO2 + 6 H2O + energy

Photosynthesis:
energy (sunlight) + 6CO2 + H2O C6H12O6 + 6O2

Through photosynthesis, green plants use solar energy to turn atmospheric

carbon dioxide into carbohydrates (sugars). Plants and animals use these carbohydrates
(and other products derived from them) through a process called respiration, the reverse
of photosynthesis. Respiration releases the energy contained in sugars for use in
metabolism and changes carbohydrate “fuel” back into carbon dioxide, which is in turn
released to back to the atmosphere. The amount of carbon taken up by photosynthesis
and released back to the atmosphere by respiration each year is about 1,000 times
greater than the amount of carbon that moves through the geological cycle on an annual
basis.

On land, the major exchange of carbon with the atmosphere results from
photosynthesis and respiration. During daytime in the growing season, leaves absorb
sunlight and take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. At the same time plants,
animals, and soil microbes consume the carbon in organic matter and return carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere. Photosynthesis stops at night when the sun cannot provide
the driving energy for the reaction, though respiration continues. This kind of imbalance
between these two processes is reflected in seasonal changes in the atmospheric CO2
concentrations. During winter in the northern hemisphere, photosynthesis ceases when
many plants lose their leaves, but respiration continues. This condition leads to an
increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations during the northern hemisphere winter. With
the onset of spring, however, photosynthesis resumes and atmospheric CO2
concentrations are reduced. This cycle is reflected in the monthly means (the light blue
line) of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations shown in Figure 2.
 In the oceans, phytoplankton (microscopic marine plants that form the base of
the marine food chain) use carbon to make shells of calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ). The
shells settle to the bottom of the ocean when phytoplankton die and are buried in the
sediments. The shells of phytoplankton and other creatures can become compressed
over time as they are buried and are often eventually transformed into limestone.
Additionally, under certain geological conditions, organic matter can be buried and over
time form deposits of the carbon-containing fuels coal and oil. It is the non-calcium
containing organic matter that is transformed into fossil fuel. Both limestone formation
and fossil fuel formation are biologically controlled processes and represent long-term
sinks for atmospheric CO2.

Human Alteration of the Carbon Cycle

Recently, scientists have studied both short- and long-term measurements of

atmospheric CO2 levels. Charles Keeling, an oceanographer at the Scripps Institute of
Oceanography, is responsible for creating the longest continuous record of atmospheric
CO2 concentrations, taken at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii. His data (now widely
known as the “Keeling curve,” shown in Figure 2) revealed that human activities are
significantly altering the natural carbon cycle. Since the onset of the industrial revolution
about 150 years ago, human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and
deforestation have accelerated, and both have contributed to a long-term rise in
atmospheric CO2. Burning oil and coal releases carbon into the atmosphere far more
rapidly than it is being removed, and this imbalance causes atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentrations to increase. In addition, by clearing forests, we reduce the ability of
photosynthesis to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, also resulting in a net increase.
Because of these human activities, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are
higher today than they have been over the last half-million years or longer.

Because CO2 increases the atmosphere’s ability to hold heat, it has been called
a “greenhouse gas.” Scientists believe that the increase in CO 2 is already causing
important changes in the global climate. Many attribute the observed 0.6 degree C
increase in global average temperature over the past century mainly to increases in
atmospheric CO2. Without substantive changes in global patterns of fossil fuel
consumption and deforestation, warming trends are likely to continue. The best scientific
estimate is that global mean temperature will increase between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees C
over the next century as a result of increases in atmospheric CO 2 and other greenhouse
gases. This kind of increase in global temperature would cause significant rise in
average sea-level (0.09-0.88 meters), exposing low-lying coastal cities or cities located
by tidal rivers such as New Orleans, Portland, Washington, and Philadelphia to
increasingly frequent and severe floods. Glacial retreat and species range shifts are also
likely to result from global warming, and it remains to be seen whether relatively
immobile species such as trees can shift their ranges fast enough to keep pace with
warming.

Even without the changes in climate, however, increased concentrations of CO2

could have an important impact on patterns of plant growth worldwide. Because some
species of plants respond more favorably to increases in CO2 than others, scientists
believe we may see pronounced shifts in plant species as a result of increasing
atmospheric CO2 concentrations, even without any change in temperature. For example,
under elevated CO2 conditions, shrubs are thought to respond more favorably than
certain grass species due to their slightly different photosynthetic pathway. Because of
this competitive inequality, some scientists have hypothesized that grasslands will be
invaded by CO2-responsive grass species or shrubby species as CO2 increases.

Report 2

Problems Associated with Rapid Population Growth

Effects of overpopulation

Some problems associated with or exacerbated by human overpopulation:

• Inadequate fresh water for drinking water use as well as sewage treatment and
effluent discharge. Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, use energy-expensive
desalination to solve the problem of water shortages.
• Depletion of natural resources, especially fossil fuels. Increased levels of air
pollution, water pollution, soil contamination and noise pollution. Once a country
has industrialized and become wealthy, a combination of government regulation
and technological innovation causes pollution to decline substantially, even as
the population continues to grow.
• Deforestation and loss of ecosystems that sustain global atmospheric oxygen
and carbon dioxide balance; about eight million hectares of forest are lost each
year.
• Changes in atmospheric composition and consequent global warming
• Irreversible loss of arable land and increases in desertification. Deforestation and
desertification can be reversed by adopting property rights, and this policy is
successful even while the human population continues to grow. Mass species
extinctions from reduced habitat in tropical forests due to slash-and-burn
techniques that sometimes are practiced by shifting cultivators, especially in
countries with rapidly expanding rural populations; present extinction rates may
be as high as 140,000 species lost per year.[146] As of 2008, the IUCN Red List
lists a total of 717 animal species having gone extinct during recorded human
history.
• High infant and child mortality. High rates of infant mortality are caused by
poverty. Rich countries with high population densities have low rates of infant
mortality.
• Intensive factory farming to support large populations. It results in human threats
including the evolution and spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria diseases,
excessive air and water pollution, and new virus that infect humans.
• Increased chance of the emergence of new epidemics and pandemics. For many
environmental and social reasons, including overcrowded living conditions,
 malnutrition and inadequate, inaccessible, or non-existent health care, the poor
are more likely to be exposed to infectious diseases.
• Starvation, malnutrition or poor diet with ill health and diet-deficiency diseases
(e.g. rickets). However, rich countries with high population densities do not have
famine.
• Poverty coupled with inflation in some regions and a resulting low level of capital
formation. Poverty and inflation are aggravated by bad government and bad
economic policies. Many countries with high population densities have eliminated
absolute poverty and keep their inflation rates very low.
• Low life expectancy in countries with fastest growing populations
• Unhygienic living conditions for many based upon water resource depletion,
discharge of raw sewage and solid waste disposal. However, this problem can be
reduced with the adoption of sewers. For example, after Karachi, Pakistan
installed sewers, its infant mortality rate fell substantially.
• Elevated crime rate due to drug cartels and increased theft by people stealing
resources to survive
• Conflict over scarce resources and crowding, leading to increased levels of
warfare
• Lower wages. In the supply and demand economic model, an increase in the
number of workers (supply-increase) results in lower demand and wages fall
(price-decrease) as more people compete for available work.
• Less Personal Freedom / More Restrictive Laws. Laws regulate interactions
between humans. Law "serves as a primary social mediator of relations between
people." The higher the population density, the more frequent such interactions
become, and thus there develops a need for more laws to regulate these
interactions.

Some economists, such as Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams have argued that
third world poverty and famine are caused by bad government and bad economic
policies, and not by overpopulation. Most biologists and sociologists see overpopulation
as a serious problem.

Mitigation measures

While the current world trends are not indicative of any realistic solution to human
overpopulation during the 21st century, there are several mitigation measures that have
or can be applied to reduce the adverse impacts of overpopulation.

Overpopulation is related to the issue of birth control; some nations, like the
People's Republic of China, use strict measures to reduce birth rates. Religious and
ideological opposition to birth control has been cited as a factor contributing to
overpopulation and poverty.] Some leaders and environmentalists (such as Ted Turner)
have suggested that there is an urgent need to strictly implement a China-like one-child
policy globally by the United Nations, because this would help control and reduce
population gradually and most successfully as is evidenced by the success and resultant
economic-growth of China due to reduction of poverty in recent years.

Indira Gandhi, late Prime Minister of India, implemented a forced sterilization

programme in the 1970s. Officially, men with two children or more had to submit to
sterilization, but many unmarried young men, political opponents and ignorant men were
also believed to have been sterilized. This program is still remembered and criticized in
India, and is blamed for creating a wrong public aversion to family planning, which
hampered Government programmes for decades.

Urban designer Michael E. Arth has proposed a "choice-based, marketable birth

license plan" he calls "birth credits." Birth credits would allow any woman to have as
many children as she wants, as long as she buys a license for any children beyond an
average allotment that would result in zero population growth (ZPG). If that allotment
was determined to be one child, for example, then the first child would be free, and the
market would determine what the license fee for each additional child would cost. Extra
credits would expire after a certain time, so these credits could not be hoarded by
speculators. Another advantage of the scheme is that the affluent would not buy them
because they already limit their family size by choice, as evidenced by an average of 1.1
children per European woman. The actual cost of the credits would only be a fraction of
the actual cost of having and raising a child, so the credits would serve more as a wake-
up call to women who might otherwise produce children without seriously considering
the long term consequences to themselves or society.

Education and empowerment

One option is to focus on education about overpopulation, family planning, and birth
control methods, and to make birth-control devices like male/female condoms and pills
easily available. An estimated 350 million women in the poorest countries of the world
either did not want their last child, do not want another child or want to space their
pregnancies, but they lack access to information, affordable means and services to
determine the size and spacing of their families. In the developing world, some 514,000
women die annually of complications from pregnancy and abortion. Additionally, 8 million
infants die, many because of malnutrition or preventable diseases, especially from lack
of access to clean drinking water. In the United States, in 2001, almost half of
pregnancies were unintended. Egypt announced a program to reduce its overpopulation
by family planning education and putting women in the workforce. It was announced in
June 2008 by the Minister of Health and Population Hatem el-Gabali. The government
has set aside 480 million Egyptian pounds (about 90 million U.S. dollars) for the
program.

Extraterrestrial settlement

In the 1970s, Gerard O'Neill suggested building space habitats that could support
30,000 times the carrying capacity of Earth using just the asteroid belt and that the solar
system as a whole could sustain current population growth rates for a thousand years.
Marshall Savage (1992, 1994) has projected a human population of five quintillion
throughout the solar system by 3000, with the majority in the asteroid belt. Arthur C.
Clarke, a fervent supporter of Savage, argued that by 2057 there will be humans on the
Moon, Mars, Europa, Ganymede, Titan and in orbit around Venus, Neptune and Pluto.
Freeman Dyson (1999) favours the Kuiper belt as the future home of humanity,
suggesting this could happen within a few centuries. In Mining the Sky, John S. Lewis
suggests that the resources of the solar system could support 10 quadrillionpeople.
K. Eric Drexler, famous inventor of the futuristic concept of molecular nanotechnology,
has suggested in Engines of Creation that colonizing space will mean breaking the
Malthusian limits to growth for the human species.

Many authors, including Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov have
argued that shipping the excess population into space is no solution to human
overpopulation. According to Clarke, "the population battle must be fought or won here
on Earth". The problem for these authors is not the lack of resources in space (as shown
in books such as Mining the Sky]), but the physical impracticality of shipping vast
numbers of people into space to "solve" overpopulation on Earth. However, Gerard
O'Neill's calculations show that Earth could offload all new population growth with a
launch services industry about the same size as the current airline industry.

Other approaches and effects

Many philosophers, including Thomas Malthus, have said at various times that
when humankind does not check population-growth, nature takes its course. But this
course might not result in the death of humans through catastrophes; instead it might
result in infertility. German scientists have reported that a virus called Adeno-associated
virus might have a role in male infertility, but is otherwise harmless to humans. Thus, if
this or similar viruses mutate, they might cause infertility on a large-scale, causing a
mass scale viral epidemic and thus resulting in a natural human population-control over
time.

Report 3

Anthropogenic Impact on Aquatic Ecosystem

1. Water Pollution

Comprising over 70% of the Earth�s surface, water is undoubtedly the most
precious natural resource that exists on our planet. Without the seemingly invaluable
compound comprised of hydrogen and oxygen, life on Earth would be non-existent: it is
essential for everything on our planet to grow and prosper. Although we as humans
recognize this fact, we disregard it by polluting our rivers, lakes, and oceans.
Subsequently, we are slowly but surely harming our planet to the point where organisms
are dying at a very alarming rate. In addition to innocent organisms dying off, our
drinking water has become greatly affected as is our ability to use water for recreational
purposes. In order to combat water pollution, we must understand the problems and
become part of the solution.
POINT AND NONPOINT SOURCES

According to the American College Dictionary, pollution is defined as: �to make foul
or unclean; dirty.� Water pollution occurs when a body of water is adversely affected
due to the addition of large amounts of materials to the water. When it is unfit for its
intended use, water is considered polluted. Two types of water pollutants exist; point
source and nonpoint source. Point sources of pollution occur when harmful substances
are emitted directly into a body of water. The Exxon Valdez oil spill best illustrates a
point source water pollution. A nonpoint source delivers pollutants indirectly through
environmental changes. An example of this type of water pollution is when fertilizer from
a field is carried into a stream by rain, in the form of run-off
which in turn effects aquatic life. The technology exists for point sources of pollution to
be monitored and regulated, although political factors may complicate matters. Nonpoint
sources are much more difficult to control. Pollution arising from nonpoint
sources accounts for a majority of the contaminants in streams and lakes.

CAUSES OF POLLUTION

Many causes of pollution including sewage and fertilizers contain nutrients such as
nitrates and phosphates. In excess levels, nutrients over stimulate the growth of aquatic
plants and algae. Excessive growth of these types of organisms consequently clogs our
waterways, use up dissolved oxygen as they decompose, and block light to deeper
waters.
This, in turn, proves very harmful to aquatic organisms as it affects the respiration ability
or fish and other invertebrates that reside in water.
Pollution is also caused when silt and other suspended solids, such as soil, washoff
plowed fields, construction and logging sites, urban areas, and eroded river banks when
it rains. Under natural conditions, lakes, rivers, and other water bodies undergo
Eutrophication, an aging process that slowly fills in the water body with sediment and
organic matter. When these sediments enter various bodies of water, fish
respirationbecomes impaired, plant productivity and water depth become reduced, and
aquatic organisms and their environments become suffocated. Pollution in the form of
organic
material enters waterways in many different forms as sewage, as leaves and grass
clippings, or as runoff from livestock feedlots and pastures. When natural bacteria and
protozoan in the water break down this organic material, they begin to use up the
oxygen dissolved in the water. Many types of fish and bottom-dwelling animals cannot
survive when levels of dissolved oxygen drop below two to five parts per million. When
this occurs, it kills aquatic organisms in large numbers which leads to disruptions in the
food chain.

Polluted River in the United Kingdom

The pollution of rivers and streams with chemical contaminants has become one of the
most crutial environmental problems within the 20th century. Waterborne chemical
pollution entering rivers and streams cause tramendous amounts of destruction.
Pathogens are another type of pollution that prove very harmful. They can cause
many illnesses that range from typhoid and dysentery to minor respiratory and skin
diseases. Pathogens include such organisms as bacteria, viruses, and protozoan.
These pollutants enter waterways through untreated sewage, storm drains, septic tanks,
runoff from farms, and particularly boats that dump sewage. Though microscopic, these
pollutants have a tremendous effect evidenced by their ability to cause sickness.

ADDITIONAL FORMS OF WATER POLLUTION

Three last forms of water pollution exist in the forms of petroleum, radioactive
substances, and heat. Petroleum often pollutes waterbodies in the form of oil, resulting
from oil spills. The previously mentioned Exxon Valdez is an example of this type of
water pollution. These large-scale accidental discharges of petroleum are an important
cause of pollution along shore lines. Besides the supertankers, off-shore drilling
operations contribute a large share of pollution. One estimate is that one ton of oil is
spilled for every million tons of oil transported. This is equal to about 0.0001 percent.
Radioactive substances are produced in the form of waste from nuclear power plants,
and from the industrial, medical, and scientific use of radioactive materials. Specific
forms of waste are uranium and thorium mining and refining. The last form of water
pollution is heat. Heat is a pollutant because increased temperatures result in the
deaths of many aquatic organisms. These decreases in temperatures are caused when
a discharge of cooling water by factories and power plants occurs.

Demonstrators Protest Drilling

Oil pollution is a growing problem, particularly devestating to coastal wildlife. Small
quantities of oil spread rapidly across long distances to form deadly oil slicks. In this
picture, demonstrators with "oil-covered" plastic animals protest a potential drilling
project in Key Largo, Florida. Whether or not accidental spills occur during the project, its
impact on the delicate marine ecosystem of the coral reefs could be devastating.

Oil Spill Clean-up

Workers use special nets to clean up a California beach after an oil tanker spill. Tanker
spills are an increasing environmental problem because once oil has spilled, it is virtually
impossible to completely remove or contain it. Even small amounts spread rapidly
across large areas of water. Because oil and water do not mix, the oil floats on the water
and then washes up on broad expanses of shoreline. Attempts to chemically treat or sink
the oil may further disrupt marine and beach ecosystems.

CLASSIFYING WATER POLLUTION

The major sources of water pollution can be classified as municipal, industrial, and
agricultural. Municipal water pollution consists of waste water from homes and
commercial establishments. For many years, the main goal of treating municipal
wastewater was simply to reduce its content of suspended solids, oxygen-demanding
materials, dissolved inorganic compounds, and harmful bacteria. In recent years,
however, more stress has been placed on improving means of disposal of the solid
residues from the municipal treatment processes. The basic methods of treating
municipal wastewater fall into three stages: primary treatment, including grit removal,
screening, grinding, and sedimentation; secondary treatment, which entails oxidation of
dissolved organic matter by means of using biologically active sludge, which is then
filtered off; and tertiary treatment, in which advanced biological methods of nitrogen
removal and chemical and physical methods such as granular filtration and activated
carbon absorption are employed. The handling and disposal of solid residues can
account for 25 to 50 percent of the capital and operational costs of a treatment plant.
The characteristics of industrial waste waters can differ considerably both within and
among industries. The impact of industrial discharges depends not only on their
collective characteristics, such as biochemical oxygen demand and the amount of
suspended solids, but also on their content of specific inorganic and organic substances.
Three options are available in controlling industrial wastewater. Control can take place
at the point of generation in the plant; wastewater can be pretreated for discharge to
municipal treatment sources; or wastewater can be treated completely at the plant and
either reused or discharged directly into receiving waters.

Wastewater Treatment
Raw sewage includes waste from sinks, toilets, and industrial processes. Treatment of
the sewage is required before it can be safely buried, used, or released back into local
water systems. In a treatment plant, the waste is passed through a series of screens,
chambers, and chemical processes to reduce its bulk and toxicity. The three general
phases of treatment are primary, secondary, and tertiary. During primary treatment, a
large percentage of the suspended solids and inorganic material is removed from the
sewage. The focus of secondary treatment is reducing organic material by accelerating
natural biological processes. Tertiary treatment is necessary when the water will be
reused; 99 percent of solids are removed and various chemical processes are used to
ensure the water is as free from impurity as possible.

Agriculture, including commercial livestock and poultry farming, is the source of many
organic and inorganic pollutants in surface waters and groundwater. These
contaminants include both sediment from erosion cropland and compounds of
phosphorus and nitrogen that partly originate in animal wastes and commercial
fertilizers. Animal wastes are high in oxygen demanding material, nitrogen and
phosphorus, and they often harbor pathogenic organisms. Wastes from commercial
feeders are contained and disposed of on land; their main threat to natural waters,
therefore, is from runoff and leaching. Control may involve settling basins for liquids,
limited biological treatment in aerobic or anaerobic lagoons, and a variety of other
methods.

GROUND WATER
Ninety-five percent of all fresh water on earth is ground water. Ground water is found
in natural rock formations. These formations, called aquifers, are a vital natural resource
with many uses. Nationally, 53% of the population relies on ground water as a source of
drinking water. In rural areas this figure is even higher. Eighty one percent of
community water is dependent on ground water. Although the 1992 Section 305(b)
State Water Quality Reports indicate that, overall, the Nation�s ground water quality is
good to excellent, many local areas have experienced significant ground water
contamination.
Some examples are leaking underground storage tanks and municipal landfills.

LEGISLATION
Several forms of legislation have been passed in recent decades to try to control
water pollution. In 1970, the Clean Water Act provided 50 billion dollars to cities and
states to build wastewater facilities. This has helped control surface water pollution from
industrial and municipal sources throughout the United States. When congress passed
the Clean Water Act in 1972, states were given primary authority to set their own
standards for their water. In addition to these standards, the act required that all state
beneficial uses and their criteria must comply with the �fishable and swimmable�
goals of the act. This essentially means that state beneficial uses must be able to
support aquatic life and recreational use. Because it is impossible to test water for every
type of disease-causing organism, states usually look to identify indicator bacteria. One
for a example is a bacteria known as fecal coliforms.(Figure 1 shows the quality of water
for each every state in the United States, click on the US link). These indicator bacteria
suggest that a certain selection of water may be contaminated with untreated sewage
and that other, more dangerous, organisms are present. These legislations are an
important part in the fight against water pollution. They are useful in preventing
Envioronmental catastrophes. The graph shows reported pollution incidents since 1989-
1994. If stronger legislations existed, perhaps these events would never have occurred.

GLOBAL WATER POLLUTION

Estimates suggest that nearly 1.5 billion people lack safe drinking water and that at
least 5 million deaths per year can be attributed to waterborne diseases. With over 70
percent of the planet covered by oceans, people have long acted as if these very bodies
of water could serve as a limitless dumping ground for wastes. Raw sewage, garbage,
and oil spills have begun to overwhelm the diluting capabilities of the oceans, and most
coastal waters are now polluted. Beaches around the world are closed regularly, often
because of high amounts of bacteria from sewage disposal, and marine wildlife is
beginning to suffer.

Perhaps the biggest reason for developing a worldwide effort to monitor and restrict
global pollution is the fact that most forms of pollution do not respect national
boundaries. The first major international conference on environmental issues was held
in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972 and was sponsored by the United Nations (UN). This
meeting, at which the United States took a leading role, was controversial because many
developing countries were fearful that a focus on environmental protection was a means
for the developed world to keep the undeveloped world in an economically subservient
position. The most important outcome of the conference was the creation of the United
Nations Environmental Program (UNEP).

UNEP was designed to be �the environmental conscience of the United

Nations,� and, in an attempt to allay fears of the developing world, it became the first
UN agency to be headquartered in a developing country, with offices in Nairobi, Kenya.
In addition to attempting to achieve scientific consensus about major environmental
issues, a major focus for UNEP has been the study of ways to encourage sustainable
development increasing standards of living without destroying the environment. At the
time of UNEP's creation in 1972, only 11 countries had environmental agencies. Ten
years later that number had grown to 106, of which 70 were in developing countries.
WATER QUALITY

Water quality is closely linked to water use and to the state of economic
development. In industrialized countries, bacterial contamination of surface water
caused serious health problems in major cities throughout the mid 1800�s. By the turn
of the century, cities in Europe and North America began building sewer networks to
route domestic wastes downstream of water intakes. Development of these sewage
networks and waste treatment facilities in urban areas has expanded tremendously in
the past two decades. However, the rapid growth of the urban population (especially in
Latin America and Asia) has outpaced the ability of governments to expand sewage and
water infrastructure. While waterborne diseases have been eliminated in the developed
world, outbreaks of cholera and other similar diseases still occur with alarming frequency
in the developing countries. Since World War II and the birth of the �chemical age�,
water quality has been heavily impacted worldwide by industrial and agricultural
chemicals. Eutrophication of surface waters from human and agricultural wastes and
nitrification of groundwater from agricultural practices has greatly affected large parts of
the world. Acidification of surface waters by air pollution is a recent phenomenon and
threatens aquatic life in many area of the world. In developed countries, these general
types of pollution have occurred sequentially with the result that most developed
countries have successfully dealt with major surface water pollution. In contrast,
however, newly industrialized countries such as China, India, Thailand, Brazil, and
Mexico are now facing all these issues simultaneously.

CONCLUSION

Clearly, the problems associated with water pollution have the capabilities to disrupt
life on our planet to a great extent. Congress has passed laws to try to combat water
pollution thus acknowledging the fact that water pollution is, indeed, a seriousissue. But
the government alone cannot solve the entire problem. It is ultimately up to us, to be
informed, responsible and involved when it comes to the problems we face with our
water. We must become familiar with our local water resources and learn about ways
for disposing harmful household wastes so they don�t end up in sewage treatment
plants that can�t handle them or landfills not designed to receive hazardous materials.
In our yards, we must determine whether additional nutrients are needed before
fertilizers are applied, and look for alternatives where fertilizers might run off into surface
waters. We have to preserve existing trees and plant new trees and shrubs to help
prevent soil erosion and promote infiltration of water into the soil. Around our houses,
we must keep litter, pet waste, leaves, and grass clippings out of gutters and storm
drains. These are
just a few of the many ways in which we, as humans, have the ability to combat water
pollution. As we head into the 21st century, awareness and education will most
assuredly continue to be the two most important ways to prevent water pollution. If
these measures are not taken and water pollution continues, life on earth will suffer
severely.
Global environmental collapse is not inevitable. But the developed world must work
with the developing world to ensure that new industrialized economies do not add to the
world's environmental problems. Politicians must think of sustainable development rather
than economic expansion. Conservation strategies have to become more widely
accepted, and people must learn that energy use can be dramatically diminished without
sacrificing comfort. In short, with the technology that currently
exists, the years of global environmental mistreatment can begin to be reversed.
2. Thermal Pollution

The broadest definition of thermal pollution is the degradation of water quality by

any process that changes ambient water temperature. Thermal pollution is usually
associated with increases of water temperatures in a stream, lake, or ocean due to the
discharge of heated water from industrial processes, such as the generation of
electricity. Increases in ambient water temperature also occur in streams where shading
vegetation along the banks is removed or where sediments have made the water more
turbid . Both of these effects allow more energy from the sun to be absorbed by the
water and thereby increase its temperature. There are also situations in which the
effects of colder-than-normal water temperatures may be observed. For example, the
discharge of cold bottom water from deep-water reservoirs behind large dams has
changed the downstream biological communities in systems such as the Colorado River.
Direct, such as the burning of wood in a fireplace to create heat, or by the conversion of
heat energy into mechanical energy by the use of a heat engine. Examples of heat
engines include steam engines, turbines , and internal combustion engines. Heat
engines work on the principal of heating and pressuring a fluid, the performance of
mechanical work, and the rejection of unused or waste heat to a sink . Heat engines can
only convert 30 to 40 percent of the available input energy in the fuel source into
mechanical energy, and the highest efficiencies are obtained when the input
temperature is as high as possible and the sink temperature is as low as possible. Water
is a very efficient and economical sink for heat engines and it is commonly used in
electrical generating stations.

The waste heat from electrical generating stations is transferred to cooling water
obtained from local water bodies such as a river, lake, or ocean. Large amounts of water
are used to keep the sink temperature as low as possible to maintain a high thermal
efficiency. The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station between Los Angeles and San
Diego, California, for example, has two main reactors that have a total operating
capacity of 2,200 megawatts (MW). These reactors circulate a total of 2,400 million
gallons per day (MGD) of ocean water at a flow rate of 830,000 gallons per minute for
each unit. The cooling water enters the station from two intake structures located 3,000
feet offshore in water 32 feet deep. The water is heated to approximately 19°F above
ambient as it flows through the condensers and is discharged back into the ocean
through a series of diffuser -type discharges that have a series of sixty-three exit pipes
spread over a distance of 2,450 feet. The discharge water is rapidly mixed with ambient
seawater by the diffusers and the average rise in temperature after mixing is less than
2°F.

These ASTER false-color images were acquired over Joliet 29, a coal-burning
power plant in Illinois. Joliet 29 can be seen in the VNIR image (top) as the bright blue-
white pixels just above the large cooling pond. Like many power plants, Joliet 29 uses a
cooling pond to discharge heated effluent water. In the bottom image a single ASTER
Thermal Infrared band was color-coded to represent heat emitted from the surface. The
progression from warmest to coolest is shown with the following colors: white, red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, and black.
Environmental Effects

The primary effects of thermal pollution are direct thermal shock , changes in
dissolved oxygen, and the redistribution of organisms in the local community. Because
water can absorb thermal energy with only small changes in temperature, most aquatic
organisms have developed enzyme systems that operate in only narrow ranges of
temperature. These stenothermic organisms can be killed by sudden temperature
changes that are beyond the tolerance limits of their metabolic systems. The cooling
water discharges of power plants are designed to minimize heat effects on local fish
communities. However, periodic heat treatments used to keep the cooling system clear
of fouling organisms that clog the intake pipes can cause fish mortality. A heat treatment
reverses the flow and increases the temperature of the discharge to kill the mussels and
other fouling organisms in the intake pipes. Southern California Edison had developed a
"fish-chase" procedure in which the water temperature of the heat treatment is increased
gradually, instead of rapidly, to drive fish away from the intake pipes before the
temperature reaches lethal levels. The fish chase procedure has significantly reduced
fish kills related to heat treatments.

Small chronic changes in temperature can also adversely affect the reproductive
systems of these organisms and also make them more susceptible to disease. Cold
water contains more oxygen than hot water so increases in temperature also decrease
the oxygen-carrying capacity of water. In addition, raising the water temperature
increases the decomposition rate of organic matter in water, which also depletes
dissolved oxygen. These decreases in the oxygen content of the water occur at the
same time that the metabolic rates of the aquatic organisms, which are dependent on a
sufficient oxygen supply, are rising because of the increasing temperature.

The composition and diversity of communities in the vicinity of cooling water

discharges from power plants can be adversely affected by the direct mortality of
organisms or movement of organisms away from unfavorable temperature or oxygen
environments. A nuclear power-generating station on Nanwan Bay in Taiwan caused
bleaching of corals in the vicinity of the discharge channel when the plant first began
operation in 1988. Studies of the coral Acropora grandis in 1988 showed that the coral
was bleached within two days of exposure to temperatures of 91.4°F. In 1990 samples
of coral taken from the same area did not start bleaching until six days after exposure to
the same temperature. It appears that the thermotolerance of these corals was
enhanced by the production of heat-shock proteins that help to protect many organisms
from potentially damaging changes in temperature. The populations of some species
can also be enhanced by the presence of cooling water discharges. The only large
population of sea turtles in California, for example, is found in the southern portion of
San Diego Bay near the discharge of an electrical generating station.

Abatement

The dilution of cooling water discharges can be effectively accomplished by

various types of diffuser systems in large bodies of water such as lakes or the ocean.
The only thermal effects seen at the San Onofre nuclear generating station are the direct
mortality of planktonic organisms during the twenty-five-minute transit through the
cooling water system. The effectiveness of the dilution systems can be monitored by
thermal infrared imaging using either satellite or airborne imaging systems. The use of
cooling towers has been effective for generating stations located on smaller rivers and
streams that do not have the capacity to absorb the waste heat from the cooling water
effluent . The cooling towers operate by means of a recirculating cascade of water inside
a tower, with a large column of upwardly rising air that carries the heat to the
atmosphere through evaporative cooling. Cooling towers have been used extensively at
nuclear generating stations in both the United States and France. The disadvantages of
cooling towers are the potential for local changes in meteorological conditions due to
large amounts of warm air entering the atmosphere and the visual impact of the large
towers.

3. Eutrophication

Eutrophication is a syndrome of ecosystem responses to human activities that

fertilize water bodies with nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), often leading to changes in
animal and plant populations and degradation of water and habitat quality. Nitrogen and
phosphorus are essential components of structural proteins, enzymes, cell membranes,
nucleic acids, and molecules that capture and utilize light and chemical energy to
support life. The biologically available forms of N and P are present at low
concentrations in pristine lakes, rivers, estuaries, and in vast regions of the upper ocean.
Pristine aquatic ecosystems function in approximate steady state in which primary
production of new plant biomass is sustained by N and P released as byproducts of
microbial and animal metabolism. This balanced state is disrupted by human activities
that artificially enrich water bodies with N and P, resulting in unnaturally high rates of
plant production and accumulation of organic matter that can degrade water and habitat
quality. These inputs may come from sewage treatment plants or run-off of fertilizer from
farm fields or suburban lawns.

Eutrophication was first evident in lakes and rivers as they became choked with
excessive growth of rooted plants and floating algal scums, prompting intense study in
the 1960's-70's and culminating in the scientific basis for banning phosphate detergents
(a major source of P, the most frequent culprit in eutrophication of lakes) and upgrading
sewage treatment to reduce wastewater N and P discharges to inland waters.
Symptoms of eutrophication in estuaries and other coastal marine ecosystems (where N
is the most frequent contributor to eutrophication) were clearly evident by the 1980's, as
human activities doubled the transport of N and tripled the transport of P from Earth's
land surface to its oceans. Eutrophication has emerged as a key human stressor on the
world's coastal ecosystems.

Nutrient enrichment of marine waters promotes the growth of algae, either as

attached multicellular forms (e.g. sea lettuce) or as suspended microscopic
phytoplankton, because algae can grow faster than larger vascular plants. Small
increases in algal abundance or biomass have subtle ecological responses that can
increase production in food webs sustaining fish and shellfish, even producing higher
fish yields. However, over-stimulation of algal growth leads to a complex suite of
interconnected biological and chemical responses that can severely degrade water
quality and threaten human health and sustainability of living resources in the coastal
zone.

As algal biomass builds during blooms it forms aggregates that sink and fuel
bacterial growth in bottom waters and sediments. Bacterial metabolism consumes
oxygen. If the rates of aeration of water by mixing are slower than bacterial metabolism,
then bottom waters become hypoxic (low in oxygen) or anoxic (devoid of oxygen),
creating conditions stressful or even lethal for marine invertebrates and fish. Seasonal
occurrences of dead zones devoid of oxygen and animal life have expanded in the Gulf
of Mexico (where the dead zone has approached the size of New Jersey), the Baltic
Sea, and Sea of Marmara as a consequence of eutrophication from nutrients delivered
by large rivers. Seagrasses are important communities in undisturbed shallow coastal
ecosystems, providing essential habitat for many species of marine animals. The
distribution and abundance of seagrasses have greatly diminished in nutrient-enriched
coastal waters, such as Chesapeake Bay and Danish estuaries, where water
transparency and light availability to rooted plants have declined as result of
phytoplankton growth and fouling of the grass blades by epiphytes and biofilms. These
habitat changes propagate through food webs, and the abundance and species diversity
of fish and shellfish decrease as seagrasses are eliminated from nutrient-enriched
coastal waters.

Some phytoplankton species excrete large quantities of mucilage during blooms

that is whipped into foam by wind mixing and washes ashore, making beaches
undesirable for holiday visitors. Other phytoplankton species produce toxic chemicals
that can impair respiratory, nervous, digestive and reproductive system function, and
even cause death of fish, shellfish, seabirds, mammals, and humans. The economic
impacts of harmful algal blooms can be severe as tourism is lost and shellfish harvest
and fishing are closed across increasingly widespread marine regions. Marine scientists
are trying to determine if and how nutrient enrichment selectively promotes the growth of
harmful algal species, and if the frequency of harmful algal blooms has increased
globally in response to nutrient enrichment. Protection of marine waters from the harmful
consequences of nutrient enrichment is a challenge to resource managers because the
sources and delivery routes of N and P are diverse. Combustion of fossil fuels produces
gaseous nitrogen oxides, and animal production and fertilizer use produce volatile
ammonia, two sources of atmospheric N that can be carried by winds and deposited on
coastal waters and lakes hundreds of kilometers from their origin. Modern high-yield
agriculture and urban gardeners are dependent upon commercial fertilizers that became
cheap to produce in the mid 20th century – the era in which N and P concentrations
began to increase in surface waters carrying agricultural and urban runoff to the sea.
The world's human population is growing disproportionately in the coastal zone, creating
an additional challenge of reducing nutrient inputs from municipal waste, septic systems,
and fertilizer runoff from lawns and gardens. Projections indicate that the largest future
increases in N and P delivery to the coastal ocean will occur in eastern and southern
Asia where populations and economies are growing most rapidly.

The eutrophication problem illustrates how human activities on land can degrade
the quality of coastal waters and habitats, with potentially large economic and ecological
costs. Solutions to the coastal eutrophication problem require changes in all these
activities within the watersheds and airsheds connected to coastal waters. Commitments
to these solutions are now beginning – the European Union's Water Framework
Directive mandates strategies to reduce N and P delivery to coastal waters, and a 2000
National Research Council report recommended a National Coastal Nutrient
Management Strategy for the United States. Proposed solutions to the eutrophication
problem are multidimensional and include actions to restore wetlands and riparian buffer
zones between farms and surface waters, reduce livestock densities, improve
efficiencies of fertilizer applications, treat urban runoff from streets and storm drains,
reduce N emissions from vehicles and power plants, and further increase the efficiency
of N and P removal from municipal wastewater. As coastal fish and shellfish aquaculture
expand, management considerations of this rapidly growing internal source of nutrients
will be required as well.

4. Red Tides

An algal bloom is a rapid increase in the population of algae in an aquatic

system. Algal blooms may occur in freshwater as well as marine environments.
Typically, only one or a small number of phytoplankton species are involved, and some
blooms may be recognized by discoloration of the water resulting from the high density
of pigmented cells. Although there is no officially recognized threshold level, algae can
be considered to be blooming at concentrations of hundreds to thousands of cells per
milliliter, depending on the severity. Algal bloom concentrations may reach millions of
cells per milliliter. Algal blooms are often green, but they can also be yellow-brown or
red, depending on the species of algae. Bright green blooms are a result of blue-green
algae, which are actually bacteria (cyanobacteria). Blooms may also consist of
macroalgal, not phytoplankton, species. These blooms are recognizable by large blades
of algae that may wash up onto the shoreline. "Black water" is a dark discoloration of
sea water, first described in the Florida Bay in January 2002.

Of particular note are harmful algal blooms (HABs), which are marine algal bloom
events involving toxic phytoplankton such as dinoflagellates of genus Alexandrium and
Karenia. Such blooms often take on a red or brown hue and are known colloquially as
red tides.

Freshwater algal blooms

Freshwater algal blooms are the result of an excess of nutrients, particularly

phosphorus. The excess of nutrients may originate from fertilizers that are applied to
land for agricultural or recreational purposes, these nutrients can then enter watersheds
through water runoff.[4] Excess carbon and nitrogen have also been suspected as
causes, although a study suggested that this is not the case. When phosphates are
introduced into water systems, higher concentrations cause increased growth of algae
and plants. Algae tend to grow very quickly under high nutrient availability, but each alga
is short-lived, and the result is a high concentration of dead organic matter which starts
to decay. The decay process consumes dissolved oxygen in the water, resulting in
hypoxic conditions. Without sufficient dissolved oxygen in the water, animals and plants
may die off in large numbers.

Blooms may be observed in freshwater aquariums when fish are overfed and
excess nutrients are not absorbed by plants. These are not generally harmful for fish,
and the situation can be corrected by changing the water in the tank and then reducing
the amount of food given.
Water treatment

Algal blooms sometimes occur in drinking water supplies. In such cases, toxins from the
bloom can survive standard water purifying treatments. Researchers at Florida
International University in Miami are experimenting with using 640-kilohertz ultrasound
waves that create micropressure zones as hot as 3,700 °C. This breaks some water
molecules into reactive fragments that can kill algae.

Measurement

Algal blooms are monitored using biomass measurements coupled with the examination
of species present. A widely-used measure of algal and cyanobacterial biomass is the
chlorophyll concentration. Peak values of chlorophyll a for an oligotrophic lake are about
1-10 µg/l, while in a eutrophic lake they can reach 300 µg/l. In cases of hypereutrophy,
such as Hartbeespoort Dam in South Africa, maxima of chlorophyll a can be as high as
3,000 µg/l.

Tai Hu Algal Bloom

Lake Tai in Eastern China has had algal blooms which has attracted the attention of the
ENGO sector. Greenpeace China investigated the algal bloom at Lake Tai and took
water samples. Of 25 samples, 20 were too polluted to be used to water plants or in
factories.

Harmful Algal Blooms

A harmful algal bloom (HAB) is an algal bloom that causes negative impacts to
other organisms via production of natural toxins, mechanical damage to other
organisms, or by other means. HABs are often associated with large-scale marine
mortality events and have been associated with various types of shellfish poisonings.

Background

In the marine environment, single-celled, microscopic, plant-like organisms naturally

occur in the well-lit surface layer of any body of water. These organisms, referred to as
phytoplankton or microalgae, form the base of the food web upon which nearly all other
marine organisms depend. Of the 5000+ species of marine phytoplankton that exist
worldwide, about 2% are known to be harmful or toxic[11]. Blooms of harmful algae can
have large and varied impacts on marine ecosystems, depending on the species
involved, the environment where they are found, and the mechanism by which they exert
negative effects. Examples of common harmful effects of HABs include:

1. the production of neurotoxins which cause mass mortalities in fish, seabirds and
marine mammals
2. human illness or death via consumption of seafood contaminated by toxic algae
3. mechanical damage to other organisms, such as disruption of epithelial gill
tissues in fish, resulting in asphyxiation
4. oxygen depletion of the water column (hypoxia or anoxia) from cellular
respiration and bacterial degradation
Due to their negative economic and health impacts, HABs are often carefully monitored.

HABs occur in many regions of the world. , and in the United States are recurring
phenomena in multiple geographical regions. The Gulf of Maine frequently experiences
blooms of the dinoflagellate Alexandrium fundyense, an organism that produces
saxitoxin, the neurotoxin responsible for paralytic shellfish poisoning. The well-known
"Florida red tide" that occurs in the eastern Gulf of Mexico is a HAB caused by Karenia
brevis, another dinoflagellate which produces brevetoxin, the neurotoxin responsible for
neurotoxic shellfish poisoning. California coastal waters also experience seasonal
blooms of Pseudo-nitzschia, a diatom known to produce domoic acid, the neurotoxin
responsible for amnesic shellfish poisoning. Off the west coast of South Africa, HABs
caused by Alexandrium catanella occur every spring. These blooms of organisms cause
severe disruptions in fisheries of these waters as the toxins in the phytoplankton cause
filter-feeding shellfish in affected waters to become poisonous for human consumption ".
If the HAB event results in a high enough concentration of algae the water may become
discoloured or murky, varying in colour from purple to almost pink, normally being red or
green. Not all algal blooms are dense enough to cause water discolouration.

"Red Tides"

"Red tide" is a term often used to describe HABs in marine coastal areas [15], as the
dinoflagellate species involved in HABs are often red or brown, and tint the sea water to
a reddish colour. The more correct and preferred term in use is harmful algal bloom,
because:

1. these blooms are not associated with tides

2. not all algal blooms cause reddish discoloration of water
3. not all algal blooms are harmful, even those involving red discolouration

Causes of HABs

It is unclear what causes HABs; their occurrence in some locations appears to be

entirely natural, while in others they appear to be a result of human activities[18]
Furthermore, there are many different species of algae that can form HABs, each with
different environmental requirements for optimal growth. The frequency and severity of
HABs in some parts of the world have been linked to increased nutrient loading from
human activities. In other areas, HABs are a predictable seasonal occurrence resulting
from coastal upwelling, a natural result of the movement of certain ocean currents. [19]
The growth of marine phytoplankton (both non-toxic and toxic) is generally limited by the
availability of nitrates and phosphates, which can be abundant in coastal upwelling
zones as well as in agricultural run-off. Coastal water pollution produced by humans and
systematic increase in sea water temperature have also been suggested as possible
contributing factors in HABs. Other factors such as iron-rich dust influx from large desert
areas such as the Saharan desert are thought to play a role in causing HABs.[20] Some
algal blooms on the Pacific coast have also been linked to natural occurrences of large-
scale climatic oscillations such as El Niño events. While HABs in the Gulf of Mexico
have been occurring since the time of early explorers such as Cabeza de Vaca,[21] it is
unclear what initiates these blooms and how large a role anthropogenic and natural
factors play in their development. It is also unclear whether the "apparent" increase in
frequency and severity of HABs in various parts of the world is in fact a real increase or
is due to increased observation effort and advances in species identification methods.

Notable occurrences

• No deaths of humans have been attributed to Florida HABs, but people may
experience respiratory irritation (coughing, sneezing, and tearing) when the
phytoplankton Karenia brevis is present along a coast and winds blow its toxic
aerosol onshore. Swimming is usually safe, but skin irritation and burning is
possible in areas of high concentration.
• In 1972 a red tide was caused in New England by a toxic dinoflagellate
Alexandrium (Gonyaulax) tamarense.
• In 2005 the Canadian HAB was discovered to have come further south than it
has in years prior by a ship called The Oceanus, closing shellfish beds in Maine
and Massachusetts and alerting authorities as far south as Montauk (Long
Island, NY) to check their beds.[26] Experts who discovered the reproductive cysts
in the seabed warn of a possible spread to Long Island in the future, halting the
area's fishing and shellfish industry and threatening the tourist trade, which
constitutes a significant portion of the island's economy.
 Elio, Melvin C.
Reporter

• Biogeochemical Cycle

Nitrogen Cycle

Carbon Cycle

Oxygen Cycle

• Problems Associated with Rapid Population Growth

• Anthropogenic Impact on Freshwater Ecosystem