Emily Schweiss, Alex Birkley, Petr Carter, and Eric Hempelmen

WATER FOR HEALTHY ECOSYSTEM

•Water pollution can come from many different places like; agricultural and livestock farms and industrial plants. Coming from agricultural settings, it usually has high amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus in it. When bodies of water get nitrogen or phosphorus in them, there is often an unhealthy spike in the plant life, especially algae. Algae can spread fast and far. It blocks the sunlight and shades plants and animals underneath it. If the algae blooms last long enough, it can kill them.

•Plants take water in through their roots and they also take in nutrients and all of the other chemicals that are in the water. When the water is polluted, plants can take in the pollution, which can result in visible impacts from yellowing leaves to unhealthy or dying seedlings.

IMPACTS ON PLANTS

• Water pollution does not only kill millions of people each year, it is also kills millions of animals that simply cannot live with the increasing levels of water pollution. The increasing levels are caused by different chemicals and other waste.

• Chemicals and other water pollutants make it difficult for aquatic animals to breath. These chemicals can also be quite toxic for land animals once they drink this polluted water, they can suffer from these effects just as much.

IMPACT ON ANIMALS

• Different types of species of animals have different tolerance to the high nitrogen and phosphorus levels in the water.

• One species of fish could not have a problem with the high levels but another one could not be able to tolerate the levels and could die.

IMPACT ON BIODIVERSITY

• The Gulf of Mexico “Dead Zone” is a large region of water that is very low in oxygen, and can not support life.

• Cause: Nitrogen and Phosphorus-nutrients wash into rivers and streams, streams and rivers in the United States empty into the Mississippi River, the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of Mexico, and then the fresh water from the Mississippi flows into the salt water in the Gulf keeping oxygen from the atmosphere from getting deeper into the water.

• The “Dead Zone” affects bottom-dwellers such as snails, worms, starfish, and crabs that can't escape the oxygen poor water - so they die. Fish and shrimp swim out of the area, which could cause shrimp supply to drop and seafood prices to rise

“DEAD ZONE”

“DEAD ZONE”

• Eutrophic – “Waters that are high in nutrients; in aquatic systems, associated with wide swings in dissolved oxygen concentrations and frequent algal blooms.” - Committee on Environment and Natural Resources

EUTROPHICATION

EUTROPHICATION

• Oceanic Acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH and increase in acidity of the Earth's oceans, caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This can make the oceans to acidic for some species to live.

PH ACIDIFICATION