Eutrophication - Resource Bundle

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Eutrophication

Nutrients are essential for plant growth, but the overabundance of nutrients—primarily nitrogen and phosphorus—in water can have many harmful health and environmental effects. This process is called eutrophication.

This Bundle has 14 Resources.
Bundle Creator: pml-admin


Related Topics: Nutrient Pollution. Biodiversity. Deoxygenation. Freshwater.
Suitable Ages: 15. 16. 17. 18.
Keywords: Algae. Nutrients. Harmful Algal Blooms (Hab). Toxins. Bacteria. Decomposed. Fertilisers.

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Mixoplankton Model

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Eutrophication

Eutrophication

Eutrophication

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What is eutrophication?

What is eutrophication? Nutrients are essential for plant growth, but the overabundance of nutrients —primarily nitrogen and phosphorus—in water can have many harmful health and environmental effects. This process is called  eutrophication . A Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) is a growth (‘bloom’) of microalgae that causes damage to the ecosystem, sometimes causing death of animals on a massive scale. HABs are often associated with eutrophication. https://imaggeo.egu.eu/view/4605/

What is eutrophication?

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Why is eutrophication harmful?

Why is eutrophication harmful? Algae feed on the nutrients, growing, spreading, and turning the water green. Algal blooms can smell bad, block sunlight, and even release toxins in some cases.  When algae die, they are decomposed by bacteria—this process consumes the oxygen dissolved in the water and needed by fish and other aquatic life to "breathe". If enough oxygen is removed, the water can become hypoxic, where there is not enough oxygen to sustain life, creating a "dead zone". .

Why is eutrophication harmful?

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What do Harmful Algal Blooms look like?

What do Harmful Algal Blooms look like? Cyanobacteria Cyanobacteria are microscopic organisms that live in water and can photosynthesise like plants. When conditions are favourable, cyanobacteria can multiply rapidly, causing harmful algal blooms (HABs). Some species of cyanobacteria produce toxins that can harm humans, animals, and aquatic life.

What do Harmful Algal Blooms look like?

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What do Harmful Algal Blooms look like?

What do Harmful Algal Blooms look like? Microcystis Microcystis is a genus of cyanobacteria that is commonly found in freshwater environments. Microcystis species, particularly Microcystis aeruginosa, can produce toxins called microcystins . Microcystins are harmful to the liver and can pose serious health risks to humans and animals. Microcystis blooms often form a thick, green scum on the water surface, which can reduce oxygen levels and harm aquatic life.

What do Harmful Algal Blooms look like?

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What do Harmful Algal Blooms look like?

What do Harmful Algal Blooms look like? Prymnesium A highly toxic, fish-killing microalga that eats other organisms and grows in low saline waters. At high cell densities, the water takes on a golden colour , giving these blooms their common name, "golden alga.“ Prymnesium blooms can cause massive fish kills, leading to significant ecological and economic impacts in affected areas

What do Harmful Algal Blooms look like?

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The growing risk of eutrophication

The growing risk of eutrophication Eutrophication has been known about for many decades.  However, climate change and human population growth and improvements in living standards are making the situation worse.  More people, with high qualities of life, are placing more demands for food from farming. Fertilizers are critically important if we want more food from our crops growing on land.  However, climate change is leading to less stable weather conditions, creating conditions where fertilizers are more likely to be washed off the land.

The growing risk of eutrophication

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Case study – an event in the River Oder

Case study – an event in the River Oder "About 360 tonnes of dead fish were hauled from the Oder, which runs for 840 kilometres along the German-Polish border, between July and August 2022 following a huge bloom of the toxic alga  Prymnesium parvum . The European Commission described it as 'one of the largest ecological disasters in recent European river history'." Image: Marcin Bielecki/PAP/dpa/picture alliance JRC Publications Repository, DOI: 10.2760/067386 https://www.newscientist.com/article/2360642-huge-ecological-disaster-in-river-oder-last-year-could-repeat-in-2023/

Case study – an event in the River Oder

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How do we monitor eutrophication?

How do we monitor eutrophication? Nitrogen and phosphorus - Nutrients  Chlorophyll a - indicator of plants Transparency - tool: Secchi disk Dissolved Oxygen (DO) - essential for fish populations Sediments - how fast material deposits Temperature - affecting the growth of plants, the release of nutrients, and the mixing of water etc. Source: https://www.canr.msu.edu/michiganlakes/lake_ecology/measuring_eutrophication

How do we monitor eutrophication?

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Conducting experiments on eutrophication

Conducting experiments on eutrophication Powersim Cockpit: the plankton eutrophication model To download this free application, visit this website: https://www.powersim.com/main/downloadsupport/technical_resources/service_releases/studio10cockpit/

Conducting experiments on eutrophication

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The main interface

The main interface

The main interface

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An example output

An example output

An example output

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Discussion

Discussion What are the dangers of eutrophication? In the model, growth of the microalgae was controlled by nutrient availability. What might happen if other factors were also involved, and what might those factors be?  In the model, only a very simple food-chain is considered. What might happen if a complex food-web was considered? What steps we could collectively take to minimise eutrophication?

Discussion

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Mixoplankton Model

Description: What are ‘Mixoplankton’? For decades, the accepted scientific view has been that the single-celled microscopic plankton can be divided broadly into two types. Food producing “phytoplankton” (also known as microalgae) act rather like tiny marine plants. Animal-like single-celled plankton “protozooplankton”, on the other hand, eat the phytoplankton, and are in turn eaten by bigger organisms going up the food chain all the way to fish and whales. This division of these microscopic plankton is thus akin to the plant-animal split in terrestrial food webs. However, we now know that this division is wrong. It transpires that many of the “plant-like phytoplankton”, and half the “animal-like protozooplankton” are mixoplankton!

URL: https://forio.com/app/mixoplankton/nbased/index.html#introduction.html

Zenodo URL: https://zenodo.org/records/5040445

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