tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/toxic-algae-bloom-18645/articlesToxic algae bloom – The Conversation2023-05-03T12:07:00Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2034922023-05-03T12:07:00Z2023-05-03T12:07:00ZHeading to a beach this summer? Here’s how to keep harmful algae blooms from spoiling your trip<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523475/original/file-20230428-22-cp3c0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C0%2C5862%2C3926&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Warning sign at Lido Key Beach in Sarasota, Fla., March 15, 2023, during a toxic algae bloom.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-warning-of-the-red-tide-risk-is-displayed-at-lido-key-news-photo/1248835855"> Jesus Olarte/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Plunging into the ocean or a lake is one of the great joys of summer. But arriving at the beach to find water that’s green, red or brown, and possibly foul-smelling, can instantly spoil the party.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brad-Reisfeld">toxicologist</a>, I study health risks from both synthetic and natural substances. I’ve conducted research into <a href="https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/display.abstractDetail/abstract_id/11137/report/0">early detection of harmful algal blooms</a>, or HABs, which are an increasing threat to humans, animals and the environment. </p>
<p>Toxins produced during these blooms have been implicated in human and animal illnesses in at least 43 states. Scientists have estimated that in the U.S. alone, freshwater HABs cause more than <a href="https://meetings.pices.int/publications/other/members/HAB-PolicyMakers.pdf">US$4.6 billion in damage yearly</a>. Here’s what to know about them if you’re bound for the water’s edge this summer.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KfbM32b50fY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Harmful algal blooms have become a regular occurrence along large stretches of Florida’s coast in recent years.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tiny organisms, big impacts</h2>
<p>Algae and cyanobacteria – often called blue-green algae – are simple, plantlike organisms that live in water. They can grow out of control, or “bloom,” especially when the water is warm and slow moving. Climate change is <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/summary-for-policymakers/">making water bodies warmer</a>, increasing the risk of HABs. </p>
<p>The other major factor that drives blooms is high levels of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, which fertilize algae. <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-03/documents/facts_about_nutrient_pollution_what_is_hypoxia.pdf">Nutrient pollution</a> comes mainly from agriculture, wastewater treatment plants, septic systems and fossil fuel combustion.</p>
<p>Sometimes these blooms contain organisms that produce toxins – an umbrella term for many poisonous substances that <a href="https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002331.htm">come from animals or plants</a> and can make people and animals sick and adversely affect the environment. These events are called harmful algal blooms. </p>
<p>HABs occur <a href="https://hab.whoi.edu/maps/regions-us-distribution/">throughout the U.S.</a> and <a href="https://hab.whoi.edu/maps/regions-world-distribution/">worldwide</a>, in both saltwater and freshwater environments. They pose significant health risks to human, pets, livestock and wildlife; damage ecosystems; increase water treatment costs; restrict recreational activities; and cut into economic revenues.</p>
<p>People and animals can be exposed to HAB toxins through many routes. These include skin contact during activities such as swimming or boating; inhaling airborne droplets that contain toxins; swallowing contaminated water; or eating food or supplements that contain toxins. The most severe effects generally result from <a href="https://hab.whoi.edu/impacts/impacts-human-health/">consuming contaminated seafood</a>.</p>
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<h2>An array of toxins</h2>
<p>There are numerous <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/habs/pdf/ohhabs-algae-algal-toxins-and-other-pathogens-lists.pdf">HAB toxins</a>, including substances such as microcystin, saxitoxin, cylindrospermopsin, anatoxin-A and domoic acid. Each has a different action on the body, so HABs can have <a href="https://mywaterquality.ca.gov/habs/resources/docs/humanhealth/hab_physician_guide_may2020.pdf">diverse harmful effects</a>.</p>
<p>Typical <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/habs/illness.html">symptoms of illness</a> from exposure to HAB toxins can include stomach pain, vomiting or diarrhea; headache, fever, tiredness or other general symptoms; skin, eye, nose or throat irritation; and neurological symptoms such as muscle weakness or dizziness. Depending on the toxin, higher levels of exposure can result in tremors or seizures, respiratory distress, kidney toxicity, liver toxicity and even death.</p>
<p>As with many environmental exposures, children and older people may be especially sensitive to HAB toxins. People who regularly consume seafood caught in HAB-prone areas are also at risk of long-term health effects from potentially frequent, low-level exposures to HAB toxins.</p>
<h2>Recognizing and responding to HABs</h2>
<p>It’s not possible to tell whether a bloom is harmful just by looking at it, but there are some warning signs. If the water appears green, red, brown or yellowish in color; has a strong musty or fishy odor; has foam, scum, algal mats or paintlike streaks on the surface; or if there are dead fish or other marine life in the water or washed up on the shoreline, it’s likely that a HAB may be occurring.</p>
<p>If you are unsure whether a bloom is harmful or not, contact your local health department or environmental agency for guidance. As a general rule, it’s good to check with local agencies to see whether there are any relevant warnings when you go to the beach. </p>
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<p>If you are notified of a bloom in a nearby body of water or in your public drinking water supply, the most important thing you can do to reduce your chances of getting sick is to follow local or state guidance. If you see signs of a bloom, stay out of the water and keep your pets out of the water.</p>
<p>It’s also important to follow local guidelines about consuming seafood caught through recreational fishing. It’s important to be aware that cooking contaminated seafood or boiling contaminated water <a href="https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/food-poisoning/red-tide">does not destroy the toxins</a>. </p>
<h2>Be informed</h2>
<p>The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/habs/general.html">resources and recommendations</a> related to HABs and ways to stay safe. Pet owners should also learn <a href="https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/habspets.pdf">how to protect their dogs from HABs</a>. </p>
<p>Other federal agencies that offer information about HABs include <a href="https://hab.whoi.edu/">the U.S. National Office for Harmful Algal Blooms</a> and the <a href="https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/algal-blooms/index.cfm">National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences</a>.</p>
<p>Many states conduct <a href="https://www.epa.gov/cyanohabs/state-habs-monitoring-programs-and-resources">HAB monitoring programs</a>, especially in areas that are known to be vulnerable to blooms, such as <a href="https://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/products/1h6jc/what-are-habs">western Lake Erie</a>. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers <a href="https://www.epa.gov/cyanohabs/state-habs-resources">HAB resources by state</a>. Apps used by water quality managers and state officials who make management decisions about public water supply safety, including <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.topcoder.epa">CyAN Android</a> and <a href="https://qed.epa.gov/cyanweb/">CyANWeb</a>, may contain useful information about HABs in your area.</p>
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<h2>What’s being done about HABs?</h2>
<p>Many efforts are underway to prevent, control and mitigate HABs and provide early warnings to water system managers and health officials. </p>
<p>One example in the U.S. is the
<a href="https://www.epa.gov/water-research/cyanobacteria-assessment-network-cyan">Cyanobacteria Assessment Network, or CyAN</a>, a collaborative effort across several government agencies to develop an early warning indicator system to detect algal blooms in freshwater systems. There are also several ongoing projects for <a href="https://coastalscience.noaa.gov/science-areas/habs/hab-forecasts/">HAB forecasting by region</a>.</p>
<p>At the global scale, the <a href="https://data.hais.ioc-unesco.org/">Harmful Algal Information System</a> will eventually include harmful algal events and information from harmful algae monitoring and management systems worldwide.</p>
<p>Citizen scientists can provide invaluable help by monitoring local waters. If you would like to participate, consider joining the <a href="https://coastalscience.noaa.gov/monitoring-and-assessments/pmn/">Phytoplankton Monitoring Network</a> or <a href="https://cyanos.org/bloomwatch/">the Cyanobacteria Monitoring Collaborative</a>, and download and use the
<a href="https://cyanos.org/bloomwatch/">Cyanobacterial bloom app</a> to report potential HABs in bodies of water you visit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203492/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brad Reisfeld received funding from the US Environmental Protection Agency to work on a project related to HABs detection</span></em></p>The tiny organisms that cause harmful blooms of algae can have a big impact on your trip to the shore. A toxicologist explains what causes these events and how to keep people and pets safe.Brad Reisfeld, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Public Health, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2007232023-03-19T11:51:46Z2023-03-19T11:51:46ZHow images of the 2011 tsunami in Japan led me to examine connections with water in photography, sound and sculpture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515314/original/file-20230314-1506-csxvs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C134%2C2901%2C1738&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An earthquake-triggered tsunami sweeps shores along Iwanuma, Miyagi prefecture, northern Japan, March 11, 2011. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Kyodo News via AP, File)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In everyday language when we describe something as “salient” we mean what’s most central. </p>
<p>In geography, a “salient” is a prominent feature in a landscape, like an iceberg breaking the surface of the sea. The word “salient” also has affinity with “saline”: both come from <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=saline&ref=searchbar_searchhint">the Latin word for salt</a>. </p>
<p><em>Salients</em> is also the title of an exhibit which is a <a href="https://museum.mcmaster.ca/exhibition/chris-myhr-salients/">retrospective of my artwork</a>. The exhibit brings together photography, sound and found objects from projects, developed over a decade, that revolve around our complex interrelationships with water. </p>
<p>The catalyst for this trajectory in my studio practice was the Tōhoku earthquake and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Japan-earthquake-and-tsunami-of-2011/Aftermath-of-the-disaster">tsunami that struck the east coast of Japan in 2011</a>. </p>
<p>I lived and worked in Tokyo from 1998 to 2006, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2021/03/photos-10-years-great-east-japan-earthquake/618243">and witnessing the images of</a> what’s sometimes known as <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/01/30/national/science-health/japan-researchers-disaster-lessons/">the 3/11 disaster</a>, as well as the resulting global reverberations, led to a fundamental shift in my world view.</p>
<p>It also catalyzed a dedicated move in my research and art production toward issues surrounding water, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01969-y">complex interconnectivity</a> and the ways in which the ocean and its tributaries shape culture, industry and the collective imagination. </p>
<h2>Source of life, destruction</h2>
<p>Much of my work since Tōhoku has explored the contradiction or tension whereby
water acts not only as a constructive and generative influence — the source of all life on our planet, but also an agent of immense and unfathomable destructive power.</p>
<p>What struck me initially about images of the 3/11 tsunami was that it did not look as I had expected. Its form looked nothing <a href="https://www.katsushikahokusai.org/biography.html">like Katsushika Hokusai’s</a> iconic painting <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/45434"><em>Under the Wave off Kanagawa</em></a>, also known as <em>The Great Wave</em>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Image of a great wave moving toward the shore." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515310/original/file-20230314-21-bpxk7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515310/original/file-20230314-21-bpxk7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515310/original/file-20230314-21-bpxk7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515310/original/file-20230314-21-bpxk7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515310/original/file-20230314-21-bpxk7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515310/original/file-20230314-21-bpxk7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515310/original/file-20230314-21-bpxk7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Images of the tsunami looked nothing like Hokusai’s ‘The Great Wave.’</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nor did it look anything like depictions I had <a href="https://thecinemaholic.com/tsunami-movies/">seen in disaster films</a>. </p>
<p>There was no blue triangular shape, no white froth at the peak. Instead, the force of the earthquake manifested in a <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/tohoku-earthquake-and-tsunami">dark swell of water mixed with earth</a>
that advanced inland without acceleration or deceleration. </p>
<p>The wave swept across the landscape effortlessly, pulling with it crushed cars, uprooted trees and buildings, as well as unimaginable things dragged along beneath the surface.</p>
<h2>The sublime: awe, wonder, fear</h2>
<p>There was something in the affect and aesthetics of these images that positioned them for me within <a href="https://www.theartstory.org/definition/the-sublime-in-art/">the tradition of the sublime</a> — a term from Euro-western philosophical and artistic discourse that has <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime">been evolving and morphing</a> since at <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/burkes-a-philosophical-enquiry-into-the-origin-of-our-ideas-of-the-sublime-and-beautiful">least the 17th century</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=sublime">etymological roots</a> of “sublime” come from the Latin <em>sublimis</em> meaning “high up” or lofty. In the western history of visual art, the sublime is most frequently associated with the work of Romantic-era painters <a href="https://www.thecollector.com/sublime-landscape-paintings/">like Joseph Turner and Caspar Friedrich</a>. Western curators sometimes also <a href="http://www.laurencemillergallery.com/exhibitions/pursuing-the-sublime">include Hokusai when exploring the sublime</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Boats surrounded by water and sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515308/original/file-20230314-21-tg7btu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515308/original/file-20230314-21-tg7btu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515308/original/file-20230314-21-tg7btu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515308/original/file-20230314-21-tg7btu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515308/original/file-20230314-21-tg7btu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515308/original/file-20230314-21-tg7btu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515308/original/file-20230314-21-tg7btu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Watercolour by Joseph Mallord William Turner, c. 1840.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Trustees of the British Museum)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These artists attempted to articulate the visceral sense of awe and wonder — slightly tinged with fear — that one experiences when gazing upon the vastness of a starry sky, or a body of water stretching from horizon to horizon. </p>
<p>The sublime points toward certain modes of aesthetic, sensory and existential experience <a href="https://www.artforum.com/print/198204/presenting-the-unpresentable-the-sublime-35606">that exceed human thought and understanding</a>.</p>
<h2>Boundless networks of co-existence</h2>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262513913/the-sublime">Contemporary theory</a> around the sublime extends the term to include machines and technology, vast networks of global communications and the internet. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gods-in-the-machine-the-rise-of-artificial-intelligence-may-result-in-new-religions-201068">Gods in the machine? The rise of artificial intelligence may result in new religions</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In this sense, there is also something sublime about the ways in which the medium of water interconnects all things: it flows across borders and blurs delineations between local/global, micro/macro and human/non-human. </p>
<p>I am particularly invested in the work <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780190221911-0016">of contemporary philosophers</a> such as <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/vibrant-matter">Jane Bennett</a> and <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674064225">Timothy Morton</a> whose work challenges us to rethink the place of humans within these boundless networks of coexistence. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515293/original/file-20230314-3238-9ls37o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two images seen hanging on a white wall of rusty and calcified-looking pipes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515293/original/file-20230314-3238-9ls37o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515293/original/file-20230314-3238-9ls37o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515293/original/file-20230314-3238-9ls37o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515293/original/file-20230314-3238-9ls37o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515293/original/file-20230314-3238-9ls37o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515293/original/file-20230314-3238-9ls37o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515293/original/file-20230314-3238-9ls37o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pipes dating back to the 17th century recovered from the sea floor by historian and master diver Bob Chaulk off the coast of Nova Scotia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Chris Myhr)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pipes, glass vessels, algae, contaminants</h2>
<p>The projects in <em>Salients</em> feature subject matter collected from four major Canadian water systems: </p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://www.chrismyhr.com/work#/vessels-between-teeth-20162018/">mariners’ pipes</a> and <a href="https://www.chrismyhr.com/work#/vessels-undertone-20162018/">glass vessels</a> dating back to the 17th century recovered <a href="https://haligonia.ca/treasure-hunter-4266/">from the sea floor</a> off the coast of Nova Scotia; </p></li>
<li><p>evaporated samples of <a href="https://www.chrismyhr.com/work#/suspensions-2018/">toxic blue-green algae</a> taken <a href="https://environment.geog.ubc.ca/algal-blooms-in-the-great-lakes-consequences-governance-and-solutions/">from blooms</a> in Lake Ontario;</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.chrismyhr.com/work#/absolutes-athabasca-river-2020-2021/">hydrocarbon sediment</a> from filtered samples of snow <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/corporate/transparency/priorities-management/evaluations/evaluation-water-quality-aquatic-ecosystems-health-program/background.html">collected by scientists</a> along the banks <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Fort-McMurray">of the Athabasca River</a> as it flows through <a href="https://www.alberta.ca/oil-sands-facts-and-statistics.aspx">the oil sands region</a> of northern Alberta;</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.chrismyhr.com/work#/absolutes-lake-erie-2020-2021/">similar contaminants</a> washing up <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Point-Pelee-National-Park">on the western shoreline of Point Pelee</a> peninsula in Lake Erie, Ont.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516045/original/file-20230317-24-5ztntp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Seen on the wall, photographic images of circles, and a platform with a mound of lump-like black matter, and on the floor a black disc is seen sitting on a pedestal." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516045/original/file-20230317-24-5ztntp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516045/original/file-20230317-24-5ztntp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516045/original/file-20230317-24-5ztntp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516045/original/file-20230317-24-5ztntp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516045/original/file-20230317-24-5ztntp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516045/original/file-20230317-24-5ztntp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516045/original/file-20230317-24-5ztntp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On the right, ‘Ab-Solutes: Athabasca River’ images. From a speaker on a pedestal, on the floor, can be heard underwater soundscape from beneath Lake Ontario at Hamilton Harbour, Ont.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Chris Myhr)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516046/original/file-20230317-3709-yrmo5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Nine pictures hang on a wall, some of faint blob-like images, some of dark circles; a glob-like black object seen on a platform on the wall and a black circular object is seen on a pedestal." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516046/original/file-20230317-3709-yrmo5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516046/original/file-20230317-3709-yrmo5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516046/original/file-20230317-3709-yrmo5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516046/original/file-20230317-3709-yrmo5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516046/original/file-20230317-3709-yrmo5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516046/original/file-20230317-3709-yrmo5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516046/original/file-20230317-3709-yrmo5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photographs of evaporated samples of toxic algae taken from blooms in Lake Ontario, on the left, and found object sculpture consisting of ‘tar glob’ hydrocarbon sediment collected along the shoreline of Point Pelee peninsula, Ont.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Chris Myhr)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Irreducibility of matter</h2>
<p>There are no direct representations of water in the <em>Salients</em> exhibition.
Returning to the idea of “saline,” what is seen in the exhibition is not so much the “solution” but the “salt” — stubborn matter that has refused to dissolve within the water system from which it was recovered.</p>
<p>Euro-western thinking tends to delineate between matter and energy. Yet — like energy — matter cannot be created nor destroyed. Instead, it moves and shifts from one form to another; from one location to another; <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253222404/bodily-natures/">from one body to another</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515825/original/file-20230316-22-zldz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515825/original/file-20230316-22-zldz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515825/original/file-20230316-22-zldz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515825/original/file-20230316-22-zldz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515825/original/file-20230316-22-zldz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515825/original/file-20230316-22-zldz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515825/original/file-20230316-22-zldz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515825/original/file-20230316-22-zldz2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zeroing in on visual traces of evaporated toxic algae poses deeper questions about our relationship to the chains of events intertwining humans, nonhumans and our shared environments.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Chris Myhr)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although <em>Salients</em> images have been rendered through advanced digital imaging technologies, they ruminate not on ephemeral things like data or pixels but rather <a href="https://philosophyofmovementblog.com/2020/08/20/what-is-object-oriented-ontology-what-is-actor-network-theory-what-is-the-philosophy-of-movement">the sheer irreducibility of matter</a>. </p>
<p>Our material legacies <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/hyperobjects">will certainly outlive</a> our digital footprints. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515316/original/file-20230314-2882-73vaqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Images hang on a wall on the left of shiny, bubble-like colour swirls, on the right, very dark images." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515316/original/file-20230314-2882-73vaqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515316/original/file-20230314-2882-73vaqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515316/original/file-20230314-2882-73vaqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515316/original/file-20230314-2882-73vaqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515316/original/file-20230314-2882-73vaqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515316/original/file-20230314-2882-73vaqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515316/original/file-20230314-2882-73vaqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photographs of the surfaces of glass vessels recovered from the Atlantic seafloor marked and coloured over long passages of time, and images of tar-like hydrocarbon sediment collected along the shoreline of Lake Erie.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Chris Myhr)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sublime environmental challenges</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515337/original/file-20230314-2882-icqgqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An assymetrical black form seen surrounded by murky water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515337/original/file-20230314-2882-icqgqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515337/original/file-20230314-2882-icqgqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515337/original/file-20230314-2882-icqgqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515337/original/file-20230314-2882-icqgqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515337/original/file-20230314-2882-icqgqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515337/original/file-20230314-2882-icqgqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515337/original/file-20230314-2882-icqgqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Digital photograph, ‘Ab-Solutes: Lake Erie’ (Untitled C2b).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Chris Myhr)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bitumen falling from the sky in Fort McMurray, tar globs embedded in the sand along Lake Erie and microbial <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-01/algae-blooms-visible-from-space-increased-as-climate-warmed#">algae blooms visible from space</a> gesture toward complicated and messy environmental challenges <a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-09-19/humanity-and-nature-are-not-separate-we-must-see-them-as-one-to-fix-the-climate-crisis/">that will not dissolve smoothly within conventional frameworks of Euro-Western thinking</a>. </p>
<p>There is no singular cause to these effects, and there will be no silver bullet solution to these problems. </p>
<p>It will take <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520276116/how-forests-think">different frameworks</a> of thinking: <a href="http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/art-in-the-anthropocene/">creative</a>, <a href="https://milkweed.org/book/braiding-sweetgrass">inclusive</a> and <a href="https://www.allwecansave.earth/">interdisciplinary</a> thinking to deal with these issues which — in their vertiginous complexity and sheer magnitude — most certainly border on the sublime.</p>
<p><em>‘Salients’ runs until March 24 at the McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, Ont.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200723/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The artworks in “Salients” were produced with support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.</span></em></p>Images of the 2011 tsunami did not look as I had expected, and pointed to the sublime, when experience exceeds our frameworks of understanding. My exhibit ‘Salients’ treats this theme.Chris Myhr, Associate Professor, Communication Studies & Media Arts, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1862862022-07-18T12:26:45Z2022-07-18T12:26:45ZTo reduce harmful algal blooms and dead zones, the US needs a national strategy for regulating farm pollution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474164/original/file-20220714-32338-xz3rmp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=52%2C0%2C8713%2C5835&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Satellite photo of an algal bloom in western Lake Erie, July 28, 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/86000/86327/erie_oli_2015209_lrg.jpg">NASA Earth Observatory</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Midsummer is the time for forecasts of the size of this year’s “dead zones” and algal blooms in major lakes and bays. Will the <a href="https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_bfc1ba32-e2ac-11ec-9909-5fd0e4edb56b.html">Gulf of Mexico dead zone</a> be the size of New Jersey, or only as big as Connecticut? Will Lake Erie’s bloom blossom to a <a href="https://www.toledoblade.com/local/2014/08/03/Water-crisis-grips-area/stories/20140803090">human health crisis</a>, or just devastate the <a href="https://www.ectinc.com/projects/economic-benefits-costs-of-reducing-harmful-algal-blooms-in-lake-erie/">coastal economy</a>? </p>
<p>We are scientists who each have spent almost 50 years figuring out <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ARkaE6cAAAAJ&hl=en">what causes dead zones</a> and what it will take to resuscitate them and reduce <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-K4wV5QAAAAJ&hl=en">risks of toxic blooms of algae</a>. Researchers can <a href="https://theconversation.com/forecasting-dead-zones-and-toxic-algae-in-us-waterways-a-bad-year-for-lake-erie-43747">forecast</a> these phenomena quite well and have calculated the nitrogen and phosphorus pollution cuts needed to reduce them. </p>
<p>These targets are now written into formal government commitments to clean up <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2016.09.007">Lake Erie</a>, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1705293114">Gulf</a> and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2384">Chesapeake Bay</a>. Farmers and land owners nationwide received US$30 billion to support conservation, including practices designed to reduce water pollution, from <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/new-ewg-database-details-30-billion-spent-us-farm-conservation-programs">2005 to 2015</a>, and are scheduled to receive $60 billion more between <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12024#:%7E:text=Spending%20for%20agricultural%20conservation%20programs,are%20reauthorized%20with%20no%20changes.">2019 and 2028</a>. </p>
<p>But these efforts have fallen short, mainly because controls on nutrient pollution from agriculture are <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2019.00123">weak and ineffective</a>. In our view, there is no shortage of solutions to this problem. What’s needed is technological innovation and stronger political will. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474157/original/file-20220714-32176-2cyi2q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map showing a zone with low oxygen values along the Louisiana coast." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474157/original/file-20220714-32176-2cyi2q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474157/original/file-20220714-32176-2cyi2q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474157/original/file-20220714-32176-2cyi2q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474157/original/file-20220714-32176-2cyi2q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474157/original/file-20220714-32176-2cyi2q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474157/original/file-20220714-32176-2cyi2q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474157/original/file-20220714-32176-2cyi2q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Gulf of Mexico hypoxic (dead) zone in 2021, which measured 6,334 square miles (16,400 square kilometers). Lower values represent less dissolved oxygen in the water.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nrtwq.usgs.gov/nwqn/Sites/GULF_PRELIM/cruise2021-Final_2021_map_KM.jpg">Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Problems return to Lake Erie</h2>
<p>State and federal agencies have known since the 1970s that overloading lakes and bays with nutrients generates huge blooms of algae. When the algae die and decompose, they deplete oxygen in the water, creating dead zones that can’t support aquatic life. But in each of these “big three” water bodies, efforts to curb nutrient pollution have been slow and halting. </p>
<p>The U.S., Canada and cities around Lake Erie started working to reduce phosphorus pollution in the lake from domestic and industrial wastes <a href="https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/58?tour=12&index=11">in 1972</a>. Water quality quickly improved, dead zones shrank and harmful algal blooms became less frequent. </p>
<p>But the scourges of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2014.02.004">low-oxygen waters and sometimes-toxic algae</a> reappeared in the mid-1990s. This time, the source was mostly runoff from farm soils saturated with phosphorus from repeated applications of fertilizer and manure. Climate change made matters worse: Warmer waters hold less oxygen and <a href="https://blog.nature.org/science/2014/08/27/understanding-the-lake-erie-algal-bloom-toledo-water-shutdown/">cause faster growth of algae</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474182/original/file-20220714-33068-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Bar chart showing phosphorus entering Lake Erie 1967-2001." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474182/original/file-20220714-33068-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474182/original/file-20220714-33068-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474182/original/file-20220714-33068-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474182/original/file-20220714-33068-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474182/original/file-20220714-33068-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474182/original/file-20220714-33068-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474182/original/file-20220714-33068-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Phosphorus loads to Lake Erie, 1967-2001. Nonpoint sources are wide areas without a distinct discharge point, such as farm fields.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2014.02.004">Scavia et al., 2014</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Slow progress in the Chesapeake Bay</h2>
<p>Nitrogen and phosphorus reach the Chesapeake Bay from sources including wastewater treatment plants; air pollution emitters, such as factories and cars; and runoff from urban, suburban and agricultural lands. In 1987 the federal government and states around the bay agreed to reduce these flows by <a href="https://www.epa.gov/chesapeake-bay-tmdl/chesapeake-bay-agreements">40% by the year 2000</a> to restore water quality. But this effort relied on voluntary action and failed to make much progress. </p>
<p>In 2010 the states and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency entered <a href="https://www.epa.gov/chesapeake-bay-tmdl/chesapeake-bay-tmdl-document">a legally binding commitment</a>, to reduce pollutant loads below prescribed maximum levels needed to restore water quality. If the states make inadequate progress, the EPA can limit or rescind their permitting authority, and the states may lose federal funding. </p>
<p>Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution has been <a href="https://www.chesapeakeprogress.com/clean-water/2017-watershed-implementation-plans">reduced</a> primarily by tightening permit requirements and upgrading wastewater treatment plants. Air pollution controls for power plants and vehicles have also reduced nitrogen reaching the bay. Water quality has improved, and the yearly dead zone has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152722">shrunk modestly</a>. </p>
<p>But with the commitment’s 2025 deadline nearing, nitrogen loads have been reduced by less then 50% of the targeted amounts, phosphorus by <a href="https://www.chesapeakebay.net/news/pressrelease/bay_program_model_shows_decline_in_nutrient_sediment_pollution_entering_the">less then 64%</a>. Most of the remaining pollution comes from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jeq2.20101">farm runoff and urban stormwater</a>.
Intensifying agriculture in rural areas and sprawl in urban areas are counteracting other cleanup efforts. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Og4gYUR_m94?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Cleaning up water bodies with large watersheds, like the Chesapeake Bay (64,000 square miles/165,000 square kilometers, involves many states and thousands of pollution sources.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Failure in the Gulf of Mexico</h2>
<p>The Gulf of Mexico dead zone forms every year during the summer, fueled by nutrients washing down the Mississippi River from Midwest farms. It <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/larger-than-average-gulf-of-mexico-dead-zone-measured">typically covers at least 6,000 square miles</a>, sometimes expanding up to 9,000 square miles (23,000 square kilometers), and affects an area very rich in fisheries. </p>
<p>In 2001, the EPA and 12 Mississippi River basin states agreed to take action to reduce the Gulf dead zone by two-thirds by 2015. Researchers estimated that this would require <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-03/documents/2008_1_31_msbasin_sab_report_2007.pdf">reducing nitrogen loads reaching the Gulf by about 45%</a>, mostly from the Corn Belt. </p>
<p>Now that deadline has been <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-10/documents/htf_report_to_congress_final_-_10.1.15.pdf">extended to 2035</a>. Nitrogen and phosphorus loadings at the mouth of the Mississippi River <a href="https://nrtwq.usgs.gov/nwqn/#/GULF">haven’t budged in 30 years</a>, so actions taken to date have <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ms-htf/history-hypoxia-task-force">failed to shrink the Gulf dead zone</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474158/original/file-20220714-32145-o1yeg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Bar chart showing measurements of the Gulf of Mexico dead zone since 1985." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474158/original/file-20220714-32145-o1yeg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474158/original/file-20220714-32145-o1yeg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474158/original/file-20220714-32145-o1yeg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474158/original/file-20220714-32145-o1yeg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474158/original/file-20220714-32145-o1yeg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474158/original/file-20220714-32145-o1yeg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474158/original/file-20220714-32145-o1yeg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Since 2017 the Gulf of Mexico dead zone has covered an average of 5,380 square miles (14,000 square kilometers), which is 2.8 times larger than the 2035 target set by a federal task force.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/larger-than-average-gulf-of-mexico-dead-zone-measured">LUMCON/NOAA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Overwhelmed by agriculture</h2>
<p>In 2020, the EPA and Ohio <a href="https://epa.ohio.gov/static/Portals/35/tmdl/MaumeeNutrient/Maumee-Nutrient-TMDL-062022.pdf">adopted an agreement</a> similar to that for the Chesapeake to reduce phosphorus pollution below a prescribed maximum load from the Maumee River watershed at the western end of Lake Erie, where algal blooms occur most often. To date, Mississippi River basin states and even the EPA have <a href="https://doi.org/10.15779/Z38T727G2Q">opposed similarly mandating maximum pollution loads</a> to reduce the Gulf of Mexico dead zone. </p>
<p>Despite substantial government subsidies to implement various agricultural management practices, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in streams in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195930">Iowa</a> and <a href="https://www2.illinois.gov/epa/topics/water-quality/watershed-management/excess-nutrients/Documents/NLRS-2021-Biennial-Report-FINAL.pdf">Illinois</a> has actually increased over the 1980-1996 baseline of the Gulf agreement. </p>
<p>Even with increasing crop yields and more efficient use of fertilizer, the expansion and intensification of agriculture in the Midwest has overwhelmed any water quality gains. One driver is ethanol production, which has increased <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36892">fortyfold</a> since the Gulf action plan was adopted in 2001. Today, over 40% of corn grown in the U.S. is <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn-and-other-feedgrains/feedgrains-sector-at-a-glance/">used for ethanol</a>, mostly in the Midwest, while most of the rest is used to feed animals. </p>
<p>In all three regions, the growth of large-scale livestock farms – <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22344953/iowa-select-jeff-hansen-pork-farming">hogs in the Midwest</a>, <a href="https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/2021/10/29/84-poultry-operations-raised-water-pollution-concerns-yet-few-fined-report-environmental-watchdog/6180639001/">poultry around the Chesapeake Bay</a> – is also contributing to nutrient pollution. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105065">Improper management of animal waste</a> adds to nitrogen and phosphorus loads in soils and local waters. </p>
<p>Studies show that agriculture contributes <a href="http://scavia.seas.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Final-Report-Update-20160415.pdf">85% of Lake Erie’s Maumee River phosphorus load</a>, <a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1486/cir1486.pdf">65% of the Chesapeake Bay’s nitrogen load</a> and 73.2% of the nitrogen load and 56% of the phosphorus load to the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1752-1688.12905">Gulf of Mexico</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1223304943265648642"}"></div></p>
<h2>Incentives aren’t working</h2>
<p>We believe the evidence is clear that the largely voluntary approaches taken to date, with technical assistance and substantial public financing, are not working. </p>
<p>Economists have called for a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1752-1688.13010">fundamental shift in policies controlling agricultural pollution</a>. Instead of offering polluters subsidies to clean up their operations, these experts argue, the strategy should be to pay farmers for performance, based on environmental outcomes that can be measured <a href="https://doi.org/10.13031/trans.12379">or predicted</a> at appropriate scales and specific places. </p>
<p>Under this approach, government would set limits on the amount of nutrients that can be lost to the environment, and farmers would choose how to meet them, based on what kinds of action work best for their specific soils and climate. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-03042-5">restoring wetlands</a> within the watershed could help to capture nutrients that unavoidably wash off of farmlands. </p>
<p>The ongoing shift to electric vehicles offers an opportunity to grow far less grain for ethanol, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-biofuel-mandate-helps-farmers-but-does-little-for-energy-security-and-harms-the-environment-168459">doesn’t even help the climate</a>. And in the long run, developing <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-how-much-food-contributes-to-climate-change/">efficient, plant-based food systems</a> would both reduce nutrient pollution and limit climate change. </p>
<p>In June 2022, the Government Accountability Office concluded that federal agencies charged with preventing and controlling harmful algal blooms and dead zones under a <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-105publ383/pdf/PLAW-105publ383.pdf">1998 law</a> have <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104449.pdf">failed to establish a national program</a> to address these issues. Fifty years after the federal Clean Water Act was enacted, we believe such a program is long overdue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186286/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donald Boesch does not work for, consult, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article. He currently receives no external funding, but previously received funding from the National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Walton Family Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donald Scavia does not work for, consult, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article. He has received research funding from the National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Erb Family Foundation.</span></em></p>Nutrient pollution fouls lakes and bays with algae, killing fish and threatening public health. Progress curbing it has been slow, mainly because of farm pollution.Donald Boesch, Professor of Marine Science, University of Maryland Center for Environmental ScienceDonald Scavia, Professor Emeritus of Environment and Sustainability, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1585682021-04-08T17:48:03Z2021-04-08T17:48:03ZWater being pumped into Tampa Bay could cause a massive algae bloom, putting fragile manatee and fish habitats at risk<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393869/original/file-20210407-17-brnypt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tampa Bay's sea grass meadows need sunlight to thrive. Algae blooms block that light and can be toxic to marine life.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/btsAoomBCeM">Joe Whalen Caulerpa/Tampa Bay Estuary Program via Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Millions of gallons of water laced with fertilizer ingredients are being pumped into Florida’s Tampa Bay from a <a href="https://protectingfloridatogether.gov/PineyPointUpdate">leaking reservoir</a> at an abandoned phosphate plant at Piney Point. As the water spreads into the bay, it carries phosphorus and nitrogen – nutrients that under the right conditions can <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/what-is-harmful-algal-bloom">fuel dangerous algae blooms</a> that can suffocate sea grass beds and kill fish, dolphins and manatees.</p>
<p>It’s the kind of risk no one wants to see, but officials believed the other options were worse.</p>
<p>About 300 homes sit downstream from the 480-million-gallon reservoir, which began leaking in late March 2021. State officials determined that <a href="https://protectingfloridatogether.gov/PineyPointUpdate">pumping out the water</a> was the only way to prevent the reservoir’s walls from collapsing. They decided the safest location for all that water would be out <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2021/04/05/piney-point-florida-reservoir-breach-flood-tampa-bay-palmetto-evacuation/7088307002/">through Port Manatee</a> and into the bay.</p>
<p>Florida’s coast is dotted with <a href="https://www.fws.gov/southeast/gulf-restoration/next-steps/focal-area/tampa-bay/">fragile marine sanctuaries</a> and <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2019/10/healthy-seagrass-forms-underwater-meadows-that-harbor-diverse-marine-life">sea grass beds</a> that help nurture the state’s thriving <a href="https://coast.noaa.gov/enowexplorer/#/employment/total/2017/12081">marine and tourism economy</a>. Those near Port Manatee now face a risk of algal blooms over the next few weeks. Once algae blooms get started, little can be done to clean them up.</p>
<p>The phosphate mining industry around Tampa is just one source of nutrients that can fuel dangerous algae blooms, which I study <a href="https://people.miami.edu/profile/l.brand@miami.edu#panelResearch">as a marine biologist</a>. The sugarcane industry, cattle ranches, dairy farms and citrus groves <a href="https://iwaponline.com/wp/article/20/5/919/41575">all release</a> <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.hal.2006.08.005">nutrients</a> that often flow into rivers and eventually into bays and the ocean. Sewage is another problem – Miami and Fort Lauderdale, for example, have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/10/florida-sewage-spill-waterways-infrastructure">old sewage treatment systems with frequent pipe breaks</a> that leak sewage into canals and coastal waters.</p>
<p>All can <a href="https://iwaponline.com/wp/article/20/5/919/41575">fuel harmful algal blooms</a> that harm marine life and people. Overall, blooms are <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24897842">getting worse locally</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1648-7">globally</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two manatees swimming underwater" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394065/original/file-20210408-21-19rm9jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394065/original/file-20210408-21-19rm9jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394065/original/file-20210408-21-19rm9jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394065/original/file-20210408-21-19rm9jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394065/original/file-20210408-21-19rm9jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394065/original/file-20210408-21-19rm9jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394065/original/file-20210408-21-19rm9jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Red tide in recent years has killed large numbers of Florida’s manatees, a threatened species.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwsendsp/5104977481/">David Hinkel/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The problem with algae blooms</h2>
<p>Just down the coast from Port Manatee, the next three counties to the south have had algae blooms in recent weeks, including red tide, which <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hal.2009.08.005">produces a neurotoxin</a> that feels like pepper spray if you breathe it in. <em>Karenia brevis</em>, a dinoflagellate, is the organism in red tide and produces the toxin.</p>
<p>This part of Florida’s Gulf Coast is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hal.2006.08.005">hot spot for red tide</a>, often fueled by agricultural runoff. A persistent red tide in 2017 and 2018 <a href="https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/2020-01-02/2019-was-not-a-good-year-for-manatees-boat-strikes-and-red-tide-took-a-toll">killed at least 177 manatees</a> and left a trail of dead fish along the coast and into Tampa Bay. If the coastal currents carry today’s red tide father north and into Tampa Bay, the toxic algae could thrive on the nutrients from Piney Point. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394043/original/file-20210408-13-1dg5rae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two maps with dots showing locations of reports." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394043/original/file-20210408-13-1dg5rae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394043/original/file-20210408-13-1dg5rae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394043/original/file-20210408-13-1dg5rae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394043/original/file-20210408-13-1dg5rae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394043/original/file-20210408-13-1dg5rae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394043/original/file-20210408-13-1dg5rae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/394043/original/file-20210408-13-1dg5rae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A map shows red tide reports just south of Tampa Bay.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://myfwc.com/research/redtide/statewide/">Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even blooms that are not toxic are <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/what-is-harmful-algal-bloom">still dangerous to ecosystems</a>. They cloud the water, cutting off light and killing the plants below. A large enough bloom can also reduce oxygen in the water. A lack of oxygen can kill off everything in the water, including the fish.</p>
<p>This part of Florida has extensive sea grass meadows, <a href="https://floridadep.gov/rcp/seagrass">about 2.2 million acres (8.9 billion square meters) in all</a>, which are important habitat for lots of species and serve as nurseries for shrimp, crabs and fish. Scientists have argued that sea grass is also a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1477">major carbon sink</a> – the grass sucks up carbon and pumps it down into the sediments.</p>
<p>Once the nutrients are in a large body of water, there isn’t much that can be done to stop algae growth. Killing the algae would only release the nutrients again, putting the bay back where it started. Algae blooms can remain a problem for years, finally declining when a predator population develops to eats them, a viral disease spreads through the bloom or strong currents and mixing disperse the bloom.</p>
<h2>Agriculture runoff poses risks to marine life</h2>
<p>The phosphate mining industry around Tampa is a large source of nutrient-rich waste. On average, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm-fertilizer-and-fertilizer-production-wastes#fertilizer">more than 5 tons</a> of phosphogypsum waste are produced for every ton of phosphoric acid created for fertilizer. In Florida, that adds up to <a href="https://fipr.floridapoly.edu/about-us/phosphate-primer/phosphogypsum-stacks.php">over 1 billion tons</a> of radioactive waste material that can’t be used, so it’s stacked up and turned into reservoirs like the one now leaking at Piney Point.</p>
<p>The reservoirs are obvious in satellite photos of the region, and they can be highly acidic. To get the phosphate out of the minerals, the industry uses sulfuric acid, and it leaves behind a highly acid wastewater. There have been at least <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/17/florida-sinkhole-wastewater-leak-drinking-water">two cases where it ate through the limestone below a reservoir</a>, creating huge sinkholes hundreds of feet deep and draining wastewater into the aquifer.</p>
<p>Since <a href="https://protectingfloridatogether.gov/PineyPointUpdate">saltwater had previously been pumped into</a> the Piney Point reservoir, acidity is less of an issue. That’s because the seawater would buffer the pH. There is some radioactivity, but <a href="https://protectingfloridatogether.gov/PineyPointUpdate">only slightly above regulatory standards</a>, according to state Department of Environmental Protection, and probably not much of a health hazard.</p>
<p>But the nutrients are a risk. In 2004, water releases from the Piney Point reservoir <a href="https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/piney-point-dumping-causes-algae-bloom-in-bishop-harbor/67-396514258">contributed to an algae bloom</a> in Bishop Harbor, just south of the current release site. In 2011, it released over <a href="https://thebradentontimes.com/piney-point-a-retrospective-p6328-158.htm">170 million gallons</a> into Bishop Harbor again after a liner broke.</p>
<p><iframe id="J5e50" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/J5e50/5/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Another significant source of algae-feeding nutrients is agriculture, particularly cattle ranching and the sugarcane industry. Nutrient runoff from cattle ranches and dairy farms north of Lake Okeechobee end up in the lake. South of the lake, much of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/miranda.2881">northern third of the Everglades</a> was converted to sugarcane farms, and those fields back-pumped runoff into the lake for decades until the state started cracking down in the 1980s. Their legacy nutrients are still in the lake. </p>
<p>The nutrient-rich water in the lake then pours down the Caloosahatchee River and into the Gulf of Mexico near Fort Myers, south of Tampa. That’s likely feeding the current red tide off the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River.</p>
<p>When water from the Everglades region’s agriculture is pumped south instead, huge blooms tend to appear in Florida Bay at the southern tip of the state. Some scientists believe it <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9">may be damaging coral reefs</a> there, though there’s debate about it. During times that flow of water from the farms increased, reefs throughout the Florida Keys have been harmed. Those reefs have become overgrown with algae.</p>
<p>With the current red tide, the coastal currents have carried it north as far as Sarasota already. If they carry it farther north, it will run into the Piney Point area.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our best science, health and technology stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-best">Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158568/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Larry Brand has received funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, National Park Service, Department of Energy, Office of Naval Research, Army Corps of Engineers, Florida Department of Health, Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Management, Cove Point Foundation, and Hoover Foundation. </span></em></p>Harmful algae blooms are an increasing problem in Florida. Once nutrients are in the water to fuel them, little can be done to stop the growth, and the results can be devastating for marine life.Larry Brand, Professor of Marine Biology and Ecology, University of MiamiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1324072020-04-09T15:28:44Z2020-04-09T15:28:44ZWhy China is emerging as a leader in sustainable and organic agriculture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326176/original/file-20200407-85423-tnhcgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=89%2C107%2C5712%2C3781&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An increasing number of farmers in China are cutting back on fertilizer and pesticide use.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Pexels)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s August and 38C outside a greenhouse on a fruit farm in suburban Nanjing, China. Inside the farmhouse, customers sample organic grapes and peaches. </p>
<p>Ms. Wang, who owns the farm, carefully lifts the cover off a large bin of earthworms. She is raising thousands of them to produce organic fertilizer for her farm. </p>
<p>Wang is one of an <a href="https://uwaterloo.ca/ecological-agriculture-in-china/our-fieldwork-and-fieldwork-photos/fieldwork-cases">increasing number farmers in China</a> who are cutting back on fertilizer and pesticide use, and tapping into consumer demand for organic and sustainably grown food. </p>
<p>China’s total grain output has almost quadrupled since 1961, when the great famine ended. But its success has come at a heavy environmental cost: <a href="https://www.coventry.ac.uk/globalassets/media/documents/research-documents/coventry-china-agriculture-aw-new-style.pdf">China uses four times more fertilizer per unit area than the global average</a> and accounts for half the world’s total pesticide consumption. Overall, chemical use on Chinese farms is 2.5 times the global average per acre of land. </p>
<p>The overuse of synthetic fertilizer and pesticides has led to soil contamination, algae blooms and increased greenhouse gas emissions. Beyond the ecological consequences of the rapid rise in crop yields, Chinese consumers as well as farmers and farm workers have faced health problems. Over-application of fertilizers has led to chemical residues in food and <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0033982">nitrogen infiltration into groundwater</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/organic-agriculture-is-going-mainstream-but-not-the-way-you-think-it-is-92156">Organic agriculture is going mainstream, but not the way you think it is</a>
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<p>But sustainable agriculture practices and organic food production are <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203701706">on the upswing in China</a>. The total area of certified organic agriculture cultivation increased more than five-fold between 2005 and 2018, to 3.1 million hectares, according to a 2019 government report. China ranked <a href="https://shop.fibl.org/chen/mwdownloads/download/link/id/1202">third in certified organic area in 2017</a>, after Australia and Argentina. Total organic sales in China ranked fourth globally, after the United States, Germany and France. Uncertified organic production is also widespread. </p>
<p>This shift is seeding a transformation towards a more sustainable food system within China — and around the world, given the <a href="https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/agrifood-exports-of-china.html">US$65 billion of agri-food commodities exported from China</a> each year. This transformation provides lessons for the rest of world, in terms of efforts at both ends of the food supply chain to shift away from chemical-intensive agriculture towards a healthier system for people and the planet. </p>
<h2>Growing interest in sustainable agriculture</h2>
<p>Chinese farmers are ditching chemical agriculture for reasons of personal health, ecological protection and economic motives, propped up by a range of state supports. Chinese consumers are keen to sink their teeth into chemical-free food, primarily for health reasons. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/10354-China-s-middle-class-gets-a-taste-for-healthy-eating">Demand for organic and so-called green foods is growing rapidly</a>, especially among the middle and upper classes. Japan, Europe and the U.S. are the biggest markets for Chinese organic food exports according to the Chinese Report on Organic Agriculture Certification and Industry Development in 2019.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326672/original/file-20200408-83495-1jw8z3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326672/original/file-20200408-83495-1jw8z3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326672/original/file-20200408-83495-1jw8z3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326672/original/file-20200408-83495-1jw8z3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326672/original/file-20200408-83495-1jw8z3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326672/original/file-20200408-83495-1jw8z3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326672/original/file-20200408-83495-1jw8z3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Steffanie Scott speaks with a vendor at the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Zhenzhong Si)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sustainable agriculture practices in China — such as using compost and animal manure instead of chemical fertilizer, cover crops, crop rotations and intercropping (growing different varieties of crops on one field) are contributing to <a href="https://www.ifoam.bio/en/core-campaigns/organic-agriculture-soils">healthier soils</a>. Ecological farms also <a href="https://www.coventry.ac.uk/globalassets/media/documents/research-documents/coventry-china-agriculture-aw-new-style.pdf">avoid the use of antibiotics and hormones in livestock</a>. </p>
<h2>Top-down and bottom-up efforts</h2>
<p>Organic social movements and organic markets have often emerged in countries with private land ownership, declining numbers of small farms and growing consolidation of food supply chains. China’s organic and ecological food sector is emerging amidst a different set of social, economic, cultural and environmental conditions. </p>
<p>This distinctive context in China has led to the development of a formal organic sector, created by top-down government standards and regulations. Alongside this, an informal organic sector has taken shape through bottom-up grassroots struggles for safe, healthy and sustainable food. </p>
<p>Through these top-down and bottom-up efforts, China is emerging as a global leader in developing sustainable food systems. A protracted <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/may/14/china-middle-class-organics-food-safety-scares">food safety crisis</a> was a driving force for shifting to more sustainable food production and for creating a domestic market for organic and ecologically grown food. </p>
<p>In response to food safety concerns, plus China’s ecological crisis, various levels of government in China now provide a wide range of <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203701706">supports to organic farms</a>. These measures are unparalleled around the world. They range from covering the cost of organic certification, to finding land, funding on-farm infrastructure and organic fertilizers, to training and marketing assistance. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lessons-from-china-ensuring-no-one-goes-hungry-during-coronavirus-lockdowns-135781">Lessons from China: Ensuring no one goes hungry during coronavirus lockdowns</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Alongside these state supports, bottom-up, civil society-driven efforts have also helped. A group of passionate food activists has introduced <a href="https://urgenci.net/csa-in-china-an-introduction-by-caroline-merrifield-and-shi-yan/">“community supported agriculture” farms</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-014-9530-6">farmers’ markets and buying clubs</a>. This has contributed to a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/apv.12127">revolution in ecological food and ethical eating in China’s cities</a>. </p>
<p>As our research shows, people have enthusiastically embraced these new community-based initiatives. They cherish the opportunity to access safe and healthy food, <a href="https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/V78mrtvhzXjAdlFlJk9BhQ">even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. <a href="https://hungrycities.net/publication/hcp-discussion-paper-no-40-food-retailing-transitions-new-retail-businesses-nanjing-china/">Online sales, including of ecological and organic foods, are booming</a>, particularly among the middle and upper classes. </p>
<h2>Challenges ahead</h2>
<p>Despite these positive developments, China’s organic agriculture sector faces some critical challenges. For example, small-scale farmers cannot generally afford the paperwork for organic certification. </p>
<p>Fake organic certification labels have <a href="https://finance.china.com/consume/11173302/20180321/32209930_2.html">tested public trust of organic products</a> and the prices for organic foods can be five to 10 times greater than other food. And state officials are wary of promoting the model more widely as <a href="https://www.aginnovators.org.au/news/organic-farming-china">they remain skeptical that the yields are large enough</a> to feed China’s huge population.</p>
<p>Some of these issues could be addressed by investing in more research, and having organic sector support organizations provide training and information sharing. China also has few environmental NGOs to provide public education and connect farmers with one another for mutual support. </p>
<p>The world often views China’s environmental record in a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/maos-war-against-nature/B2B796F91692D9D6E99675511C3D5FF4">negative light</a>. But much can be learned from both policy and grassroots efforts in this country. Farms like Ms. Wang’s fruit farm are taking root to reconnect farmers and eaters. And the national sustainable agriculture plan and policies to <a href="https://www.producer.com/daily/china-targets-zero-growth-in-chemical-fertilizer-use-in-2020/">curb agrochemical use</a> shed light on the prospects for sustainable agriculture in China.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steffanie Scott has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zhenzhong Si receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada and International Development Research Centre. </span></em></p>This transformation provides lessons for the rest of world, for shifting away from chemical agriculture towards a healthier system for people and the planet.Steffanie Scott, Professor of Geography & Environmental Management, University of WaterlooZhenzhong Si, Research Associate, Geography & Environmental Management, University of WaterlooLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1088632019-01-22T21:27:40Z2019-01-22T21:27:40ZFreshwater wildlife face an uncertain future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254429/original/file-20190117-32828-180ls8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Spawning sockeye salmon make their way up the Adams River near Chase, B.C.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pacific salmon are one of Canada’s iconic creatures. Each summer, they complete their, on average, four- to five-year-long life cycle by returning from their rich ocean feeding grounds to the creeks and streams where they were born. Here, following in the “footsteps” of their parents, they will lay eggs, die and give rise to the next generation of salmon.</p>
<p>This transit from freshwater to the sea and back again is sometimes thousands of kilometres long. It can also be treacherous — the fish must navigate steep river rapids and avoid voracious predators. </p>
<p>But the trek is only being made harder by unnatural challenges. Humans continue to dam and pollute rivers, overfish and introduce invasive plants and animals. And this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how humans are profoundly reshaping fresh waters in Canada and around the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254424/original/file-20190117-32813-n3zgre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254424/original/file-20190117-32813-n3zgre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254424/original/file-20190117-32813-n3zgre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254424/original/file-20190117-32813-n3zgre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254424/original/file-20190117-32813-n3zgre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254424/original/file-20190117-32813-n3zgre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254424/original/file-20190117-32813-n3zgre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Salmon eggs lie among the rocks in the Adams River, B.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For <a href="http://www.fecpl.ca/">our research on</a> the migration and conservation of Pacific salmon, we have looked at how freshwater ecosystems — lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands — are changing around the globe. Society has <a href="https://theconversation.com/global/topics/marine-conservation-3200">its finger on the pulse of the oceans</a>, but what about our too often forgotten fresh waters?</p>
<h2>Lakes and rivers in crisis</h2>
<p>While fresh waters make up just a fraction (<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022169404001404">0.01 per cent</a>) of all the water on the planet, they are home to nearly <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4020-8259-7_61">10 per cent of the Earth’s known animal species</a>, including one third of all vertebrates (anything with a backbone). There are even <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2012.0075">more species of fish</a> in freshwater ecosystems than there are in the ocean.</p>
<p>This picture is, sadly, changing quickly. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) recently published the “<a href="https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/all_publications/living_planet_report_2018/">Living Planet Report 2018</a>,” showing that freshwater species loss is more severe than species declines on land or in the ocean.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254041/original/file-20190116-152995-foq1md.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254041/original/file-20190116-152995-foq1md.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254041/original/file-20190116-152995-foq1md.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254041/original/file-20190116-152995-foq1md.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254041/original/file-20190116-152995-foq1md.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254041/original/file-20190116-152995-foq1md.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254041/original/file-20190116-152995-foq1md.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254041/original/file-20190116-152995-foq1md.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The WWF Living Planet Report reveals remarkable decreases for freshwater species.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Modified from Reid et al. 2018</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Alarmingly, populations of freshwater species on average have declined by more than 80 per cent in 50 years, while populations of land-dwellers and ocean creatures have fallen by less than half that.</p>
<p>Clearly, fresh waters are in crisis with worsening trends over the past decade. But why?</p>
<h2>Threats: The dirty dozen</h2>
<p>Scientists know that damming, polluting, overfishing and introducing new species are changing “waterscapes” around the world, and impeding the survival of animals like Pacific salmon. We have known about these threats to freshwater biodiversity <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1464793105006950">for at least a dozen years</a>.</p>
<p>But a lot can change in 12 years — and it has. With an international team of some of the world’s leading freshwater scientists, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12480">our new study</a> documents a dozen threats — some new, some growing — to freshwater species:</p>
<ol>
<li> A rapidly changing climate</li>
<li> Online wildlife trade and invasive species </li>
<li> Infectious disease</li>
<li> Toxic algae blooms </li>
<li> Hydropower damming and fragmenting of half the world’s rivers</li>
<li> Emerging contaminants, such as hormones </li>
<li> Engineered nanomaterials </li>
<li> Microplastic pollution </li>
<li> Light and noise interference</li>
<li>Saltier coastal freshwaters due to sea level rise</li>
<li>Calcium concentrations falling below the needs of some freshwater organisms</li>
<li>The additive — and possibly synergistic — effects of these threats</li>
</ol>
<p>Our team fears that fresh waters continue to be overlooked. These mounting threats and rapid species losses are taking place below the water’s surface — out of sight and out of mind.</p>
<p>“This is a silent, invisible tragedy that attracts far too little interest,” said <a href="https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/81244-ormerod-steve">Steve Ormerod</a>, a freshwater ecologist from Cardiff University, in Wales, U.K., and one of our team members. </p>
<p>We hope to change this narrative by drawing attention to these 12 critical threats.</p>
<p>We need action on these threats — now. </p>
<h2>Hope on the horizon?</h2>
<p>This is a lot to take in. It may feel like there are no solutions that will change the trajectory for freshwater species. Fortunately, that is not the case and we highlight opportunities for conservation gains.</p>
<p>New scientific tools are changing the way we monitor freshwater populations. <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-a-bank-of-dna-from-dirt-and-water-to-protect-australias-environment-98633">Environmental DNA</a>, for example, may soon allow us to use a single water sample to identify all the fish in a watershed — without ever seeing the species.</p>
<p>Other approaches, including the use of “environmental flows” (e-flows) to manage the flow of water below a dam, dam removal as well as fishways let fish like Pacific salmon circumnavigate some of the barriers we have created.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254031/original/file-20190116-152992-hjgmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254031/original/file-20190116-152992-hjgmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254031/original/file-20190116-152992-hjgmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254031/original/file-20190116-152992-hjgmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254031/original/file-20190116-152992-hjgmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254031/original/file-20190116-152992-hjgmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254031/original/file-20190116-152992-hjgmkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chum salmon spawned out in Fish Creek, Alaska.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrea Reid</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the solution does not rest solely with technological advancements to reverse past errors. We need to meet the freshwater needs of both people and nature by changing the way we treat fresh waters, for example, through our <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/top-ten/">day-to-day actions</a>, by joining or supporting the <a href="https://allianceforfreshwaterlife.org/">Alliance for Freshwater Life</a> and pressing our governments to join the <a href="https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/">global effort</a> to preserve freshwater.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108863/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Jane Reid receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and other funders including the National Geographic Society and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. As a member of the Nisga'a Nation, she also receives support from the Nisga'a Lisims Government. She is affiliated with InFish and is a Fellow of The Explorer's Club.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven J Cooke receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Research Chairs Program, and other various funders (such as Fisheries and Oceans Canada). He is affiliated with InFish and is a Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada.</span></em></p>Populations of freshwater species are in a state of deep decline. But we know why and we can reverse the trend.Andrea Reid, PhD Candidate, Carleton UniversitySteven J Cooke, Canada Research Chair & Professor, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1096462019-01-10T03:41:40Z2019-01-10T03:41:40ZExplainer: what causes algal blooms, and how we can stop them<p>Outbreaks of algae have killed up to a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-08/second-fish-kill-in-darling-river-at-menindee/10696632">million fish</a> in the Murray Darling Basin over the last two weeks. The phenomena of “algae blooms”, when the population of algae in a river rapidly grows and dies, can be devastating to local wildlife, ecosystems and people. But what are algae blooms? What causes them, and can we prevent them?</p>
<p>Microscopic algae are fundamental to life on earth. These tiny plants provide the fuel that drives marine and freshwater foodwebs, and via photosynthesis, they gobble up carbon dioxide to help counteract emissions, and provide us with oxygen to breathe. Besides rivers, streams, lakes, estuaries and the coast, they can also be found in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae#Distribution">diverse environments</a> such as snow, soil, and in corals.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-toxic-algal-blooms-the-new-normal-for-australias-major-rivers-59526">Are toxic algal blooms the new normal for Australia's major rivers?</a>
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<p>But when humans channel agricultural run-off, sewerage and stormwater discharge into waterways, we dramatically increase the amount of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. This creates an imbalance, because some microscopic algae are supremely effective at mopping up nutrients and can grow very quickly, dividing up to once a day and quickly overtaking other species. The result is an algal bloom.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253164/original/file-20190110-32145-yyz9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253164/original/file-20190110-32145-yyz9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253164/original/file-20190110-32145-yyz9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253164/original/file-20190110-32145-yyz9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253164/original/file-20190110-32145-yyz9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253164/original/file-20190110-32145-yyz9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253164/original/file-20190110-32145-yyz9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253164/original/file-20190110-32145-yyz9mi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) under a microscope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So why don’t we have algal blooms all the time? This is because algae don’t just require nutrients to grow. Like any plant, factors such as temperature and light availability are also important in determining how quickly algae grow and whether they form blooms. Blooms also need slow moving or still water to become established.</p>
<p>In Australia, our algal blooms are typically in freshwaters. The main group of algae responsible for this are known as blue-green algae, or more accurately, cyanobacteria. They regularly bloom in warmer weather in our reservoirs, lakes and slow flowing rivers. In 2016, for example, <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-toxic-algal-blooms-the-new-normal-for-australias-major-rivers-59526">1,700km of the Murray River</a> was affected by an algal bloom. </p>
<p>There are many ways they impact the environment and economy. Some algal blooms are toxic, requiring expensive water treatment and – in extreme cases – shutdown of water supplies. This isn’t just a problem in Australia. In 2014, some <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/toxic-algae-bloom-leaves-500-000-without-drinking-water-in-ohio-1881940537.html">500,000 people</a> in the US were left without drinking water due to a toxic algal bloom in Lake Erie.</p>
<p>The toxins can also affect domestic animals, such as dogs, when they drink contaminated water, and limit use of lakes and rivers for swimming, boating and fishing. Even when algal blooms are not toxic, they unbalance the food web, reducing the number of species of animals and plants. </p>
<p>They can also reduce oxygen levels at night, as they switch from photosynthesis (producing oxygen) during the day, to a process called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria#Respiration">respiration</a> at night where they use oxygen. Low oxygen can stress and even kill fish and other animals if they cannot escape this.</p>
<p>At some point, algal blooms crash when conditions become unsuitable. The resulting dead algae break down, providing an ideal food source for bacteria. This is when waters can become smelly, often with a rotten egg smell. As the bacteria multiply, they suck the oxygen out of the water. At this point, oxygen levels become low both day and night. </p>
<p>If the area of low oxygen is extensive, such as a whole lake or many kilometres of a river system, fish and other animals may not be able to escape to more suitable oxygen levels, and major fish deaths typically occur.</p>
<p>In other areas of the world, algal blooms have caused such severe oxygen conditions that thousands of square kilometres of ocean around the world are now known as <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/oceanic-dead-zones-spread/">dead zones</a>, where no animals can live. These vast dead zones are not something we ever want to see in Australia.</p>
<h2>So what can be done about blooms?</h2>
<p>There are a wide range of <a href="https://www.epa.gov/nutrient-policy-data/control-and-treatment">treatments</a> that can be used to control blooms, for example, aerating the water, and adding clays and chemicals, but the catch is they are <a href="http://www.owrb.ok.gov/quality/standards/pdf_standards/scenicrivers/Dodds%20et%20al%202008.pdf">very expensive</a> on a large scale. </p>
<p>Ideally, the problem should be tackled at the source. This means reducing nutrient loads to our waterways. There has already been progress on this in our cities where sewage treatment plants have been upgraded to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wastewater-is-key-to-reducing-nitrogen-pollution/">reduce nutrient loads</a> to waterways. But tackling nutrients coming from agriculture – erosion, fertilisers, animal waste – is much more <a href="https://environment.des.qld.gov.au/assets/documents/reef/costings-report.pdf">challenging and expensive</a> because of the vast areas involved. So this remains work in progress.</p>
<p>It’s also very difficult to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-scientists-forecast-algal-blooms-pest-outbreaks-like-we-do-weather-180967998">predict when blooms will occur</a>; despite being simple plants, algae have an amazing range of strategies to grow and survive. But as we learn more about their complexity our ability to model and predict blooms will improve. This is crucial to managing risks to water supplies and preventing major environmental effects, such as fish deaths.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/toxin-linked-to-motor-neuron-disease-found-in-australian-algal-blooms-95646">Toxin linked to motor neuron disease found in Australian algal blooms</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Ultimately there are no quick fixes to algal blooms. Given the pressure we put on our waterways, they are here to stay. In fact they are likely to increase due to increasing temperatures and more extreme conditions, such as droughts. We know what we need to do to reduce the scale and likelihood of blooms: the challenge is devoting the resources to achieve it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michele Burford receives funding from the Australian Research Council, State and local governments for her algal research.</span></em></p>Algae blooms have killed hundreds of thousands of fish in the last two weeks, but what exactly are they and how do we get them under control?Michele Burford, Professor - Australian Rivers Institute, and Dean - Research Infrastructure, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1013052018-08-10T10:40:34Z2018-08-10T10:40:34ZWhat is causing Florida’s algae crisis? 5 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231350/original/file-20180809-30461-7ditx7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Algae cover the surface of the Caloosahatchee River at the W.P. Franklin Lock and Dam, July 12, 2018, in Alva, Florida. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Algae-Bloom-Florida/f098997fc91c4bb7889d79d2147438a7/9/0">AP Photo/Lynne Sladky</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/que-esta-causando-la-crisis-de-algas-en-florida-5-preguntas-con-respuesta-101572">Leer en español</a></em>.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: Two large-scale algae outbreaks in Florida are killing fish and threatening public health. Along the southwest coast, one of the longest-lasting <a href="https://www.axios.com/florida-red-tide-killing-turtles-whale-shark-2b8ed411-dae7-4063-be6a-d944529b5eff.html">red tide outbreaks</a> in the state’s history is affecting more than 100 miles of beaches. Meanwhile, discharges of polluted fresh water from Lake Okeechobee and polluted local runoff water from the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee watersheds have caused <a href="http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/fl-reg-algae-bloom-spreads-20180730-story.html">blooms of blue-green algae in downstream estuaries</a> on both coasts. Karl Havens, a professor at the University of Florida and director of the <a href="https://www.flseagrant.org/">Florida Sea Grant Program</a>, explains what’s driving this two-pronged disaster.</em></p>
<h2>1. What’s the difference between red tide and blue-green algae?</h2>
<p>Both are photosynthetic microscopic organisms that live in water. Blue-green algae are properly called cyanobacteria. Some species of cyanobacteria occur in the ocean, but blooms – extremely high levels that create green surface scums of algae – happen mainly in lakes and rivers, where salinity is low. </p>
<p>Red tides are caused by a type of algae called a dinoflagellate, which also is ubiquitous in lakes, rivers, estuaries and the oceans. But the particular species that causes red tide blooms, which can literally make water look blood red, occur only in saltwater. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231383/original/file-20180809-30470-1fcirmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231383/original/file-20180809-30470-1fcirmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231383/original/file-20180809-30470-1fcirmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231383/original/file-20180809-30470-1fcirmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231383/original/file-20180809-30470-1fcirmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231383/original/file-20180809-30470-1fcirmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231383/original/file-20180809-30470-1fcirmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231383/original/file-20180809-30470-1fcirmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Algae is clearly visible in this satellite image of southwestern Lake Okeechobee, taken July 15, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/92446/summer-blooms-in-north-american-lakes">NASA Earth Observatory</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. What causes these blooms?</h2>
<p>Blooms occur where lakes, rivers or near-shore waters have <a href="https://theconversation.com/nutrient-pollution-voluntary-steps-are-failing-to-shrink-algae-blooms-and-dead-zones-81249">high concentrations of nutrients</a> – in particular, nitrogen and phosphorus. Some lakes and rivers have naturally high nutrient concentrations. However, in Lake Okeechobee and the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, man-made nutrient pollution from their watersheds is causing the blooms. Very high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus are washing into the water from agricultural lands, leaky septic systems and fertilizer runoff.</p>
<p>Red tides form offshore, and it is not clear whether or to what extent they have become more frequent. When ocean currents carry a red tide to the shore it can intensify, especially where there are abundant nutrients to fuel algae growth. This year, after heavy spring rains and because of discharges of water from Lake Okeechobee, river runoff in southwest Florida brought a large amount of nutrients into near-shore waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which fueled the large red tide. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231351/original/file-20180809-30470-1jq4g5n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231351/original/file-20180809-30470-1jq4g5n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231351/original/file-20180809-30470-1jq4g5n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231351/original/file-20180809-30470-1jq4g5n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231351/original/file-20180809-30470-1jq4g5n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231351/original/file-20180809-30470-1jq4g5n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231351/original/file-20180809-30470-1jq4g5n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231351/original/file-20180809-30470-1jq4g5n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Florida’s red tide outbreak as of Aug. 8, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://myfwc.com/redtidestatus">Florida FWC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. The red tide has <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/Lingering-Red-Tide-bloom-moves-north-killing-fish-near-mouth-of-Tampa-Bay_170656470">killed thousands of fish and other aquatic life</a>, and state agencies have issued public health advisories in connection with both blooms. How dangerous are they for humans and the environment?</h2>
<p>The public health advisories about red tide are related to respiratory irritation, which is a particular concern for people with asthma or other respiratory issues. But almost anyone, including me, who has walked a beach where there is a red tide will quickly experience watering eyes, a runny nose and a scratchy throat. The algae that cause the red tide release a toxic chemical into the water that is easily transported into the air where waves break on the shore. </p>
<p>Some people are allergic to cyanobacteria blooms and can have contact dermatitis (skin rash) on exposure. Several of my colleagues have developed rashes after submerging their hands to collect water samples. It is not advisable to purposely contact water with a cyanobacteria bloom. And if farm animals or pets drink water with an intense bloom, they can become seriously ill or die. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zH9dF8EDvMI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The blooms are causing widespread fish kills and threatening Florida’s tourism industry.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. How can states prepare for these events?</h2>
<p>The onset of algae blooms is unpredictable. We know high levels of nutrients allow a lake or shoreline to have blooms. We even can predict with some certainty that a bloom is likely in a particular summer – for example, if in the preceding spring heavy rainfall and runoff from the land delivered large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus into the water. </p>
<p>But we can’t predict exactly when a bloom will begin and end, because that depends on things we can’t project. Why did the cyanobacteria bloom start in Lake Okeechobee this summer? Perhaps because there were several successive hot sunny days with little cloud cover and little wind. For some lakes in Florida and many others across the nation, we have loaded the surrounding land with so much phosphorus and nitrogen from agricultural and urban runoff that all it takes is the right weather to trigger a bloom: A rainy spring and then a few perfect sunny days in summer. </p>
<p>We cannot control the weather, but we can control nutrient pollution, both by reducing it at its sources and by capturing and treating water running off of large land areas. Florida has many such projects under way as part of the <a href="https://www.evergladesrestoration.gov/">greater Everglades restoration efforts</a>, but they will take decades to complete. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231356/original/file-20180809-30467-1ch5py7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231356/original/file-20180809-30467-1ch5py7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231356/original/file-20180809-30467-1ch5py7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231356/original/file-20180809-30467-1ch5py7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231356/original/file-20180809-30467-1ch5py7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231356/original/file-20180809-30467-1ch5py7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231356/original/file-20180809-30467-1ch5py7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231356/original/file-20180809-30467-1ch5py7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nutrient pollution sources include decaying organic material; fertilizers applied to crops, lawns and golf courses; manure from fields or feedlots; atmospheric deposition; groundwater discharge; and municipal wastewater discharge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://va.water.usgs.gov/online_pubs/WRIR/99-4238/99-4238.html">USGS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One key aspect of rehabilitating polluted lakes, rivers and estuaries is knowing whether actions are having a positive effect. This requires long-term environmental monitoring programs, which unfortunately <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article215993665.html">have been scaled back in Florida</a> and <a href="http://investigatemidwest.org/2014/06/23/lack-of-funding-results-in-dearth-of-data-on-water/">many</a> <a href="https://www.necir.org/2016/05/15/years-budget-cuts-disarm-massachusetts-environmental-fight/">other</a> <a href="http://legacy.azdeq.gov/environ/water/assessment/download/Comprehensive_WQ_Monitor_Strategy.pdf">states</a> due to budget cuts. </p>
<p>Carefully designed monitoring could help us understand factors affecting the kind of blooms that occur and what triggers them to start and stop at particular times, and provide guidance on nutrient control strategies. We are not monitoring at that level now in Florida.</p>
<h2>5. Is climate change influencing the size or frequency of these outbreaks?</h2>
<p>Scientists have clearly shown that there is a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5268/IW-1.2.359">positive and synergistic relationship between water temperature, nutrients and algal blooms</a>. In a warmer future, with the same level of nutrient pollution, <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.5b03990">blooms will become harder if not impossible to control</a>. This means that it is urgent to control nutrient inputs to lakes, rivers and estuaries now. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, today the federal government is <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-administrations-zeal-to-peel-back-regulations-is-leading-us-to-another-era-of-robber-barons-84961">relaxing environmental regulations</a> in the name of fostering increased development and job creation. But conservation and economic growth are not incompatible. In Florida, a healthy economy <a href="https://www.visitflorida.org/about-us/what-we-do/tourism-fast-facts/">depends strongly on a healthy environment</a>, including clean surface waters without these harmful blooms.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karl Havens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Red tide and a blue-green algae outbreak are fouling hundreds of miles of coast, killing fish and driving tourists away from beaches. Some of the causes are natural, but human actions play a big role.Karl Havens, Professor, Director of Florida Sea Grant, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/812492017-07-31T19:23:32Z2017-07-31T19:23:32ZNutrient pollution: Voluntary steps are failing to shrink algae blooms and dead zones<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179716/original/file-20170725-30134-10j0n9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harmful algae bloom in Lake Erie, Oct. 13, 2011.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/cMtuny">NASA Earth Observatory</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Summer is the season for <a href="http://www.whoi.edu/redtide/">harmful algae blooms</a> in many U.S. lakes and bays. They occur when water bodies become overloaded with nitrogen and phosphorus from farms, water treatment plants and other sources. Warm water and lots of nutrients promote rapid growth of algae that can be toxic and potentially fatal to aquatic life and people.</p>
<p>Eventually algae settle to the bottom and decay, depleting dissolved oxygen in the water, creating <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ocean-dead-zones-are-getting-worse-globally-due-climate-change-180953282/">hypoxia</a> – “dead zones” where oxygen levels are low enough to kill fish.</p>
<p>As a senior scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration between 1975 and 2003, I developed annual hypoxia forecasts for the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico – two of our nation’s water bodies most harmed by these blooms. At the University of Michigan, I helped develop harmful algae bloom forecasts for Lake Erie and continue to work with public and private organizations on these issues.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/i70K0Duu-m4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">University of Michigan professor Donald Scavia discusses the 2015 forecasts.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>States around Lake Erie and in the Mississippi River basin, which drains to the Gulf of Mexico, have been trying to reduce nutrient pollution for years. They rely primarily on voluntary steps, such as offering grants to farmers to take steps to prevent fertilizer from washing off their fields.</p>
<p>In contrast, states around the Chesapeake have had more success with a federally enforced plan that can impose mandatory actions across the bay’s 64,000-square-mile watershed. From my perspective, when we compare these two approaches it is clear that voluntary measures are not even making modest dents in nutrient pollution. </p>
<h2>This year’s forecasts</h2>
<p>This year’s <a href="http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/24961-u-m-partners-predict-significant-summer-harmful-algal-bloom-for-western-lake-erie">Lake Erie harmful algae bloom forecast</a> has a severity index of 7.5 on a scale of 1 to 10. This is comparable to the three largest blooms since 2011, including one that <a href="https://www.facebook.com/cityoftoledo/posts/738905586173078">made the city of Toledo’s tap water unusable</a> for three days in 2014. The algae produced microcystin – a toxin that can produce effects <a href="https://www.epa.gov/nutrient-policy-data/health-and-ecological-effects">from mild skin rashes to serious illness or death</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/24919-u-michigan-partners-predict-third-largest-gulf-of-mexico-summer-dead-zone-ever">Gulf of Mexico forecast</a> predicts an 8,185-square-mile dead zone – more than four times the goal set by an <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ms-htf">intergovernmental task force</a>. This will be the third-largest Gulf of Mexico dead zone since measurements began 32 years ago.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180054/original/file-20170727-8492-q4n7dr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180054/original/file-20170727-8492-q4n7dr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180054/original/file-20170727-8492-q4n7dr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180054/original/file-20170727-8492-q4n7dr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180054/original/file-20170727-8492-q4n7dr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180054/original/file-20170727-8492-q4n7dr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180054/original/file-20170727-8492-q4n7dr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180054/original/file-20170727-8492-q4n7dr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Chesapeake Bay watershed covers more than 64,000 square miles in parts of six states and the District of Columbia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Bay#/media/File:Chesapeakewatershedmap.png">Kmusser</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/24900-larger-than-average-summer-dead-zone-predicted-for-chesapeake-bay-in-2017">Chesapeake forecast</a> predicts a 1.9-cubic-mile hypoxic region – nearly the volume of 3.2 million Olympic-size swimming pools. This is much larger than goals reflected in recent policies. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, at least the Chesapeake is moving in the right direction. The amount of nutrients flowing into the bay is starting to decline.</p>
<h2>The long quest to clean up Lake Erie</h2>
<p>Lake Erie first suffered from heavy nutrient pollution in the 1960s. The Clean Water Act of 1972 triggered a remarkable cleanup. Nutrients, primarily from point (discreet) sources like sewage treatment plants, were cut in half, and the <a href="http://graham.umich.edu/scavia/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Scavia-et-al-20142.pdf">lake responded quickly</a>.</p>
<p>But harmful algae blooms and hypoxia <a href="http://graham.umich.edu/scavia/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Scavia-et-al-20142.pdf">resurfaced in the mid-1990s</a>, probably because flows into the lake of a form of phosphorus that is readily used by algae tripled. The dead zone set a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es503981n">new record in 2012</a>, and harmful algae blooms <a href="http://graham.umich.edu/scavia/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PNAS.pdf">set records in 2011</a> and 2015. Even if blooms do not become toxic, they can have devastating effects. For example, the 2011 harmful algae blooms on Lake Erie cost the region <a href="http://www.ijc.org/en_/blog/2015/12/17/economic_benefits_of_reducing_HABs/">nearly US$71 million</a> in diminished property values, water treatment, and lost tourism revenues and recreational opportunities.</p>
<p>In response, the United States and Canada negotiated new <a href="https://binational.net/2016/02/22/finalptargets-ciblesfinalesdep/">phosphorus loading targets</a> that call for a 40 percent reduction from 2008 levels. Ontario, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and New York are developing <a href="https://binational.net/2017/03/10/dap-pan/">domestic action plans</a> to meet those targets. </p>
<p>Now however, 71 percent of nutrients entering Lake Erie are from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2016.08.005">non-point sources</a> – mainly from <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2011.00574.x">agriculture</a>. Non-point source pollution comes from diffuse sources, such as fertilizer washing off of farms and lawns, so it is harder to control. </p>
<p>The United States contributes over 80 percent of Lake Erie’s total phosphorus load. In sum, major load reductions will have to come from agriculture, mostly from U.S. farms. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180251/original/file-20170728-5295-12pnaz8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180251/original/file-20170728-5295-12pnaz8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180251/original/file-20170728-5295-12pnaz8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180251/original/file-20170728-5295-12pnaz8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180251/original/file-20170728-5295-12pnaz8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180251/original/file-20170728-5295-12pnaz8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180251/original/file-20170728-5295-12pnaz8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180251/original/file-20170728-5295-12pnaz8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Phosphorus loads to Lake Erie.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">[Maccoux et al. Journal of Great Lakes Research 42 (2016) 1151–1165](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2016.08.005)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How effective are voluntary measures?</h2>
<p>Governments generally are averse to imposing environmental regulations on farmland. As a result, most action plans for Lake Erie rely on voluntary, incentive-based programs to address nutrient loss from agricultural lands.</p>
<p>But in the Mississippi River basin this approach has failed. In spite of more than 30 years of research and monitoring, over 15 years of <a href="http://tinyurl.com/zju939n;">assessments and goal-setting</a>, and <a href="http://graham.umich.edu/scavia/farm-bill-conservation-funding-1995-2015/">over US$30 billion</a> in federal conservation funding since 1995, average nitrogen levels in the Mississippi <a href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/sir20135169">have not declined since the 1980s</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ms-htf">task force</a> leading this effort recently extended the deadline for its goal of a <a href="http://tinyurl.com/j5rvfqk">1,930-square-mile</a> dead zone from 2015 to 2035. Today the dead zone is <a href="http://www.gulfhypoxia.net/Research/">more than triple that size</a>. Our <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/07/27/1705293114">newly published modeling</a>
shows that it would take a 59 percent reduction in the amount of nitrogen entering the Gulf of Mexico to reach the task force’s goal. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178883/original/file-20170719-13567-cdeeds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178883/original/file-20170719-13567-cdeeds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178883/original/file-20170719-13567-cdeeds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178883/original/file-20170719-13567-cdeeds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178883/original/file-20170719-13567-cdeeds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178883/original/file-20170719-13567-cdeeds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178883/original/file-20170719-13567-cdeeds.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dissolved oxygen levels in the Gulf of Mexico in summer 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100809_deadzone.html">NOAA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Chesapeake Bay’s pollution diet</h2>
<p>States around the Chesapeake Bay also struggled for decades to make voluntary, incentive-based approaches work. Their efforts were overwhelmed by the impacts of population growth and agricultural production. </p>
<p>Frustrated by worsening conditions, the states asked EPA in 2010 to establish a <a href="http://www.chesapeakebay.net/what/programs/total_maximum_daily_load">total maximum daily load</a> – a <a href="https://www.epa.gov/chesapeake-bay-tmdl">“pollution diet”</a> within a regulatory framework under the Clean Water Act that limits the amount of nutrients and sediment that can enter the bay. Bay states and the District of Columbia then developed <a href="http://www.chesapeakebay.net/about/programs/watershed">implementation plans</a> and <a href="http://www.chesapeakebay.net/managementstrategies">management strategies</a> detailing how and when each jurisdiction would meet its individual goals. </p>
<p>Unlike voluntary strategies, this approach has teeth. If states miss interim milestones for reducing pollutants, EPA can impose <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-12/documents/cbay_final_tmdl_section_7_final_0.pdf">“backstop measures</a>,” such as requiring additional reductions from point sources and withholding federal grant money. </p>
<p>Agricultural groups, <a href="http://www.cbf.org/how-we-save-the-bay/chesapeake-clean-water-blueprint/21-states-oppose-clean-water-for-chesapeake-bay-states.html">supported by 21 states outside the Chesapeake watershed</a>, challenged the total maximum daily load in court but <a href="http://www.chesapeakebay.net/blog/post/court_upholds_chesapeake_bay_pollution_diet">lost</a>. Between 2009 and 2015, loads of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment in the bay dropped by <a href="http://www.chesapeakebay.net/documents/2015-2016_Bay_Barometer.pdf">8 percent, 20 percent and 7 percent</a>, respectively. Underwater grasses and the bay’s iconic blue crabs are <a href="http://www.cbf.org/about-the-bay/state-of-the-bay-report/2016/index.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/">starting to recover</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180059/original/file-20170727-9209-g1jo2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180059/original/file-20170727-9209-g1jo2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180059/original/file-20170727-9209-g1jo2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180059/original/file-20170727-9209-g1jo2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180059/original/file-20170727-9209-g1jo2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180059/original/file-20170727-9209-g1jo2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180059/original/file-20170727-9209-g1jo2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Chesapeake Bay’s $100 million blue crab fishery is starting to recover after years of decline due mainly to water pollution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/p2tSVr">Chesapeake Bay Program</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>No diet for Lake Erie</h2>
<p>Environmental groups recently <a href="http://greatlakesecho.org/2017/05/03/environmental-groups-sue-epa-over-condition-of-lake-erie/">sued EPA</a> to force stronger action on nutrient pollution in Lake Erie’s western basin, with support from <a href="https://kaptur.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/effort-combat-declining-water-quality-lake-erie-dingell-kaptur-urge-epa">several members of Congress</a> and the <a href="http://www.ijc.org/en_/leep/report">International Joint Commission</a>, which coordinates efforts by the United States and Canada. But EPA will apparently write a total maximum daily load only if both Michigan and Ohio, the two key states in the western basin watershed, agree. (EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt endorsed the Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load only <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4648350/scott-pruitt-tmdl">because all six states in the bay’s watershed supported it</a>.) </p>
<p>Michigan recently <a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/06/jamie_clover_adams_lake_erie.html">declared its portion of Lake Erie “impaired</a>,” which is required to trigger a total maximum daily load. But Ohio declared only some of its shorelines impaired, and <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/ohio/articles/2017-05-23/epa-rejects-declaring-lake-eries-waters-in-ohio-impaired">EPA concurred</a>. So prospects for a recovery are slim.</p>
<p>EPA’s web page calls nutrient pollution one of America’s <a href="https://www.epa.gov/nutrientpollution/problem">“most widespread, costly and challenging environmental problems</a>.” But voluntary action is not solving it. And President Trump’s EPA budget request would <a href="http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-agriculture/2017/05/24/ag-gets-dismissed-by-trump-220482">cut $165 million</a> in grants to states to deal with non-point source pollution. </p>
<p>As I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/industrial-corn-farming-is-ruining-our-health-and-polluting-our-watersheds-39721">detailed before</a>, taming nutrient pollution will require a broad national approach that includes steps such as modifying the American diet, changing agricultural supply chains and reducing production of corn-based ethanol. We also need to find the will to set legally binding limits when voluntary steps aren’t enough.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donald Scavia receives funding from the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
Environmental Protection Agency, and the Erb Family Foundation. </span></em></p>Nitrogen and phosphorus are polluting US waters, creating algae blooms and dead zones. New research confirms that voluntary steps are failing in the Gulf of Mexico and unlikely to work in Lake Erie.Donald Scavia, Professor of Environment and Sustainability; Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/612982016-06-21T20:10:35Z2016-06-21T20:10:35ZCollecting data to help protect Australia’s waters from toxic algal blooms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127472/original/image-20160621-16064-1wmql4p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mass proliferation of _Noctiluca scintillans_, a red tide forming dinoflagellate at Clovelly Beach, NSW. It can form dense aggregations that deplete oxygen and produce ammonia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gurjeet Kohli</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ever heard of <em>Thalassiosira</em>, <em>Detonula</em>, <em>Leptocylindrus</em> or <em>Chaetoceros</em>? No, they are not the names of Greek gods but arguably some of the most important and beautiful organisms on earth: the diatoms. </p>
<p>Diatoms are largely unseen due to their microscopic size but they are the most abundant and diverse single-celled phytoplankton (or microalgae) in the ocean. </p>
<p>These ancient lifeforms arose during the Triassic period, about 200-250 million years ago. They house themselves in intricate glass cases, the patterns and structures of which delight artists, architects and engineers as well as marine biologists.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127456/original/image-20160621-8880-s2doto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127456/original/image-20160621-8880-s2doto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127456/original/image-20160621-8880-s2doto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127456/original/image-20160621-8880-s2doto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127456/original/image-20160621-8880-s2doto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127456/original/image-20160621-8880-s2doto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127456/original/image-20160621-8880-s2doto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127456/original/image-20160621-8880-s2doto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Various transmission electron microscopy close-ups of the marine diatom, <em>Thalassiosira</em> sp., found in Sydney coastal waters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penelope Ajani</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Take a breath</h2>
<p>But are they really important? Take a breath in. Ocean phytoplankton produce up to 50% of the oxygen we breathe, so half of every breath you take is dependent on them. </p>
<p>Phytoplankton also power our marine ecosystems by providing food to higher trophic levels, including fisheries and aquaculture. They underpin our coral reefs, being the microalgal symbionts that are essential for coral growth and health.</p>
<p>Outside the natural world, they also have a use in drug therapy. It’s the diatom case or frustule that is providing the blueprint for a genetically engineered biosilica “backpack” that can <a href="http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/151110/ncomms9791/full/ncomms9791.html">deliver anticancer drugs</a> to tumour sites.</p>
<p>On the downside, some microalgae can bloom spectacularly on our beaches, such as the one that turned <a href="http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/red-tide-of-algae-strikes-10-more-sydney-beaches/story-e6frfq80-1226526090204">several Sydney beaches red</a> in November 2012. Others can produce some of the most <a href="http://www.ozcoasts.gov.au/indicators/freq_algal_blooms.jsp">harmful and deadly toxins</a> known to science. </p>
<h2>Crazy birds</h2>
<p>In fact, contamination by toxic diatoms is better known than people think. In the early 1960s, the strange, violent behaviour of seabirds in California is thought to have been caused by the diatom, <a href="https://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/hab/habs_toxins/hab_species/pn/"><em>Pseudo-nitzschia</em></a>. </p>
<p>The birds were reported as “crazed” and were seen regurgitating anchovies. The famous British movie director <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000033/">Alfred Hitchcock</a>, who lived in Santa Cruz at the time, used this toxic event as the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/mystery-behind-hitchcocks-birds-is-solved-at-last-6282470.html">inspiration for his film</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056869/">The Birds</a> (1963). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eHh6bwuPShw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Yet it was only in 2010 that archived samples from this time were analysed showing large quantities of the toxin producing diatoms in the guts of the anchovies. This provided the <a href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n1/abs/ngeo1360.html">first direct evidence</a> that this event was indeed caused by a toxic diatom bloom.</p>
<p>Despite their importance and abundance, we still know very little about diatom diversity, function and life histories. Moreover, <a href="https://theconversation.com/tiny-marine-plants-face-a-mixed-bag-thanks-to-climate-change-34869">climate change is altering our marine ecosystems</a>, with some victors and some losers expected.</p>
<p>Will toxic species of microalgae be the victors?</p>
<h2>Gathering the Australian data</h2>
<p>In an unparalleled collaboration, phytoplankton experts from around Australia have come together to establish the <a href="https://portal.aodn.org.au/%7C-The-Australian-Phytoplankton-Database-1844-2016-abundance-and-biovolume.html">Australian Phytoplankton Database</a> to further understand our ocean’s invisible forest, with details published this week in <a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201643">Scientific Data</a>.</p>
<p>It currently includes 3.5 million records of marine phytoplankton from Australia and is publicly available through the Australian Ocean Data Network (<a href="http://imos.aodn.org.au">AODN</a>).</p>
<p>This database has been painstakingly gathered from the literature, active and retired researchers, consultancies, archives and databases. Records extend from 1844 to the present, providing more than 170 years of data on phytoplankton communities in Australian waters. </p>
<p>For example, the database includes phytoplankton species data from an expedition to the Great Barrier Reef in 1928, 50 years of intermittent data collected from Sydney’s long-term coastal monitoring station offshore from Port Hacking, as well as phytoplankton data collected by the NSW Food Authority in oyster-growing estuaries for the protection of consumers from contaminated shellfish.</p>
<p>This is not the first such database. There are others in different parts of the world such as the <a href="https://westerndiatoms.colorado.edu/">United States</a> and <a href="http://craticula.ncl.ac.uk/Eddi/jsp/index.jsp">Europe</a>.</p>
<p>There were many small datasets across Australia too. But while these small phytoplankton datasets have limited impact, collectively they can provide valuable additions to large scale projects.</p>
<p>This new dataset will define Australia’s phytoplankton communities allowing biogeographic analyses and range changes overtime. It will also help us understand the dynamics of harmful species so that we can help to inform local and regional aquaculture, fisheries and tourism.</p>
<p>Establishing a link between climate change and trends in phytoplankton is challenging and requires the collection of suitably long-term data. So new data will be continually added as it becomes available and will be maintained in perpetuity by the AODN.</p>
<p>This national initiative may help answer some basic questions about microalgae in our coastal oceans, such as how many species do we have, how many are toxic and how will they perform in a warmer world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61298/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penelope Ajani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>They give us part of the air we breathe but microscopic phytoplankton can also be toxic. They are also on the move thanks to climate change so a new Australian database hopes to monitor any changes.Penelope Ajani, Chancellors Post Doctoral Fellow, Climate Change Cluster, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/437472015-07-14T10:09:10Z2015-07-14T10:09:10ZForecasting dead zones and toxic algae in US waterways: a bad year for Lake Erie<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86273/original/image-20150624-31507-bfg9ub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Algae overload: Lake Erie algal bloom 2011.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NOAA/NASA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/293/5530/657">past two decades</a>, scientists have developed ways to predict how ecosystems will react to changing environmental conditions. Called <a href="http://www.graham.umich.edu/scavia/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/cenr_ecologicalforecasting.pdf">ecological forecasts</a>, these emerging tools, if used effectively, can help reduce pollution to our waterways. </p>
<p>Dead zone and toxic algae forecasts are similar to weather and climate forecasts. They can provide near-term predictions of ecosystem responses to short-term drivers such as this year’s nitrogen and phosphorus inputs. They can also be used in scenarios to analyze the impacts of controlling those drivers in the future. </p>
<p>These particular forecasts are important because when they match actual events well, they build confidence in using the models to guide policy and management decisions. Doing these forecasts annually also provides a regular check on whether these problems are being resolved. </p>
<p>While knowing the extent and location of these ecosystem conditions could allow decision-makers to adapt their management decisions, current ecological forecasts – at least those related to dead zones and toxic algae – are not sufficiently tuned in space and time to support that scale of adaptive management. Hopefully, someday they will be. In the meantime, their use provides powerful reminders of unsolved problems.</p>
<h2>This year’s eco-forecast</h2>
<p>Dead zones (hypoxia) are regions within lakes and oceans where oxygen concentrations drop to levels dangerous to marine life. They’re typically caused by decomposing algae, the growth of which is stimulated by nitrogen and phosphorus inputs from land. Toxic algae, also stimulated by these same excess nutrients, can poison aquatic life and humans when they contaminate the water supply. </p>
<p>In recent weeks, I contributed <a href="http://graham.umich.edu/scavia/hypoxia-forecasts">predictions</a> to <a href="http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/ecoforecasting/">NOAA’s</a> ensemble forecasts of this year’s dead zones in the <a href="http://ns.umich.edu/new/multimedia/videos/22957-average-dead-zone-for-gulf-of-mexico-in-2015-u-m-and-partners-predict">Gulf of Mexico</a> and the <a href="http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/22975-below-average-dead-zone-predicted-for-chesapeake-bay-in-2015">Chesapeake Bay</a>, and the extent of <a href="http://ns.umich.edu/new/multimedia/videos/23004-u-m-partners-predict-severe-harmful-algae-bloom-for-lake-erie">toxic algae in Lake Erie</a>. </p>
<p>The 2015 forecasts remind us that these persistent problems are not yet being addressed effectively. While the dead zone forecasts are for roughly “average” conditions, it is important to note that “average” does not mean natural, and in these cases, “average” is not acceptable. The toxic algae forecast is a clear reminder that long-term nutrient input reduction is critical.</p>
<p><strong>Gulf of Mexico</strong> - In its <a href="http://www.graham.umich.edu/scavia/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/action_20plan_1_.pdf">2001 action plan</a> – confirmed in <a href="http://water.epa.gov/type/watersheds/named/msbasin/upload/2008_8_28_msbasin_ghap2008_update082608.pdf">2008</a> and again in <a href="http://water.epa.gov/type/watersheds/named/msbasin/upload/hypoxia_reassessment_508.pdf">2013</a> – the federal, state and tribal Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force set a goal of reducing the five-year running average extent of gulf hypoxia, or oxygen deficiency, to 5,000 square kilometers (1930 square miles) by 2015. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86165/original/image-20150623-19374-gps1jz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86165/original/image-20150623-19374-gps1jz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86165/original/image-20150623-19374-gps1jz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86165/original/image-20150623-19374-gps1jz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86165/original/image-20150623-19374-gps1jz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86165/original/image-20150623-19374-gps1jz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86165/original/image-20150623-19374-gps1jz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86165/original/image-20150623-19374-gps1jz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gulf of Mexico nitrogen loads.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://graham.umich.edu/scavia/hypoxia-forecasts/">Donald Scavia</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But little progress has been made toward that goal. Since 1995, the gulf dead zone has averaged 15,323 square kilometers, not unlike this year’s prediction of the size of Connecticut. Nutrient-rich runoff from Midwest agriculture ends up in the Mississippi River and eventually makes its way to the gulf. The amount of nitrogen entering the Gulf of Mexico increased, mainly due to agricultural runoff, by about 300% between the 1960s and 1980s, and has changed little since then. </p>
<p>While the size of the gulf dead zone varies from year to year, mostly in response to changing weather patterns in the Corn Belt, the bottom line is that we will never reach the action plan goal of 5,000 square kilometers until more serious actions are taken to reduce the loss of Midwest nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural lands, regardless of the weather.</p>
<p><strong>Chesapeake Bay</strong> - Similar to the Gulf of Mexico, the Chesapeake Bay dead zone forecast of 5.7 cubic kilometers (1.37 cubic miles or 2.3 million Olympic-size swimming pools) is slightly lower than its long-term average. Also similar to the gulf, there is very significant year-to-year variability in inputs and thus, hypoxia. But, unlike the gulf, there appears to be some progress being made toward <a href="http://www.chesapeakebay.net/indicators/indicator/reducing_nitrogen_pollution">nutrient input reductions</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86166/original/image-20150623-19368-1kp6zn5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86166/original/image-20150623-19368-1kp6zn5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86166/original/image-20150623-19368-1kp6zn5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86166/original/image-20150623-19368-1kp6zn5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86166/original/image-20150623-19368-1kp6zn5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86166/original/image-20150623-19368-1kp6zn5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86166/original/image-20150623-19368-1kp6zn5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86166/original/image-20150623-19368-1kp6zn5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chesapeake Bay nitrogen loads.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Donald Scavia</span></span>
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<p>Why? Under an <a href="http://www.epa.gov/reg3wapd/pdf/pdf_chesbay/BayTMDLFactSheet8_26_13.pdf">Environmental Protection Agency- (EPA) enforced regional compact</a>, six states and the District of Columbia have agreed to reduce the nitrogen load 25% by 2025. Notice the word “enforced.” Having in place a two-year milestone check in 2017 under the agreement’s Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Watershed Implementation Plan should make a difference. Those metrics will be graded by the EPA, and if they are missed, warnings will be issued to members of the regional compact, and the consequences could include additional regulatory measures. The EPA recently determined that the region is likely to <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-pennsylvania-20150615-story.html">miss that goal by half</a>. So, real accomplishments will depend on the resolve of the EPA and the administration in power to be tough in 2017.</p>
<p><strong>Lake Erie</strong> - This year’s Lake Erie toxic algae forecast is for a bloom larger than the one in 2014 that <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/toxic-algae-cocktail-brews-in-lake-erie-b99344890z1-274542731.html">shut down the water supply</a> to a half-million people in Toledo, and approaching the record-setting massive <a href="http://graham.umich.edu/scavia/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PNAS.pdf">2011 bloom</a>. It’s worth noting that only a week or two before the formal forecast, NOAA was anticipating a <a href="http://www2.nccos.noaa.gov/coast/lakeerie/bulletin/projection_2015-05.pdf">relatively mild bloom</a>, and the changed forecast was the result of one spring storm. Because these blooms are driven by diffuse phosphorus sources from the agriculturally dominated Maumee River watershed, this update is not surprising, and is a reminder of how much this issue is driven by these <a href="http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights/regions/midwest">climate-induced increased storms</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, unlike the dead zones, these blooms are highly dynamic in both time and space. In fact, while the 2014 bloom was much smaller than the massive 2011 bloom, it formed near Toledo’s water supply, and local winds mixed the bloom into the city’s deep-water intakes. So bloom predictions, regardless of size, do not necessarily correlate with risk. Until the phosphorus inputs are reduced significantly and consistently so that only the mildest blooms occur, the people, ecosystem and economy of this region are being threatened. We cannot cross our fingers and hope that seasonal fluctuations in weather will keep us safe.</p>
<h2><strong>Using ecological models for scenario analysis</strong></h2>
<p>We also participate in these annual forecasts because these same models are used to help guide decisions on long-term nutrient input targets needed to reduce <a href="http://water.epa.gov/type/watersheds/named/msbasin/upload/2008_1_31_msbasin_sab_report_2007.pdf">dead zones</a> and <a href="http://graham.umich.edu/scavia/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/FINAL-Objectives-TT-report-en-150624-3.pdf">toxic blooms</a> to acceptable levels.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86167/original/image-20150623-19420-cuek1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86167/original/image-20150623-19420-cuek1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86167/original/image-20150623-19420-cuek1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86167/original/image-20150623-19420-cuek1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86167/original/image-20150623-19420-cuek1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86167/original/image-20150623-19420-cuek1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86167/original/image-20150623-19420-cuek1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86167/original/image-20150623-19420-cuek1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Forecasting track record.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Donald Scavia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We have been tracking the accuracy of some of these annual forecasts and find the models do a pretty good job in years without hurricanes or tropical storms that disrupt dead zones prior to taking measurements. This increases confidence in using these models for providing advice on needed nutrient load reductions. </p>
<p>In fact, some of these models have been used to guide policymakers who set nutrient input reductions, and most reach the surprisingly consistent recommendations of reducing inputs by 35%-45%. However, while some of these <a href="http://www.graham.umich.edu/scavia/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/estuaries_3_models.pdf">recommendations</a> have been in place for over a decade, little progress has been made. Forecasts, scenarios, recommendations and agreements are obviously not enough.</p>
<h2>So what to do?</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://theconversation.com/industrial-corn-farming-is-ruining-our-health-and-polluting-our-watersheds-39721">recent posting</a>, I suggested that while more extensive application of existing and new agricultural best management practices (BMPs), such as streamside buffers and wetlands restoration, are important, they alone may not be sufficient in reducing nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the Gulf of Mexico, the Chesapeake Bay, and Lake Erie. Even if BMPs were effective, the current voluntary, incentive-based regime is not working, as outlined in a <a href="http://www.choicesmagazine.org/choices-magazine/submitted-articles/the-limits-of-voluntary-conservation-programs">report</a> by Marc Ribaudo, senior economist for the USDA Economic Research Service.</p>
<p>The fact is, our watersheds are overwhelmed by industrial-scale row crop agriculture, much of it corn, and real progress will be made only by reducing the demand for corn. That requires modifying the American diet, urging changes in the agricultural supply chain and cutting the production of corn-based ethanol.</p>
<p>While changing diets and supply chains requires long-term cultural change, cutting use of corn in our cars could be done more quickly. </p>
<p>A simple although apparently politically dangerous move would be for Congress to prohibit the use of corn for ethanol production. This has been proposed many times in many places. So why does the federal government continue to insist on burning corn in our gas tanks – especially since it has been <a href="http://www.ewg.org/research/ethanols-broken-promise/epa-s-emissions-assessment">demonstrated</a> that ethanol produces more greenhouse gases than gasoline and it is not good for either <a href="http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2013/02/corn-ethanol-bad-farmers-consumers-and-environment">consumers</a> or the <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/clean_energy/ew3/corn-ethanol-and-water-quality.pdf">environment</a>? Perhaps the answer lies with presidential hopefuls running to Iowa every four years proclaiming love for corn and ethanol, and an ethanol industry building a stronger <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/234393-ethanol-industry-lobbies-up">roster of lobbyists</a>.</p>
<p>These are, of course, political considerations worked out in Washington, DC and state capitals. In the meantime, the dead zones and algae blooms we forecast every year show the ongoing damaging effects of excessive nutrient runoff.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donald Scavia receives funding from government agencies and foundations in support of his research.</span></em></p>The same conditions – ultimately tied to nutrient runoff – that created the damaging toxic blooms and dead zones in US waterways of recent years are forecast to return this year.Donald Scavia, Graham Family Professor of Sustainability, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.