Eutrophication

Picture 1: Seven Cities Lagoon

Not everything pretty is good

Every day we watch on TV news about water courses polluted. Near us, the creek of ‘Marrases’ is a very good example of it.
Water is considered contaminated when its' compositions are changed for the presence of strange substances.
Industry, cattle and agriculture are the principal responsiblity of this water pollution courses.
The subject of this post will be the eutrophication of the seven cities lagoon in Azores.
On the lands surrounding the lagoon, the agriculturists use fertilizers and pesticides. The excess of these substances is dragged to the lagoon and the water stays rich in nutrients. The nutrients presents in the lagoon promote the phytoplankton’s grown and multiplication. The phytoplankton accumulated on the surface of the water form one layer that obstruct the solar light and the submerged plants die because they can’t product their own aliment and oxygen without light. Consequence of it death, the compositors fed from it and spend all the oxygen present in water which will provoke the death of the fishes and other animals that lives in this lagoon.
The consequence of eutrophication is an enormous lack of oxygen.
So, when we look to the Seven Cities Lagoon and we have a great impression of it, it doesn’t correspond to good water, because life is only allowed to exist in the surface. But there are methods to prevent eutrophication. Methods like, chemical treatments, artificial airing and removal of plants.

‘Not everything that seems is.’

Picture 2: Seven Cities Lagoon

Sources: http://www.propertyopportunitiesbyowner.com/lagoa_das_7cidades.jpg

http://img.olhares.com/data/big/77/777161.jpg

Carolina

Global Warming

Picture 1: Facories polluting the atmosphere

Atmospheric Pollution (greenhouse effect)

Global Warming results from the industrial development which leads to a better life in the society.
Everything starts with the Industrial Revolution.
The appearing of factories, which every day, trough their chimneys put in the atmosphere tons of gases which cause the greenhouse effect.
Cars, which circulate 24 hours a day, to can move realize combustions and one of the products of this combustion are gases, that trough the exhaust pipes free gases to the atmosphere that will join to the gases released from the factories increasing the greenhouse effect.
If we join the gases that results from the domestic activities to this factors we can conclude that in the developed countries, every day are realized activities that contributes for the changes of the constituents or it concentration in the atmosphere.
Another global warming cause is the deforestation because they are the only ‘factories’ that can remove Carbon Dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and return Oxygen (O2) to the atmosphere.
The global warming has awful consequences like ice melting, habitats destruction, sea level rise, more precipitation, more hurricanes and storms, extinction of species, less drinkable water available and ecosystems will change.
It depends of us take conscience of the attitudes that we have to take in the day-by-day to avoid the increasing of the global warming. The same has to happen with the factories which need to have chimneys biggest with filters to be able to hold back some substances produced and release others in big distances.
The government of all the countries has to implement a politic with the objective: Preserve the environment!

There are many solutions to this problem. Solutions like improvements to energy efficiency and vehicle fuel economy, increases in wind and solar power, the increase in the use of natural gas and nuclear power and the increasing of forestlands.
Planet Earth is only one and it has to be of everyone.

Why to ruin if we can improve?!

Sources: http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/

Carolina

Drought

Picture 1: Drought Picture 2: Drought Picture 3: Drought

A drought is a long phase of months or even years when a region remarks an insufficiency in its water supply. In general, this occurs when a region receives continually lower standard precipitation. The agriculture and the ecosystem of the affected area can suffer substantial impacts because of droughts. The damages of a drought, even a short drought can be devastating in the local and in the economy. This phenomenon has a wide impact on agriculture. ‘The United Nations estimates that an area of fertile soil the size of Ukraine is lost every year because of drought, deforestation and climate instability’.

- Causes

- High pressure systems;
- Winds carrying continental;
- Oceanic air masses;
- High pressure areas;
- Oceanic and atmospheric weather cycles (El Niño-Southern Oscillation);
- Deforestation;
- Erosion;
- Climate change.

- Consequences

- Diminished crop growth or yield production and carrying capacity for livestock;
- Wildfires;
- Shortages of water for industrial users;
- Dust storms;
- Malnutrition, dehydration and related diseases;
- Famine (because of the lack of water for irrigation);
- Social unrest;
- Mass migration, resulting in internal displacement and international refugees;
- War over natural resources, including water and food;
- Reduced electricity production due;
- Reduced water flow because of hydroelectric dams;
- Snakes migration and increases in snakebites;
- Erosion of landscape;
- Damages of terrestrial and aquatic habitat.

- Stages of drought

- Meteorological: when there is a prolonged period with less than average precipitation. This kind of drought usually precedes the other kinds of drought.

- Agricultural: affects crop production or the ecology of the range. This condition can also arise independently from any chance in precipitation levels when soil conditions and erosion provoked by a bad planned agricultural endeavors cause a shortfall in water available to the crops. However, in a traditional drought, it is caused by an extended period of below average precipitation.

- Hydrological: when the water reserves available in sources like aquifers, lakes and reservoirs falls below the statistical average.

- How to prevent?

- Desalination of sea water;
- Drought monitoring;
- Land use (carefully planned to help minimize erosion);
- Rainwater harvesting;
- Recycle water;
- Irrigation in drought-prone areas;
- Water restrictions;
- Cloud seeding;

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought#Drought_mitigation_strategies

http://keetsa.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/drought.jpg

http://www.naringalchurch.org/images/Drought%20branch.jpg

http://www.rcdnet.org/Documents/Drought/Drought%20Pix.jpg

Carolina

Flood

A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land.
‘Flowing water’, may also be applied to the inflow of the tide.
Flooding may result from the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, exceeding the total capacity of it.
The word comes from the Old English 'flod', a word common to Teutonic languages.

- Principal types of flood

- Riverine floods;

- Estuarine floods;

- Coastal floods;

- Catastrophic floods;

- Muddy floods;

- Other (Floods can occur if water accumulates across an impermeable surface and cannot rapidly dissipate)

- Typical effects

Primary effects:

- Physical damage: Can range anywhere from bridges, cars, buildings, sewer systems, roadways, canals and any other type of structure.

- Casualties: People and livestock die from drowning. It can also lead to epidemics and diseases.

Secundary effects:

- Water supplies: Contamination of water. Drinkable water becomes scarce.

- Diseases: Unhygienic conditions.

- Crops and food supplies: Shortage of food crops can be caused by the loss of entire harvest.

- Trees: Some species can die from suffocation.

Tertiary - Long-term effects:

- Economic (decline in tourism, rebuilding costs, food shortage leading to price increase, and more).

- Some flood defences, planning, and management

- Levees;
- Bunds;
- Reservoirs;
- Sea walls;
- Beach nourishment.

- Flood clean-up safety

This kind of activities next floods usually signify hazards to the people involved in this kind of work. There are all kind of dangers in this work, so they have to use protections to avoid any kind of damages.

-Benefits of flooding

Floods, usually represents awful effects on human life. On the other hand, floods can also be good. Flooding can bring benefits like making soil more fertile and providing nutrients in which it is deficient. In the past, periodic floods were vital to the welfare of primordial communities like the Egyptians.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flooding

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/tfx/hydro/FAW/HorseBridge.png

http://climatex.org/media/images-image-image/Flood_thames.jpg

Carolina

Pollution of the Oceans

Pollution & the sea

Like oil and waterOne significant impact of human activity upon the oceans is marine pollution. It is not just oil pollution from accidents and illegally discharged tank cleaning wastes. Besides the high visibility of oil spills upon marine environments the total quantities involved are reduced by those of pollutants introduced from other sources (including domestic sewage, industrial discharges, leakages from waste tips, urban and industrial run-off, accidents, spillage, explosions, sea dumping operations, oil production, mining, agriculture nutrients and pesticides, waste heat sources, and radioactive discharges).

Land based sources are estimated to account for around 44 percent of the pollutants entering the sea and atmospheric inputs account for an estimated 33 percent. By contrast, maritime transport accounts only for around 12 percent.

Toxic chemicals

The input of man-made chemicals to the oceans potentially involves a huge number of different substances. 63,000 different chemicals are thought to be in use worldwide with 3000 accounting for 90 percent of the total production tonnage. Each year, anywhere up to 1000 new synthetic chemicals may be brought into the market.

Of all these chemicals some 4500 fall into the most serious category. These, known as persistent organic pollutants, they're resistant to breakdown and have the potential to accumulate in the tissues of living organisms (all marine life), causing hormone disruption which can cause reproductive problems, induce cancer, suppress the immune system and interfere with normal development in children.

Oil

The most visible and familiar form of pollution is oil pollution caused by tanker accidents and tank washing at sea, and in addition to the gross visible short term impacts, severe long term problems can also result. In the case of the Exxon Valdez (name of an oil tanker) which ran aground in Alaska in 1989, biological impacts from the oil spill can still be identified 15 years after the event. The Prestige, which sank off the Spanish coast late in 2002, resulted in huge economic losses as it polluted more than 100 beaches in France and Spain and effectively destroyed the local fishingindustry.

Alyssa

Acid Rain

- Definition

Precipitation that presents an acid pH because of the presence of acids which are formed by the reaction of the sulphur and the nitrogen with the atmospheric water that form the precipitation, essentially rain.

- Acid rain formations

Sulphur dioxide and nitric oxides are primary contaminants (they are formed directly from the combustion or from the evaporation of coal and derivates from petrol.
The cars that use derivates from petrol release to the air sulphur dioxide and nitric oxides. These gases react with the atmospheric water and because of that they are changed into secondary contaminants (sulfuric acid and acid nitric). The water that is full of these acids will kill everything where it falls.
The human being contributes with 130/150 millions of tons of sulphur dioxide and 60/70 millions of tons of nitric oxides.

- Acid rain can affect:

- Surface waters and aquatic animals;
- Soils;

- Forests and other vegetation;

- Human health;

- Acid rain can also cause damage to certain building materials and historical monuments (e.g. Battle monastery - Portugal)

- Affected areas:

- Most of Europe (particularly Scandinavia);

- Many parts of U.S.A. (states like New York);

- South Western Canada;

- South Eastern coast of China;

- Taiwan.

- Potential problem areas in the future:

- Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand;

- Western South Africa (the country);

- Southern India;

- Sri Lanka;

- West Africa.

- Prevention methods

- Conserve energy;

- Collective transports utilization;

- Use of subway;

- Use less pollutant power;

- Use fuels with less sulphur.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain

http://www.abae.pt/programa/EE/escola_energia/2006/Conteudos/sala1/sala1_8.jpg

Carolina

Plants extinction

An international team of scientists has published a new analysis showing that as plant species around the world go extinct, natural habitats become less productive and contain fewer total plants a situation that could ultimately compromise important benefits that humans get from nature.

Example

Hundreds of medicinal plants are at risk of extinction, threatening the discovery of future cures for disease, according to experts.
Over 50% of prescription drugs are derived from chemicals first identified in plants.
But the Botanic Gardens Conservation International said many were at risk from over-collection and deforestation.
Researchers warned the cures for things such as cancer and HIV may become "extinct before they are ever found". They identified 400 plants that were at risk of extinction. (Magnolias are one of hundreds of plants under danger)

Adriana