Nutrients Aren't Always Positive Imagine a world where there is no clean water, animals are barely surviving, crops are dying almost constantly, and there is only half of the clean oxygen supply that we have today. This is the world that we will have to survive in if eutrophication is not reduced. Eutrophication is the process in which nutrient runoff, such as pesticides, fertilizers and waste from farms, wash into bodies of water. The extra phosphorus in the water causes an excess of algae to grow, which uses the majority of the oxygen supply, and blocks sunlight, causing the other organisms living there to die. When a water supply becomes eutrophic, it can no longer be used to drink, it cannot be used to water crops, and the problem will only get worse and it very difficult to fix after the fact. Eutrophication and nutrient runoff continue to be one of the biggest environmental issues in the world today, causing pollution, sickness, and even death. Eutrophication will, if it continues at the same rate, destroy much of our agricultural system and resources in a matter of years. Eutrophication is the main cause of ocean dead zones, which are areas of oceans that are hypoxic, or have lowoxygen levels, which almost nothing can survive in. Did you know we get more than half of our oxygen supply from the ocean and microorganisms living there? At the rate that dead zones are occurring in bodies of water across the world, all of the ocean life will be dead by the year 2050. (“Deadzone”) This means less than half of our oxygen supply, and almost 86% less of our water supply will be unusable to humans, and any other living thing on Earth. This includes all of our food sources. Yearly, Agriculture uses about 80 percent of our total water usage in the United States (“Deadzone”). Eutrophication has become a very serious problem of late, but it has existed for thousands of years. Eutrophication has appeared naturally in nature for thousands of years not causing any problems. The first time that nutrient runoff became problematic was during the civilization of Ancient Egypt. Because of the extreme heat and harsh conditions of the Sahara Desert, the whole of the civilization was based upon the Nile River. It was their source of life. It was the water they used to clean, drink, and water plants and animals. Before they knew about the dangers of nutrient runoff, the ancient farmers of Egypt would wash the animal’s waste into the river. Before long, they started to see dead fish floating in the river, causing many to get sick, and a strange green goo in their water supply. Of course, this was the extra nutrients from the
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