Urban and farm runoff fuel green algae blooms in Lake Erie that are visible in satellite images. Photo: NOAA CoastWatch
Chemical fertilizers nourish plants. But water suffers when rain washes the unused excess into lakes and streams. Researchers are particularly concerned with how it fosters aquatic dead zones – areas of low oxygen.
Don Scavia, director of the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan, and Pete Richards, senior research scientist at Heidelberg University in Ohio, recently hosted a workshop that offers clues about why agricultural nutrients are on the rise in the Great Lakes watershed.
Echo will give readers a glimpse of the workshop in a three-part video series. In today’s segment, Scavia explains the history of agricultural runoff in the region and the environmental impact of low oxygen.
Here is part II of the series.
Here is part III.
This workshop was part of the Agricultural Conference on the Environment held at The Lansing Center on Jan. 27. 2011.
Video by Bonnie Bucqueroux
Check out Echo’s coverage of hypoxia in the Great Lakes:
– “Hypoxia in Great Lakes, elsewhere to worsen with climate change”
– “Low oxygen, mercury pollution interaction may pose even greater threat to Great Lakes”