Nutrient enrichment and climate change are posing yet another concern of growing importance: an apparent increase in the toxicity
of some algal blooms in freshwater lakes and estuaries around the world, which threatens aquatic organisms, ecosystem health and human drinking water safety.
The term «red tide» refers to different
types of algal blooms, which can be various hues depending on the species and the photosynthetic pigments they contain.
They started by adding carbon to Lake 227 which disproved the detergent industry's theory on the
origin of algal blooms.
The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder is investigating whether there are opportunities to use the limited volumes of environmental water available to provide refuge habitat for aquatic species (particularly if the
decay of the algal bloom leads to low oxygen levels in the waterways).
At 11 a.m., Toxics Targeting Inc. holds a news conference releasing
photos of algal blooms threatening the sources of public drinking water for residents of Syracuse, Auburn, Rochester, Ithaca and other communities across New York, state Capitol, third floor, adjoining to the LCA Press Room, Albany.
The researchers examined the environmental drivers by season, and found that wind speed affected the
spread of algal blooms consistently throughout spring, summer and fall.
By looking at the color of the water and other data from tens of thousands of data points, she could determine the timing, intensity and
extent of algal blooms.
Excess nutrients are a primary
cause of algal blooms, which have a number of impacts, including impairing drinking water quality, robbing aquatic life of needed oxygen and closing beaches to swimming.
The study found that in parts of the island where imported palms replaced native trees, the ecosystem unraveled: Seabirds did not nest in the palms and in the
absence of algal blooms, the manta rays migrated elsewhere.
This may be the first such
study of algal blooms in the ocean, says aquatic microbiologist Jef Huisman of the University of Amsterdam, who has studied light absorption by cyanobacteria in lakes.
Dubinsky says the method should also be useful with the burgeoning
issue of algal blooms, to understand, for example, the processes by which they form, the microbial dynamics before and after a bloom, and specifically, whether runoff from livestock production in the Midwest is related to algal blooms in the Great Lakes, a question they're investigating with the EPA.
Due to the high cost and the intermittent
nature of algal blooms, water utilities will be unable to solve this problem with the available technology (Environment Canada, 2001).
Apparently, by 2050, malaria and Colorado beetles will be rife in southern England; the UK will experience increases in the
incidence of algal blooms, food poisoning, gales and flooding; we will lose the mountain ringlet butterfly, the capercallie and the dwarf willow; and in the Antarctic, tens of thousands of baby penguins will face starvation, as environmental change affects their food supply and habitat.
Preliminary research hints that ocean acidification may promote some
types of algal blooms that make people and animals sick