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Nutrient pollution, a form of water pollution, refers to contamination by excessive inputs of nutrients.It is a primary cause of eutrophication of surface waters (lakes, rivers and coastal waters), in which excess nutrients, usually nitrogen or phosphorus, stimulate algal growth. [1]
A nitrate vulnerable zone is a conservation designation of the Environment Agency for areas of land that drain into nitrate polluted waters, or waterways that could become polluted by nitrates due to environmental and health threats. A nitrate vulnerable zone can be designated as a response to an increase in nitrate leaching or increased use of ...
Approximately 78% of Earth's atmosphere is N gas (N 2), which is an inert compound and biologically unavailable to most organisms.In order to be utilized in most biological processes, N 2 must be converted to reactive nitrogen (Nr), which includes inorganic reduced forms (NH 3 and NH 4 +), inorganic oxidized forms (NO, NO 2, HNO 3, N 2 O, and NO 3 −), and organic compounds (urea, amines, and ...
An indicator reflecting the loss of nitrate to groundwater would be effect-based. [51] The environmental impact of agriculture involves a variety of factors from the soil, to water, the air, animal and soil diversity, plants, and the food itself.
Human health effects of eutrophication derive from two main issues excess nitrate in drinking water and exposure to toxic algae. [50] Nitrates in drinking water can cause blue baby syndrome in infants and can react with chemicals used to treat water to create disinfection by-products in drinking water. [ 51 ]
The WHO standard for drinking water is 50 mg NO − 3 L −1 for short-term exposure, and for 3 mg NO − 3 L −1 chronic effects. [64] Once it enters the human body, nitrate can react with organic compounds through nitrosation reactions in the stomach to form nitrosamines and nitrosamides , which are involved in some types of cancers (e.g ...
There is also evidence for shifts in the production of key intermediary volatile products, some of which have marked greenhouse effects (e.g., N 2 O and CH 4, reviewed by Breitburg in 2018, [15] due to the increase in global temperature, ocean stratification and deoxygenation, driving as much as 25 to 50% of nitrogen loss from the ocean to the ...
Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) bloom on Lake Erie (United States) in 2009. These kinds of algae can cause harmful algal bloom. A harmful algal bloom (HAB), or excessive algae growth, sometimes called a red tide in marine environments, is an algal bloom that causes negative impacts to other organisms by production of natural algae-produced toxins, water deoxygenation, mechanical damage to ...