Some solutions offered for decreasing the Gulf Dead Zone threat

Here is an interesting video that talks about phytoplankton and its impacts on the Gulf dead zone. Phytoplankton are small organisms that provide us with almost half the oxygen we breathe. They live in the ocean and they provide other living creatures with oxygen. Since most of the Mississippi’s river areas are farmlands, and it happens every spring that these lands get fertilized with substances that it’s major components are nitrogen and phosphorous –the main nutrients polluting the ocean-. When it rains, these nutrients get rinsed into the river and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico. Phytoplankton lives on these nutrients, however, dead zone occurs there too. It’s true that Phytoplankton is an oxygen supplier, but it’s get eaten by the living creatures under water surfaces that leaves waste behind. The waste then settles into the bottom where some bacteria compose them using oxygen in the process, which result in low oxygen concentration and eventually disappearing of most of the marine animals.

A solution to that problem would be resolving the excess wash outs of fertilizers that get into the ocean. Farmers should start using winter cover crop that prevents erosion. Another solution could be using fertilizers that are friendly to the environment and lowering the amounts of the fertilizers used.



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