The Good News
Dead zones are a large scale global issue, coming up on the verge of catastrophe. There are no economically viable solutions currently in practice, knowledge concerning them is fairly limited and the long term impact is still under intense debate. There are a range of highly negative ecologic, economic, societal and political ramifications from these developing areas, and most accounts see the situation getting worse for the foreseeable future.
With all that said, there may just be a silver lining, the zones appear to be reversible almost totally. While there may be long term impacts that have not been accounted for, the success story in the Black Sea shows that the theory that the situation is reversible is not only a theory, but actually a (somewhat challenging) practice. That situation was somewhat unique as rather than being driven by economic stimulus, it was driven by economic decline, which completely removed the wide spread use of artificial fertilizer, rather than trying to find some solution, however this was caused by total economic collapse of the region.
From this we can see a real possibility of repairing the damage, something not always feasible with ecologic disasters, oftentimes "slowing down the pace of the damage" is all that is feasible. Several solutions have been provided concerning the methods of controlling notogen runoff, and with enough voices and enough economic and socio-political pressure, this problem could not only be stopped from spreading, but actually cured.
Dead zones are a large scale global issue, coming up on the verge of catastrophe. There are no economically viable solutions currently in practice, knowledge concerning them is fairly limited and the long term impact is still under intense debate. There are a range of highly negative ecologic, economic, societal and political ramifications from these developing areas, and most accounts see the situation getting worse for the foreseeable future.
With all that said, there may just be a silver lining, the zones appear to be reversible almost totally. While there may be long term impacts that have not been accounted for, the success story in the Black Sea shows that the theory that the situation is reversible is not only a theory, but actually a (somewhat challenging) practice. That situation was somewhat unique as rather than being driven by economic stimulus, it was driven by economic decline, which completely removed the wide spread use of artificial fertilizer, rather than trying to find some solution, however this was caused by total economic collapse of the region.
From this we can see a real possibility of repairing the damage, something not always feasible with ecologic disasters, oftentimes "slowing down the pace of the damage" is all that is feasible. Several solutions have been provided concerning the methods of controlling notogen runoff, and with enough voices and enough economic and socio-political pressure, this problem could not only be stopped from spreading, but actually cured.
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