Non – Point Source Pollution
• As water from rainfall, snowmelt and irrigation flows across the surface of the land, it picks up contaminates from many different sources and deposits them into local lakes, rivers, streams, and wetlands
Eutrophication
• The process in which a body of water develops high levels of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. (usually from sewage or fertilizer)– Nutrients cause an increase in the growth of
aquatic plants– Also cause an increase in amount of blue-green
algae– Algae forms surface mats which shade the lower
levels of plants from sunlight
• As bacteria and algae die, the decomposing bacteria multiply.
• The decomposing bacteria uses up all the ocean in the water
• Other, oxygen breathing, organisms also die
Cultural Eutrophication
•When the increased level of nutrients in the water is a result of human activities