Dead Zones: Why Our Oceans are Dying

    Throughout this week I have been watching TED Talks about broadly the oceans and many topics and issues came to my attention and need to be addressed. The main idea that I found from most of the talks was things that humans are doing that need to stop or be reduced because our oceans are looking bad right now, let alone the marine life.

What are Dead Zones?

    One thing that really made me interested was things called dead zones. Dead zones are when the oceans are not getting enough oxygen for species to survive. This happens when mainly farms, for example, soybean farms use a fertilizer that contains nitrogen and phosphorus. Those harmful gases runoff into lakes and rivers which ultimately end up in the ocean. When the wastewater gets to the ocean there is a build-up of algae, the algae sinks and then that decomposes the water down at the ocean floor. Nancy Rabalais, a marine scientist talks about this topic. “The problem is that there's just too much nitrogen and phosphorus right now, too much phytoplankton falling to the bottom and decomposed by bacteria that use up the oxygen. That's the biology.” She also talks about how the fish population in this part of the ocean is declining. She dove down into the water of a dead zone and saw that there was tons of fish at the surface of the water. Once she dove down further about 30 feet, there was less and less fish. At the bottom, there was few to no fish which this is really where the dead zone is. 

 

(Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone: Bruckner)

The Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone

    One dead zone that has progressively been getting worse in the past five years is the Gulf of Mexico dead zone. It is located on the Gulf of Mexico, starting at the mouth of the Mississippi River and goes all the way through the Texas coast. This dead zone is about 6,000-7,000 miles long, and in 2017 it was reported to be the size of New Jersey (Bruckner). There is some good news here though since 2017 the dead zone has been decreased. It is now down to 5,408 square miles. However, this is not a shrug of the shoulder and it is not gone and will not be unless we do something. 

Here are some things that we can do or farms can do to make sure this dead zone does not grow anymore:


1. Farms using fewer fertilizers and making it so there is limited runoff


2. Reduce our nitrogen footprint: eat less meat and/or drive a car with nonethanol gas


3. Farms may invest in cover crops which are areas of grass that take in the runoff of excess gases and prevent it from getting into the water (Managing Runoff)

        

This is the zone as of August of 2020 

(Lousiana Universities Marine Consortium & National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Works Cited

Bruckner, Monica. "The Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone." The Science Education Resource Center, 15 Oct. 2019, serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/index.html. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

Lousiana Universities Marine Consortium, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Northern Gulf of Mexico Hypoxic Zone." United States Environmental Protection Agency, 17 Aug. 2020, Northern Gulf of Mexico Hypoxic Zone. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

"Managing Runoff to Reduce the Dead Zone." Integrate, 19 Feb. 2018, serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/food_supply/student_materials/1114. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

Rabalais, Nancy. "The 'dead zone' of the Gulf of Mexico." TED Talk, edited by Nancy Rabalais, Nov. 2017, www.ted.com/talks/nancy_rabalais_the_dead_zone_of_the_gulf_of_mexico. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.