Introduction:
In today’s world, agriculture is grown on vast areas of farmland, so that it can be able to provide food to the market, which will in turn, feed the people inhabiting the Earth. With the mass production of raw food sources, quality becomes an issue to the individual farmers providing the goods. In order to increase crop yields and crop quality, fertilizers are used in order to enhance the plant’s growth and health by providing key nutrients to the plant. However, as over-fertilization of the farmland often occurs, much of the fertilizer applied to the ground is lost to runoff water from the rain, or the water table, which is the water found within the soil. The runoff carries the fertilizer particles into streams and eventually into lakes and rivers, and causes accumulation of nutrient particles, all from different streams and rivers feeding into the body of water. As there is an over-abundance of fertilizer, the environment within the body of water promotes plant growth, in the form of blue-green algae. As the blue-green algae grows exponentially, the body of water experiences an “algae boom”, where algae particles suddenly grow uncontrollably, covering the body of water in a thick film of algae particles on the water’s surface. The algae particles act as a blanket over the water, as it eventually gets so dense with algae particles that sunlight is unable to penetrate layer of algae into the water. This becomes a problem for the plant life situated at the bottom, as no sunlight is able to reach that level, and thus the plants located there are not able to grow. As the algae boom continues, the dissolved fertilizer within the water becomes consumed, and eventually runs out. As this occurs, the blue-green algae are no longer able to support themselves, and thus it dies. As the individual algae particles die, decomposers arrive in order to recycle nutrients into the environment. However, the process of recycling requires oxygen, and as this occurs, the water oxygen levels are consumed as well. In the end, as the decomposers use up all the oxygen within the body of water, the ecosystem that used to be situated in that body of water is dramatically decreased, as only organisms that can tolerate no oxygen levels are able to grow and survive.