Question

Explain how the Mississippi River drainage into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana leads to a large dead zone.

Answer 1

ANSWER:

The dead zone is caused by nutrient enrichment from the river, significantly element and phosphoric. Watersheds inside the river Basin drain a lot of of the us, from Treasure State to Pennsylvania and increasing southward on the river. Most of the element input comes from major farming states within the river natural depression, as well as American state, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and American state. element and phosphoric enter the watercourse through upstream runoff of fertilizers, eroding, animal wastes, and sewage. during anatural system, these nutrients are not important factors in alga growth as a result of they're depleted within the soil by plants. However, with anthropogenically inflated element and phosphorus input, algae growth is not any longer restricted. Consequently, protoctist blooms develop, the organic phenomenon is altered, and dissolved atomic number 8 within the space is depleted. the dimensions of the dead zone fluctuates seasonally, because it is exacerbated by farming practices. it's conjointly littered with weather events like flooding and hurricanes.