Nutrient pollution, a form of water pollution, refers to contamination by excessive inputs of nutrients. It is a primary cause of eutrophication of surface waters (lakes, rivers and coastal waters), in which excess nutrients, usually nitrogen or phosphorus, stimulate algal growth. Sources of nutrient pollution include surface runoff from farm fields and pastures, discharges from septic tanks and feedlots, and emissions from combustion. Raw sewage is a large contributor to cultural eutrophication since sewage is high in nutrients. Releasing raw sewage into a large water body is referred to as sewage dumping, and still occurs all over the world. Excess reactive nitrogen compounds in the environment are associated with many large-scale environmental concerns. These include eutrophication of surface waters, harmful algal blooms, hypoxia, acid rain, nitrogen saturation in forests, and climate change.
Since the agricultural boom in the 1910s and again in the 1940s to match the increase in food demand, agricultural production relies heavily on the use of fertilizers. Fertilizer is a natural or chemically modified substance that helps soil become more fertile. These fertilizers contain high amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen, which results in excess amounts of nutrients entering the soil. Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are the "Big 3" primary nutrients in commercial fertilizers, each of these fundamental nutrients play a key role in plant nutrition. When nitrogen and phosphorus are not fully utilized by the growing plants, they can be lost from the farm fields and negatively impact air and downstream water quality. These nutrients can eventually end up in aquatic ecosystems and are a contributor to increased eutrophication. When farmers spread their fertilizer, whether it is organic or synthetically made, some of it will leave as runoff and can collect downstream generating cultural eutrophication.
Mitigation approaches to reduce nutrient pollutant discharges include nutrient remediation, nutrient trading and nutrient source apportionment.
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Agricultural wastewater treatment is a farm management agenda for controlling pollution from confined animal operations and from surface runoff that may be contaminated by chemicals in fertilizer, pesticides, animal slurry, crop residues or irrigation water. Agricultural wastewater treatment is required for continuous confined animal operations like milk and egg production. It may be performed in plants using mechanized treatment units similar to those used for industrial wastewater.
Agricultural pollution refers to biotic and abiotic byproducts of farming practices that result in contamination or degradation of the environment and surrounding ecosystems, and/or cause injury to humans and their economic interests. The pollution may come from a variety of sources, ranging from point source water pollution (from a single discharge point) to more diffuse, landscape-level causes, also known as non-point source pollution and air pollution. Once in the environment these pollutants can have both direct effects in surrounding ecosystems, i.
Hypoxia refers to low oxygen conditions. Normally, 20.9% of the gas in the atmosphere is oxygen. The partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere is 20.9% of the total barometric pressure. In water, oxygen levels are much lower, approximately 7 ppm or 0.0007% in good quality water, and fluctuate locally depending on the presence of photosynthetic organisms and relative distance to the surface (if there is more oxygen in the air, it will diffuse across the partial pressure gradient).
The course aims at introducing basic physical aspects of molecular and turbulent diffusion, as well as of dispersion processes, their mathematical modeling, solutions and related environmental applica
This course on water and wastewater treatment shows how to implement and design different methods and techniques to eliminate organic matter, nitrogen and phosporous from wastewater, and how to apply
Focus is on lakes, rivers and reservoirs as aquatic systems. Specific is the quantitative analyse (incl. exercises) of physical, biogeochemical and sedimentological processes / interactions. The goal
Freshwater algae exhibit complex dynamics, particularly in meso-oligotrophic lakes with sudden and dramatic increases in algal biomass following long periods of low background concentration. While the fundamental prerequisites for algal blooms, namely ligh ...
Springernature2024
, , ,
Climate change and reduction in nutrient loads have significant effects on primary production and phytoplankton growth dynamics. Since in the last few decades in many regions, nutrients in lakes were reduced simultaneously as the climate changed. Yet, it r ...
SPRINGER BASEL AG2023
Hydrological extremes can affect nutrient export from catchments to streams, posing a threat to aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we investigated the effects of hydrological drought on nitrate concentrations in the streamflow of 182 German catchments from ...