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Acid rain effects on aquatic ecosystems
How are aquatic ecosystems affected by acid rain
How are aquatic ecosystems affected by acid rain
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Recommended: Acid rain effects on aquatic ecosystems
Rain forms when water vapor condenses and falls, the more it condenses the more it falls. Some raindrops are not pure and are filled with other materials, this is known as acid rain. Acid rain is a huge problem all over the world. Acid rain is mixture of chemicals, like fossil fuels and the atmosphere, it then comes down as rain, snow, hail, and sleet. The burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of acid rain. When oil and coal are burned they create sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide, and nitrogen dioxide. (" Acid Rain | US EPA") The mixture of all the chemicals and heavy winds blow the compounds across many borders.
Acid rain is measured by using the pH scale. The pH scale is the measure of how acidic or basic a substance is, which ranges from
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More specifically, forest, soil, aquatic life, and public health. Acid rain gets rid of minerals and nutrients from soil that trees need to legitimately grow. Trees influenced by corrosive rain are weakened and develop slowly. They become frail and are prone to be harmed by ice, creepy crawlies and illnesses.("Understanding Acid Rain" S1) Acid rain harms leaves and at this point, they can no longer utilize photosynthesis adequately to make enough food to keep a tree developing.(Reich and Amundson 566) Soil is a dynamic blend of rock and rotting matter that covers a large part of Earth 's surface. Soil is necessary, it provides many resources. Acid rain may seep into soil, causing it to mix with the soil. Calcium and magnesium are vital for plant development, they also kill acids, by the use of buffering. After some time the soil begins thin and can turn out to be progressively acidic, due to the rain. Acid rain usually falls right over bodies of water. As time goes on the chemicals in the rain affect the overall pH of the lake, stream, or river. If the pH drops the aquatic life would suffer, it lowers the amount of biodiversity. () Dry forms of acid rain can cause health problems like bronchitis and asthma. Acid rain damages our
The Dust Bowl was a treacherous storm, which occurred in the 1930's, that affected the midwestern people, for example the farmers, and which taught us new technologies and methods of farming. As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out. Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land." The early thirties opened with prosperity and growth. At the time the Midwest was full of agricultural growth. The Panhandle of the Oklahoma and Texas region was marked contrast to the long soup lines of the Eastern United States.
Ecosystems are the basic biological units of ecology, and consist of biotic organisms and their interactions amongst other living organisms, as well as the surrounding abiotic environment (Putman and Wratten 1984). One facet of ecosystems that is less-often mentioned is the process of decomposition, as it many may view it as an unclean, unpleasant process that occurs after an organism has ceased to exist. To those with an ecological framework, however, decomposition is viewed as the opposite – an interesting, intricate process teeming with biological activity and life (Swan and Kominoski 2012). What is decomposition? Formally, decomposition is defined as the process to which complex organic matter is broken down to its basic constituents (i.e.
The great dust bowl of the 1930’s was a very traumatic disaster that affected the lives of many. Not only did the dust bowl affect humans but it also affected animals and their homes too.
Acid rain has been proven to have damage forests, fresh waters and soils, killing insect and aquatic life-forms. It also causes damage to buildings and impacts on human health. Many people do not know what acid rain actually is. Acid rain is any form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, low pH levels, higher than normal amounts of sulfuric and nitric acid, occurs naturally and from man made sources. Forms when gases react in the atmosphere with water, oxygen, and other chemicals (what is acid rain?). The only water that will not have some amount of acidity is pure water. Pure water has a pH of 7 which is neutral; regular, unpolluted rain water has a pH of around 5.6. The acidity in rain water comes from the presence of Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxide, and Sulfur Dioxide. CO2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid. Nitrogen and water react during lightning storms, forming Nitric Oxide. NO is then oxidized to form N02. The NO2 reacts with water to form nitric acid. Due to this, the pH is lowered to be slightly acidic (Acid Rain). Acid rain can occur naturally in the environment, but the problem occurs when human interaction is the cause of the acidic levels.
A huge fascination of arsenic started in the 19th century when people got word of a province in southeastern Austria where people ate arsenic. Women would eat arsenic to help gain weight and fix their complexion to look more beautiful and men would eat arsenic because they believed it helped them breath easier when they were climbing high up in the mountains. One doctor by the name of Dr. Robert Craig MacLagan, was particularly interested in this and visited the town to see for himself what was really occurring. He observed the people and tested their urine to prove that they have been indeed ingesting arsenic. He wrote about the things he witnessed in the Edinburgh Medical Journal. The men in the town would eat 6 grains/dose at least twice a week, sometimes eating it on their bread or just drinking it with their water. As a result many Victorians began self-medicating themselves with arsenic.
Acid rain affects many things in our world greatly. Acid rain is precipitation that has been released into the atmosphere and is very harmful and can do lots of damage.
Acid rain can effect trees in several different ways. It can dissolve and wash away the minerals and nutrients in the soil. These factors in the soil help the trees to grow and is very important. Acid rain also cause the release of dangerous substances such as aluminum into the soil. Photosynthesis is also affected because of the waxy protective layer of the leaves being harmed. A combination of these effects weakens the trees which means that they can be more easily attacked by diseases and insects or injured by bad weather. It is not just trees that are affected by acid rain, other plants may also suffer.
When there is a lage amount of acid rain that falls in an area over a period of time, it can hurt the environment for all of the creatures living there. Acid rain can make a lake acidic which will most likely kill off a majority of the animals living in that lake.(McCormick 16) This happens all over the world. Michael Hopkin a reporter, and the author of “Acid rain still hurting Canada” states that, “Lakes and waterways in North America are struggling to recover from the effects of acid rain, despite reduced emissions of the pollutants that cause it. Without further cuts, it could be millennia before the worst-affected sites recover, say environmentalists.” It can also kill the animals that depend on the lake for food. When a food source that animals in an area dependon to survive gets diminished or even eliminated altogether. The animals that depended on it will either die off which will cause an even bigger problem for that area 's ecosystem, or they will need to find a new food source.If the new food that the animal found is already a food source for another animal then that causes competition for food, this may reduce the numbers of one or maybe even both animals. This all can come about because of acid rain and what it can do to the environment. On the EPA student site they have an article that shows how acid rain can affect an ecosystem 's food web. “This process continues up the entire food web. So,
We can measure how acidic the rain actually is by the pH scale, 7 is
... of dust in the air. It condenses when it hits the dew point. When it condenses it becomes a liquid again or turns into either ice, hail, rain, sleet or, snow. These water particles eventually come together and form clouds. Precipitation in the form of ice, rain, sleet, snow and hail comes from clouds. Clouds move around the world, propelled by air currents. Water vapor is also emitted from plant in a process called transpiration. Excessive rain or snowmelt can produce overland flow to creeks and ditches. Runoff is visible flow of water in rivers, creeks and lakes as the water stored in the basin drains out.
I chose the subject of sanitation because it is something that everyone should be able to have available to them. Everyone everywhere should have access to fresh drinking water and appropriate means of adequate sewage disposal. By being able to have apposite sanitation procedures one is able to diminish many diseases and increase a healthier life. Billions of individuals lack the ability to be able to have a place to defecate, let alone a private place to, which leads to open defecation and then in return causes diseases like Cholera. A couple of weeks ago we watched a TEDTalk about sanitation issues, during the video, a picture was shown of a young man who was down in a deep hole covered in fecal matter. Not even a spot of personal protective
And acid rain, which is created when water in the atmosphere mixes with chemicals, ravage through rain forests and can even kill fish.
Rain is the most common form of precipitation. The United States (excluding Hawaii and Alaska), gets an average of 30.21 inches of rainfall each year. The main reason there is so much rain over the other kinds of precipitation, is the fact that for the majority of the year in most countries, the temperature is on the warmer side, therefore the air is not cold enough to convert our rain, into snow, hail, or even sleet. Freezing rain is a variant of rain. The way freezing rain
Nearly every person in the world uses salt or some form of a salt as there are many salts in the world. In America alone we use a lot of salt every day we are one of the top salt using countries in the world. Salt has a part in many things in everyone’s daily lives. Salt has many important things to it such as its crystallization, what salt is and ammonia.
Acid rain is when chemicals like nitrogen and sulphur-dioxide are released into the atmosphere and react with the water vapour, and acid pours in form of rain. This is very dangerous because it destroys infrastructures and some buildings, and also dissolves the human