Reports of reddish brown waters around the Bay Area have SF Baykeeper concerned about another algal bloom. Baykeeper scientists suspect an outbreak of the same algae that caused a red tide across the Bay last year, resulting in an unprecedented fish kill event.

https://alamedapost.com/features/alameda-life/likely-algal-bloom-reported-along-central-east-bay-shoreline/

#alameda #algae #AlgalBloom #nitrogen #NutrientPollution #phosphorus #SanFranciscoBaykeeper #wastewater

“We have reached a critical turning point,” said Prof Phil Haygarth of Lancaster University. “We might be able to turn back but we have really got to pull ourselves together and be an awful lot smarter in the way we use #phosphorus. If we don’t, we face a calamity that we have termed ‘phosphogeddon’.”

Scientists warn of #PhosphoGeddon as critical #FertiliserShortages loom | #Pollution #AlgalBloom

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/12/scientists-warn-of-phosphogeddon-fertiliser-shortages-loom

"Scientists warn of ‘phosphogeddon’ as critical fertiliser shortages loom
Excessive use of phosphorus is depleting reserves vital to global food production, while also adding to the climate crisis"

but the most worrying part of this story should be this:

"They say we have become profligate in the use of phosphates we put on our fields. Fertiliser washed from them – and discharges of phosphorus-rich effluent – have triggered large-scale contamination of water and created harmful algal blooms. Some of the world’s biggest bodies of freshwater are now afflicted, including Russia’s Lake Baikal, Lake Victoria in Africa and North America’s Lake Erie. Blooms at Erie have led to poisoning of local drinking water in recent years.

Just as they do on land, phosphates help aquatic plants to grow,” said Haygarth, who is the co-author of Phosphorus: Past and Future. “And that is now having calamitous consequences in rivers, lakes and seas.”Choked by blooms, many of these bodies of water have become dead zones, where few creatures survive and which are expanding. One dead zone now forms in the Gulf of Mexico every summer, for example.

Such crises also create other environmental problems. “Climate change means we will get more algal blooms per unit of phosphate pollution because of the warmer conditions,” said Prof Bryan Spears of the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Midlothian. more
“The problem is that when that algae dies, it can decay to produce methane. So a rise in blooms will mean more methane will be pumped into the atmosphere – and methane is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere. It is a cause for real concern.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/12/scientists-warn-of-phosphogeddon-fertiliser-shortages-loom

#Climate #ClimateCrisis #Phosphorous #Pollution #Methane #Algae #AlgalBloom #HabitatLoss #HabitatDestruction

Detecting Algal Blooms with the Help of AI https://hackaday.com/2023/01/13/detecting-algal-blooms-with-the-help-of-ai/ #oceanresearch #ArduinoHacks #oceansensors #oceanography #waterquality #RaspberryPi #greenhacks #algalbloom #greatlakes #sensors #algae #ocean

Detecting Algal Blooms with the Help of AI - Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) can have negative consequences for both marine life an... - https://hackaday.com/2023/01/13/detecting-algal-blooms-with-the-help-of-ai/ #oceanresearch #arduinohacks #oceansensors #oceanography #waterquality #raspberrypi #greenhacks #algalbloom #greatlakes #sensors #algae #ocean

Delighted to share the first paper from Oloyede Adekolurejo's #algalbloom PhD thesis: "Combined effects of increased water #temperature and cyanobacterial compounds exert heterogeneous effects on survival and ecological processes in key #freshwater species" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00442-022-05277-7

RT @CopernicusEU: #Copernicus for #WaterQuality monitoring

The Indira Sagar reservoir is one of the largest in #India 🇮🇳

On 28 October, #Sentinel2 🇪🇺🛰️captured a massive #AlgalBloom🟢 ongoing in its waters

🐦🔗: https://nitter.eu/CopernicusEU/status/1586775042570047495

#Copernicus for #WaterQuality monitoring

The Indira Sagar reservoir is one of the largest in #India 🇮🇳

On 28 October, #Sentinel2 🇪🇺🛰️captured a massive #AlgalBloom🟢 ongoing in its waters

🐦🔗: https://nitter.eu/CopernicusEU/status/1586660514205253635

RT @CMEMS_EU: Beauty of algal blooms! This one was caught in the Baltic Sea on 03 July 2022. The scale of chlorophyll a in #MyOceanViewer was set to 30 mg/m2.
#algalbloom #copernicus #heatwave #algae #phytoplankton #ocean #satellitedata #MarineCopernicus #baltic
@CopernicusEU

🐦🔗: https://nitter.eu/CopernicusEU/status/1546462791980154880