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Poor agricultural practices and monoculture on cropland cause a nutrient depletion in the soil, which we fix using commercial fertilizers. Unfortunately, all of the excess nutrient runoff from watering the fertilized farms ends up in the rivers and makes it to the ocean, and collectively causes oxygen depleted dead zones. Areas of water where the nitrogen and phosphorous (among others) is too high has no dissolved oxygen in the water which makes it impossible for fish and other marine life to survive in those waters, so they either perish or move on to another home. Algae on the other hand, loves the low oxygen and thrives and blooms unchecked further depleting the oxygen. Low oxygen deep sea creatures which normally patrol the bottom of the ocean can be found swimming near the surface, which indicates a drastically altered eco-system at the bottom of the ocean. This year, the estimated 7,000 miles of the Gulf of Mexico which make up one of hundreds of dead zones around the world has only reached 3,000 square miles in size. Although normally this would indicate good things for us (the dead zone only growing to half of what we expected), the dead zone is particularly thick and deep, and the water contains zero life.
We desperately need to fix our agricultural system which is not only killing the oceans, but cannot feed everyone that exists on the planet today. Ditch the monoculture and biodiversify! Check out the full article on TreeHugger.
