This Year’s Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone Might be Bigger than Ever

Every summer, a vast, oxygen-deprived ‘dead zone’ appears in the Gulf of Mexico, courtesy of runoff from Midwestern farms that travels down the Mississippi River. But this year, scientists say, that dead zone could be bigger than ever.

Farmland runoff containing fertilizers and livestock waste flood the Gulf with nitrogen and phosphorous, which fuel explosive algae growth. When that algae dies and sinks to the sea floor, bacteria consume vast amounts of oxygen while eating the decomposing organic matter. That creates a ‘hypoxic’ zone where very few sea creatures can survive.

From Science Daily:

University of Michigan aquatic ecologist Donald Scavia and his colleagues say this year’s Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” could be one of the largest on record, continuing a decades-long trend that threatens the health of a half-billion-dollar fishery.

The scientists’ latest forecast, released June 18, calls for a Gulf dead zone of between 7,450 and 8,456 square miles—an area about the size of New Jersey.

“The growth of these dead zones is an ecological time bomb,” said Scavia, a professor at the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment and director of the U-M Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute.

“Without determined local, regional and national efforts to control them, we are putting major fisheries at risk,” said Scavia, who also produces annual dead-zone forecasts for the Chesapeake Bay.

It’s possible that this year’s dead zone will be roughly the same size as last year’s, but that will still mean that the five largest dead zones on record have occurred since 2001, a clear sign that the problem is getting much worse. The dead zone’s official size will be announced following an NOAA-supported monitoring survey on July 18th – 26th.

Link [Science Daily]
Photo credit: NASA

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