The growing environmental and health risks posed by microplastics can only be addressed by reducing the amount of plastic produced and ensuring that all of it is recycled.
Ice on Lake Erie provides winter light for algae thriving below.
Sue Thompson
In winter 2023-24, the Great Lakes’ ice cover was near record lows, peaking at just 16%. Researchers explain how diminishing ice could have consequences for fisheries, and how species are evolving.
A front-end loader dumps road salt into a truck in Chelsea, Mass.
(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
Increasing awareness of the dangers ‘forever chemical’ road salts pose to our fresh water systems highlights the urgent importance of finding new approaches to de-icing our roads.
An earthquake-triggered tsunami sweeps shores along Iwanuma, Miyagi prefecture, northern Japan, March 11, 2011.
(Kyodo News via AP, File)
Images of the 2011 tsunami did not look as I had expected, and pointed to the sublime, when experience exceeds our frameworks of understanding. My exhibit ‘Salients’ treats this theme.
Satellite photo of an algal bloom in western Lake Erie, July 28, 2015.
NASA Earth Observatory
Donald Boesch, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Donald Scavia, University of Michigan
Nutrient pollution fouls lakes and bays with algae, killing fish and threatening public health. Progress curbing it has been slow, mainly because of farm pollution.
Children participate in a water fight in Lake Ontario in Mississauga, Ontario, during a heat wave on June 5, 2021.
Zou Zheng/Xinhua via Getty Images
Working waterfronts are a key link between consumers and seafood, but are increasingly threatened by developers. Policies need to ensure that waterfronts remain accessible to seafood harvesters.
Buoys and underwater probes can measure water quality, like this one outside of Cleveland, Ohio.
(Ed Verhamme, LimnoTech)
Should lakes, rivers and other resources have legal rights? New Zealand, Ecuador and other countries have taken this step. Now Toledo, Ohio is a US test case.
Charter boat Capt. Dave Spangler holds a sample of algae from Maumee Bay in Lake Erie, Sept. 15, 2017.
AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File
Scientists are predicting major algae blooms in Lake Erie and large dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico this summer. Nutrient pollution from industrial corn farming is a major driver.
How much would you pay to make this disappear?
Emilian Robert Vicol
What would you pay to keep trash off your favorite beach, or pollution away from a national park? Economists can tease these values out of our travel choices and use the numbers to help make policy.
Blooms of algae, like this growth in 2015 in Lake St. Clair between Michigan and Ontario, promote the formation of dead zones.
NASA Earth Observatory
Scientists have mapped a huge dead zone in the Gulf of Oman, without enough oxygen in the water to support life. This Speed Read explains why dead zones form in waters around the world.
Harmful algae bloom in Lake Erie, Oct. 13, 2011.
NASA Earth Observatory
Nitrogen and phosphorus are polluting US waters, creating algae blooms and dead zones. New research confirms that voluntary steps are failing in the Gulf of Mexico and unlikely to work in Lake Erie.
Algae overload: Lake Erie algal bloom 2011.
NOAA/NASA
The same conditions – ultimately tied to nutrient runoff – that created the damaging toxic blooms and dead zones in US waterways of recent years are forecast to return this year.