ramonmercado
CyberPunk
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2003
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- 58,319
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- Eblana
The world's total human population has jumped to over 7.4 billion just this year.
Feeding the human species takes a tremendous toll on our natural resources including water, soil and phosphorus—a chemical element in fertilizer essential for food production.
In modern agriculture, fertilizer often leaks into waterways such as rivers, lakes and oceans. The phosphorus (P) in the runoff stimulates algae blooms and then, when algae die and decompose, dead zones develop and fish die off. But much of the "lost" phosphorus doesn't end up in water bodies—large amounts of P also accumulate in the landscape. Until now, scientists have not had a good handle on the magnitude of this accumulation.
For the first time, an international group of scientists, including researchers from Arizona State University, has come up with a way to estimate on a large scale how phosphorus flows through an environment over many decades. By doing so, researchers are gaining a better understanding of how and where phosphorus accumulates. ...
http://phys.org/news/2016-04-massive-phosphorus-buildup.html
Feeding the human species takes a tremendous toll on our natural resources including water, soil and phosphorus—a chemical element in fertilizer essential for food production.
In modern agriculture, fertilizer often leaks into waterways such as rivers, lakes and oceans. The phosphorus (P) in the runoff stimulates algae blooms and then, when algae die and decompose, dead zones develop and fish die off. But much of the "lost" phosphorus doesn't end up in water bodies—large amounts of P also accumulate in the landscape. Until now, scientists have not had a good handle on the magnitude of this accumulation.
For the first time, an international group of scientists, including researchers from Arizona State University, has come up with a way to estimate on a large scale how phosphorus flows through an environment over many decades. By doing so, researchers are gaining a better understanding of how and where phosphorus accumulates. ...
http://phys.org/news/2016-04-massive-phosphorus-buildup.html