What is the impact of land erosion on the coastal waters?

Viewed from satellite imagery, plumes of sediment from rivers can be precisely monitored and their impact on the biological community correlated to local data observations. Nutrient overloading into estuarine systems from upriver agricultural and industrial interests has resulted in extensive coastal “dead zones” in which the levels of dissolved oxygen are too low to support animal life. Concentrations of heavy metals found in tissues of shellfish and fish have been studied and linked to human health issues, such as the well-documented Minamata disease that resulted from the methyl mercury poisoning of the fish in the Sea of Japan. Natural events, such as flooding from hurricanes or other prolonged weather patterns, have always occurred, but the environmental significance of these events has been substantially altered as the world population uses the land surrounding our waterways for a variety of interests.

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