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Good on Land and Bad in Water: Effects of Fertilizer-Rich Runoff on Algal Growth

CSEF · 2023 Earth & Environmental Sciences Honorable_mention Award

Sengupta Srija · 10

Overview

Farms that use fertilizer on their crops cause runoff into nearby lakes and rivers, tremendously increasing the growth of algae. In turn, this causes eutrophication and dead zones, which negatively impact all marine life. The objective of this project was to determine the effect of common fertilizer chemicals on algae growth. For that purpose, five different fertilizers in different dilutions were selected to simulate runoff in lakes. The independent variables in this experiment were the selected fertilizer/dilution combinations. The dependent variable was the amount of algae growth after 15 days. The control variable was lake water without any fertilizer in it. Each of the five fertilizers contained a specific ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (N-P-K). While prior studies pointed to the effectiveness of high nitrogen-to-phosphorus ratio fertilizers in promoting the growth of algae, the results of this experiment were different. As expected, phosphorus was still a key factor for rapid algal growth; however, nitrogen was found to be a deterrent to proper growth. The maximum growth achieved with phosphorus-rich fertilizer was 450% in 15 days, while all nitrogen-rich fertilizer combinations (with or without phosphorus or potassium) failed to generate growth of algae. On the other hand, potassium-rich fertilizers produced the next highest growth (after phosphorus), despite the fact that potassium is not known to be a significantly effective nutrient for algal growth. The principal conclusion made is that an “optimal dilution”- a different one per nutrient- is required for the extreme growth of algae.

Source coverage

This record comes from a published award list, not a complete project archive. Its abstract comes from CSEF's public project showcase as archived by the Internet Archive before judging (https://web.archive.org/web/20230401224130/https://ca-csef.zfairs.com/showcase/ShowcaseInfo?f=838e60b7-ea75-46e8-865c-fde4864244b3); the version presented may differ.

Awards (1)

  • Category Award: HM

Competition history

  • CSEF 2023 Earth & Environmental Sciences · Entry S0916

Resources

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