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If oxygen depletion progresses to hypoxia, fish kills can occur and invertebrates like worms and clams on the bottom may be killed as well. Still frame from an underwater video of the sea floor. The floor is covered with crabs, fish, and clams apparently dead or dying from oxygen depletion. Hypoxia may also occur in the absence of pollutants.
In the ocean, there are frequent red tide algae blooms [75] that kill fish and marine mammals and cause respiratory problems in humans and some domestic animals when the blooms reach close to shore. In addition to land runoff, atmospheric anthropogenic fixed nitrogen can enter the open ocean.
Diseases caused by pollution, lead to the chronic illness and deaths of about 8.4 million people each year. However, pollution receives a fraction of the interest from the global community. [1] This is in part because pollution causes so many diseases that it is often difficult to draw a straight line between cause and effect.
Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) bloom on Lake Erie (United States) in 2009. These kinds of algae can cause harmful algal bloom. A harmful algal bloom (HAB), or excessive algae growth, is an algal bloom that causes negative impacts to other organisms by production of natural algae-produced toxins, water deoxygenation, mechanical damage to other organisms, or by other means.
Air pollution can occur naturally or be caused by human activities. [4] Air pollution causes around 7 or 8 million deaths each year. [5] [6] It is a significant risk factor for a number of pollution-related diseases, including heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and lung cancer.
Sound blasts from seismic surveys can damage the ears of marine animals and cause serious injury. Noise pollution is especially damaging for marine mammals that rely on echolocation, such as whales and dolphins. These animals use echolocation to communicate, navigate, feed, and find mates, but excess sound interferes with their ability to use ...
Animal agriculture is a cause of harmful particulate matter pollution in the atmosphere. This type of production chain produces byproducts; endotoxin, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and particulate matter (PM), such as dust, [61] [62] all of which can negatively impact human respiratory health. [63]
Toxicity is a real but far less common cause of fish kill, and is often associated with man-made water pollution. [ 3 ] Fish kills are often the first visible signs of environmental stress and are usually investigated as a matter of urgency by environmental agencies to determine the cause of the kill.