MEMORANDUM

To: Professor Karen Thompson

From: Jessie Balbiani
Date: 16 February 2014
Subject: Writing to Define and Describe


The following memorandum provides an extended technical definition and a developed technical
description of a process known as eutrophication and how it affects water resources. The PSA, or
problem-solving approached, was used to clearly identify the audience, the problem, and the purpose of
the requested definition and description.

Audience

The audience is the same for both the extended technical definition and the developed technical
description. Since the subject matter is largely regarding water quality and management, the applicable
audience is broad. It includes anyone affected by degraded water quality such as property owners,
residential communities near water, water managers, environmentally inclined students, recreational
water users, and residents who do not receive their drinking water from a well.

Problem

Water is one of the most threatened resources on the planet. As more developers and residents
encroach on the banks of freshwater bodies, increasing amounts of pollutants enter and contaminate
precious water resources. Not only is this a problem for society, but it also raises huge concerns for the
ecosystem as wellcausing severe and often irreversible damage. The inflow of these pollutants often
leads to a phenomenon known as eutrophication. According to the journal of Limnology and
Oceanography, eutrophication is the number one threat to freshwater resources in the year 2013.

Purpose/Placement

Extended Technical Definition
The purpose of the extended technical definition is to define the process of eutrophication at its
most basic level. Here I define the term and explain the process in terms of watershed
characteristics, runoff properties, nutrient transport, algae behavior, and lake shallowing. This
definition was written as a precursor to the developed technical description and would be
placed at the beginning of a brochure.

Developed Technical Description
The purpose of the developed technical description is to put the definition of eutrophication in
modern context and elaborate on the current issue of cultural eutrophication. It is important
first to understand what eutrophication is in a pristine environment before one can understand
the concept of cultural eutrophication. This description was written to follow the technical
definition of eutrophication and would be placed following that definition in a brochure.
Extended Technical Definition

Eutrophication

Eutrophication is a naturally occurring process often referred to as the natural aging of a lake. From the
moment a lake is formed it begins to age, that is to say transform from wet land back to a state of dry
land. All lake systems are temporary and are merely in the process of filling in and becoming dry land.
This transformation normally takes hundreds or thousands of years and is caused by the process of
eutrophication.

As water runs over the surface of a watershed, it picks up sediments and organic material. In the
sediments and organic material are nutrients. For the purpose of this definition, the nutrients of interest
are Nitrogen and Phosphorus which are found in almost all life forms and accumulate easily in
sediments. Water from precipitation, snowmelt, and streams continue to move through the watershed,
collecting more and more nutrients. All of these water sources eventually meet and collect into one lake
at the base of the watershed. Here the nutrients transported by streams and runoff concentrate into the
lake.

The nutrients are a vital food source for algae. The increased concentrations of nutrients allow algae to
reproduce resulting in large algae blooms. The blooms restrict the amount of light able to penetrate the
water and cause aquatic plants to die. Eventually the bloom reaches a size no longer sustainable by the
available nutrients and the algae also begin to die. The dead algae and aquatic plants sink to the bottom
of the lake and decomposed, adding to the bottom lake sediments and slightly shallowing the overall
depth of the lake. With the algae gone, the lake balance returns and new plants grow.

The process then repeats; more nutrients enter the lake system allowing algae to grow, aquatic plants
die, algae die, sediment builds up at the bottom of the lake, and the lake shallows. Eventually, as the
lake becomes more shallow with time, the lake sediments provide suitable habitat for a wider variety of
plants that are able to take root and reproduce in the shallow zones. This fosters a positive feedback
by becoming shallower the sediments are available to more plants that thus cause accelerated
shallowing. After centuries of this process repeating the lake changes from a waterbody to a wetland to
a marsh and finally to solid dry land.

While this process is sometimes viewed as the death of an ecosystem, it is also considered the birth of a
new ecosystem. It is important to note as well that the process of lake aging and eutrophication occur
over hundreds of yearsgiving the plant and animal communities time to adjust and adapt to the
changing environment.


Developed Technical Description

Cultural Eutrophication
As defined previously, eutrophication is
a naturally occurring process in which
nutrients enter a waterbody and cause
the gradual shallowing of a lake over
the course of hundreds of years. The
problem we face today is a new
phenomenonthat of accelerated or
cultural eutrophication.

The Process
Cultural eutrophication, like natural
eutrophication, happens as a result of an increased input of nutrients into a waterbody. The difference is
the source of the nutrient. Natural eutrophication receives nutrients from soil and organic material
present in the watershed. Cultural eutrophication receives nutrients from those sources as well as man-
made sources. As a result a lake undergoing cultural eutrophication experiences unnaturally large input
of nutrients that accelerates the eutrophication process. Instead of occurring over centuries, cultural
eutrophication can happen in a matter of decades.

Sources of Nutrients
Where do these man-made sources of nutrient come from? Modern human activities and practices like
agricultural fertilizing, sewage waste, runoff from urban areas, increased erosion from deforestation,
and residential fertilizer use all
contribute excess nitrogen and
phosphorus into water
resources.

As shown in the pie charts, 50
percent of more of Nitrogen and
Phosphorus come from diffuse
(non-point) sources and point
sources. Non-point sources
include runoff from agricultural
lands and residential lawns that
have been heavily fertilized with nutrients. Point sources are things like sewage pipes and waste water
drains that input heavy nutrient water into natural water systems.

The Problem
In a natural environment not influence by human behaviors and contaminates, lake shallowing caused
by eutrophication can occur over centuries. Now cultural eutrophication allows the process to happen
over decades. The rapid decrease in time prevents the system from recovering and sustaining a healthy
ecosystem. Cultural eutrophication causes abnormally large algae blooms that consume all oxygen in
the water during the decomposition process which leads to massive fish kills and the collapse of the
food chain. The high amounts of phosphorus also foster the growth of cyanobacteria, a form of blue-
green algae toxic if ingested. The cyanobacteria blooms can poison drinking water and destroy the
beneficial uses of a lake system.