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This course may be repeated for credit.
Human activities have affected the water quality and thus the ecosystems of coastal regions over the last several hundreds of years, during which period regional and global environments also changed profoundly. In eastern North America, the arrival of European colonists resulted in clear-cutting of forests with subsequent industrial and urban development. Before the clear-cutting, the old-growth forest cover probably exported little nutrients such as dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus. After World War II nutrient fluxes increased even more with the strong population growth, and the construction of waste water treatmentplants may have led to enhanced focusing into coastal waters of nutrients and the associated heavy metal and organic pollutants. Nutrients are also delivered to the Sound by runoff from agricultural fertilizer application and enhanced soil erosion because of cultivation of former woodlands. In addition, nitrates are deposited from the atmosphere in the watershed because of the production of nitrogen oxides during fossil fuel burning in power plants and from exhaust gases of motor vehicles We will study the profound changes in coastal ecosystems over the period of anthropogenic influence, with emphasis on Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound (LIS), considering the Sound itself as well as the adjoining coastal marshes in the intertidal zone.
COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: NONE Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: E&ES101 OR E&ES199 Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-19-2004
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459