The Effects Urbanisation Is Having on Australias...

Today, this briefing note is put to you the National Taskforce on Environmental Science and Sustainable Development in response to Urbanisation and its effects on Australias’ waterways. This is fast becoming a critical environmental issue affecting Australia. It has long been known that plants act as a natural filter of water, removing all the properties that would harm the creatures that ingest it. A key issue facing developers today is an expanding population. With expanding urban sprawl vastly affecting the green space urban development, strategies continue to focus on removing the encroachment of land as a development strategy and going ‘up’. This essay will focus on the eutrophication of waterways within Australia and in†¦show more content†¦Ammonium is the form of nitrogen taken up most readily by phytoplankton because nitrate must first be reduced to ammonia before it is assimilated as amino acids in organisms (Geoscience Australia, 2013). The excessive level of certain nutrients in waterways is often linked to human activities. A comprehensive investigation on how nutrients in waterways were increasing, was undertaken by a body of individual scientists and their findings were as follows; - Run-off from agricultural areas; - Storm water and wastewater; - Turbidity and nutrient levels occur within Australia’s river systems, generally coincide in Australias river systems. A large proportion of the suspended sediment in Australian rivers results from vegetation removal, leading to gully and stream bank erosion and sheetwash. Phosphorus is overwhelmingly associated with such particulate loads (The National Land and Water Resources Audit, 2002). - Dentrification is a major sink for inorganic nitrogen in estuaries. Nitrogen loss due to denitrification can exceed 50% of the total nitrogen input, and is probably the main reason why nitrogen can sometimes be the limiting nutrient in estuaries (Berelson, W.M., Heggie, D., Longmore, A., Kilgore, T., Nickolson, G., Skyring, G. 1998). - Water column phosphorus concentrations have also been shown to increase under anoxic conditions (Webb, K.L. and DElia, C.F. 1980). This is because some of the iron oxyhydroxides that