Input | Output |
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Link | Youtube |
Published | 2023/03/18 |
Theme | |
Status | article incomplete |
Beau says:
Beau explains the challenges posed by the massive sargassum seaweed bloom heading towards Florida and Mexico, impacting coastal areas and tourism, requiring a balance between agricultural needs and beach preservation, and potentially necessitating regulations on nutrient runoff.
Travelers, coastal residents
Details on the potential ecological impact of the sargassum seaweed bloom.
#SargassumSeaweed #EnvironmentalImpact #CoastalCommunities #Tourism #NutrientRunoff
Well, howdy there, internet people, it's Bo again.
So today we are going to talk about seaweed.
We're gonna talk about seaweed,
particularly sargassum seaweed.
There is a bloom, which is a collection of it
out in the ocean.
It is headed towards Florida and Mexico.
It is about 5,000 miles wide.
That's big.
This is probably going to negatively impact the areas
where this stuff finally ends up on shore.
So what is this stuff?
It's not actually bad out in the ocean.
It's not bad in balance.
This is it's seaweed that kind of floats along.
And the species that are migrating,
they use it for habitat.
It gives food, there's a lot to it,
and it's good in a lot of ways out in the ocean.
When it comes ashore, it, like anything, rots.
If you are heading to areas that might be impacted,
expect the smell of rotting eggs.
It also can be an irritant in some ways to some people.
I'm not sure as to how it works, but I
have heard of people having respiratory issues, skin
issues, just a lot of bad things from it.
Me personally, my only experience with it is the smell.
Now, this has been kind of a big deal,
and people have known about it and observed
the larger and larger blooms for about a decade.
The investigations into what is causing it to be out of balance,
they have led to two different things working in conjunction.
One, of course, climate change.
That has something to do with it.
The other is nitrogen and other nutrients
that are basically running off into rivers
and then finding their way out into the ocean.
And it feeds it, so it gets bigger.
Stands to reason, right?
This is, for areas along the coast,
this is gonna become a thing.
This is gonna become something
that they're gonna have to deal with,
particularly when it occurs in conjunction with a red tide,
they're going to have to figure out what to do.
They're going to have to balance the agricultural needs, which
create a lot of the runoff, with their beaches.
A lot of places that are going to be impacted by this,
the tourism dollars, they really matter.
Nobody wants to go to a beach that is covered in rotting seaweed and smells like rotten eggs.
There's going to have to be a
balance struck.
And that balance should theoretically
help balance what's happening out in nature.
So,
if you are headed to
the Gulf Coast or
to the southern Atlantic coast, to Mexico, wherever,
for vacation.
That smell, that's what it is.
And this issue will probably persist
until the tourism dollars start to decline to a point
where officials start to notice.
And then enact regulations dealing with the nutrients
runoff, that could help.
could help alleviate the issue.
But that's what's going on when you hear people
talk about the seaweed blob.
That's what they're referencing.
And it is huge.
It's huge.
And we've dealt with big ones before, but this is huge.
Anyway, it's just a thought.
Thank you all, have a good day.
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