Nitrate is monitored for environmental protection purposes in agriculture, food controls and multiple water sources. Generally nitrogen levels are low in unpolluted water but can be found in small amounts. Determining the presence of nitrate can be difficult due to the small amounts of nitrate in water.
Nitrate can be found in rivers lakes and ground water. Nitrate nitrogen is the pre dominant form of nitrogen. A high level of nitrate present in water indicates that there was organic pollution but not recently.
Plants and animals need nutrients like nitrogen for the formation of amino acids. Nitrogen cannot be used by aquatic plants in its molecular form. Nitrogen is converted into another form, ammonia (NH3) to make available to plants.
Ammonia is released when organic …show more content…
This can cause fish to die due to the toxicity and is also more expensive to treat for human consumption. A chemical equilibrium is seen between ionised and unionised forms when ammonia dissolves in water. Unionised NH3 is toxic and increases in toxicity when the temperature and pH rises. When assessing water quality it is important to measure unionised ammonia along with total ammonia.
Eutrophication and subsequent degradation can result in excessive concentrations of nitrogen in stream water quality. Levels above 10 mg/L of nitrate in drinking water can be very dangerous, especially to young children. An example of this is Blue Baby Syndrome (methemoglobinemia). This is a disease that causes oxygen deficiency in the blood. Hemoglobin is no longer able to transport oxygen around the body.
Agricultural activities in Europe have had a huge effect in the pollution of water with nitrate. The EU Nitrates Directive was set up to help prevent and protect water from being polluted by agricultural sources. Agricultural activities such as fertiliser, slurry and manure spreading are the main sources of nitrate pollution
Nitrate can be found in rivers lakes and ground water. Nitrate nitrogen is the pre dominant form of nitrogen. A high level of nitrate present in water indicates that there was organic pollution but not recently.
Plants and animals need nutrients like nitrogen for the formation of amino acids. Nitrogen cannot be used by aquatic plants in its molecular form. Nitrogen is converted into another form, ammonia (NH3) to make available to plants.
Ammonia is released when organic …show more content…
This can cause fish to die due to the toxicity and is also more expensive to treat for human consumption. A chemical equilibrium is seen between ionised and unionised forms when ammonia dissolves in water. Unionised NH3 is toxic and increases in toxicity when the temperature and pH rises. When assessing water quality it is important to measure unionised ammonia along with total ammonia.
Eutrophication and subsequent degradation can result in excessive concentrations of nitrogen in stream water quality. Levels above 10 mg/L of nitrate in drinking water can be very dangerous, especially to young children. An example of this is Blue Baby Syndrome (methemoglobinemia). This is a disease that causes oxygen deficiency in the blood. Hemoglobin is no longer able to transport oxygen around the body.
Agricultural activities in Europe have had a huge effect in the pollution of water with nitrate. The EU Nitrates Directive was set up to help prevent and protect water from being polluted by agricultural sources. Agricultural activities such as fertiliser, slurry and manure spreading are the main sources of nitrate pollution