Solutions
Hypoxia is an issue with both local and global causes and impacts. Solutions are also global and local in scope. Fortunately, solutions that address climate change, such as reducing emissions and conserving natural areas, also help to address the root causes of hypoxia.
Reduce agricultural runoff:
Modern agricultural practices often involve the extensive use of chemical fertilizers and spreading of raw manure on farm fields. Excess fertilizers may run off into waterways, leach into groundwater, and vaporize into the atmosphere and be redeposited. Meat and fish production, especially confined animal feeding operations and improperly managed aquaculture operations, are major sources of nutrient pollution. Solutions include:
Education and support for farms in adopting nutrient management techniques.
Encourage or require farming practices such as planting cover crops, reducing tilled areas, vegetated buffers around fields.
Regulation and oversight of confined animal feeding operations.
Remove incentives for farming practices that use chemical fertilizers, rather than building soil health.
Advocate for regulation that limits the use of fertilizers.
Curb fossil fuel use:
A major part of the solution is to drastically reduce fossil fuel use - something we have to do to avert the worst of the climate crisis.
Reduce emissions from the energy, transportation and food sectors.
Support policies to speed the transition to renewable energy.
Advocate for tighter regulation on industrial emissions and runoff.
Green our cities:
Runoff of rainwater from paved surfaces contributes to pollution of waterways. Aging and flood-prone stormwater and sewage infrastructure can lead to releases of untreated effluent into waterways during storms. Practices that reduce runoff and improve sewage treatment can have a positive effect on our waterways.
Separation of stormwater and sewage effluent into separate conveyance systems reduces the potential for wastewater treatment plants to be overwhelmed by rainwater during storm events.
Constructing, upgrading and flood-proofing wastewater infrastructure will reduce incidence of untreated sewage releases into waterways.
Advocate for the addition of green infrastructure and nature-based solutions for stormwater management.
Use nature-based solutions:
Natural land cover slows the flow of stormwater and helps it infiltrate into the soil, recharging groundwater filtering it of some pollutants before it reaches waterways. Natural land cover has been replaced by an abundance of paved surfaces in developed areas. We can restore some land cover in urban areas in a variety of ways:
Install green infrastructure for stormwater management. Green infrastructure allows rainwater to soak into soil, and includes rain gardens, bioswales, pervious pavements.
Conserve and re-create natural shorelines that are gently sloped to the water and vegetated with native plantings.
Plant a buffer of trees and native shrubs along stream banks.
Protect floodplains by preventing development near waterways.
Conserve natural landscapes:
Natural land cover, such as forests, vegetated streambanks, floodplains, and wetlands provide multiple benefits, including absorbing rainwater to prevent runoff and recharge groundwater, slowing floodwaters, preventing erosion and -importantly - cleaning and filtering water before it enters rivers and streams. We can help conserve natural landscapes:
Support local land trusts.
Pass local zoning with strong conservation measures.
Join a watershed group.
Get involved in campaigns to change policies related to land use and energy.
Make sustainable choices at home:
Actions that we can take to reduce pollution at home include:
Minimize the use of chemical fertilizers on lawns and gardens.
Maintain and enhance the natural landscape around your home and install rain gardens or rain barrels to absorb storm water from roofs and paved areas.
Reduce meat in your diet or adopt a plant-based diet.
Purchase food from local farms that use sustainable practices.
Reduce energy use, and the number of miles driven.
Transition to renewable sources of energy for home and vehicles.
Use cleaning supplies that don’t contain phosphates.
If you’re a homeowner in a rural area, properly maintain your home septic system.
Solutions in study areas
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission – also known as the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) – is an intergovernmental organization established in 1974 to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea from all sources of pollution. The countries participating in HELCOM are Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Sweden, along with the European Union. HELCOM works with a wide scope of sectors and themes, including agriculture, fisheries, and industrial & municipal releases, with a goal of preventing excess nutrients from entering the Baltic Sea. The cooperation of the nine surrounding countries has brought down nutrient levels substantially. But legacy phosphorus in the sediments will continue to fuel algal blooms for decades. So, despite reduced inputs, improving oxygen levels is still a work in progress.
Gulf of Mexico
The U.S. EPA’s Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force was established in the fall of 1997 to understand the causes and effects of eutrophication in the Gulf of Mexico. The Task Force coordinates activities to reduce the size, severity, and duration of the hypoxic zone; and ameliorate the effects of hypoxia. The aim of this work is to reduce nutrient loads in order to improve water quality in the Mississippi River Basin and reduce the size of the Gulf hypoxic zone. The Task Force supports voluntary efforts to reduce runoff pollution, targeting priority watersheds with nutrient reduction strategies and watershed planning. The Hypoxia Task Force also supports monitoring and assessment of pollution reduction efforts. The 2022 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides a total of $60 million for actions that support the Task Force’s Gulf Hypoxia Action Plan. These investments will improve water quality in the Gulf and throughout the Mississippi River River Basin and track the results.
Lake Erie
The first Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) was produced by Canada and the US in 1972. The GLWQA is a broad-spectrum initiative that attempts to identify all of the threats to water quality and mandates actions to address them. Updates to the GLWQA set target annual load of phosphorous coming from point sources, including municipal wastewater treatment plants. By the early 1980’s, known phosphorous loads to Lake Erie had been reduced by 60%. Since then, nutrient pollution has been predominantly from non-point sources, such as farms. Governing bodies have approached this issue using education or incentives to reduce nutrient loading from agriculture. In 2016, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement adopted binational phosphorus load reduction targets. In 2018, the U.S. Action Plan was produced. The plan is expected to reduce phosphorus loading and lead to agricultural and landscape management practices that provide multiple benefits for the lake.