Abiotic Data

Turbidity

Turbidity is an abiotic measure of the amount of particles floating in a body of water. The way we measure turbidity is to take a sample from a pond, then look down from the top of the test tube and compare the visibility with the visibility on paper to get a turbidity value. When turbidity levels are high, oxygen levels are low. The specific principle is like in a fire, the lower the visibility, the thicker the smoke, the less oxygen, and the more difficult it is to breathe. Being carbon-based organisms, organisms in the pond will also have a harder time breathing oxygen and surviving because of the increased turbidity. Therefore, the lower the number of turbidity, the better. We can see that when the pond was studied in 2018, before dredging, the turbidity level was 0, last year it was 20, and this year it dropped to 15. I don't think lower turbidity is better, Because there is an old Chinese saying that "the water is clear, there will be no fish", nutrients and biological feces may also cause the increase of turbidity. Therefore, clean water with a turbidity of 0 is absolutely impossible to have living things. I think the turbidity this year is pretty good. Even one of our samples was taken after a rainstorm, which affected our turbidity estimation. Because sediment may not have settled completely in the pond, as well as other factors (such as the Gaubefort scale) and a violent increase in rainfall.

PH INDEX

The pH index is suitable for measuring the acidity and alkalinity of a solution. Unlike other values, the pH is not better or better, but the closer to the middle, the better. Therefore, the closer to 7, the healthier the water is and more suitable for animals and plants to survive. From 2018 to 2022, Proctor Pond's PH index has been hovering around 6-7, which is a sign of healthy water quality. This year's pH is 6.54, a slight increase from last year's 6.43, a sign of health. In conclusion, the PH index of our pond is very stable, and its value has never been smaller than the two boundary values of 7-1=6 or greater than 7+1=8, which shows that the water quality of our school is very healthy and stable. The only thing we need to do is to maintain a good pH value, only large pollution can seriously affect it

AIR TEMP

Temperature has no real effect on the health index of the pond. It has a certain relationship with the water temperature, and the water temperature will change with the rise and fall of the temperature. Temperatures hit a record high this year, which is 54.7 degrees. I think this may be due to global warming, but due to too many variables, the increase in temperature may also be caused by chance. Because in 2010, 13 years ago, the temperature also reached 53.1 degrees.

Nitrate

Nitrate level is an important factor in water monitoring. Excess nitrate can lead to eutrophication. The main component of nitrates is nitrogen. There are many sources of nitrogen in our lives, such as fertilizers. But one of the biggest hazards of this excess is that it provides an excess of nutrients to the pond, which in turn causes algae to grow like crazy in the water. As far as we know, algae need a lot of oxygen to grow, which makes life difficult for other life in the pond. Comparing the data from 2018 to this year, we can see that nitrate levels reached 5 in 2019 and 4.2 in 2020, possibly due to dredging. After that, nitrate levels in the pond returned to a healthy level of zero. That, I suppose, is why I seemed to see algae in my pond during the Freshman year (NOT SURE). With the nitrate index at 0 again this year, we can see a great kingdom of plants and animals gradually thriving!

DISSOLVED OXYGEN LEVEL

Dissolved oxygen represents the amount of oxygen suspended in the water. Generally, numbers above 6PPM indicate the health of a body of water. Much like nitrate, oxygen in water is produced by photosynthesis in plants. The dissolved oxygen numbers are not as easy to analyze compared to other numbers, as data for 2018 and 2020 are lacking due to dredging and pandemic, respectively. But the good new is that dissolved oxygen levels have been increasing since 2019, with readings of 7 PPM in 2021 and even reaching an unprecedented 8.3 PPM this year. This shows that the dredging was a BIG success, with flora and fauna thriving due to the abundant dissolved oxygen content, and further proof of the health of the pond!

Phosphate Level

Phosphate and nitrate are often mentioned together because they are both essential nutrients for plant growth. As with nitrates, phosphate levels need to be as low as possible compared to previous figures. Phosphate has a maximum of 0 and a minimum of 4. The phosphate level in 2021 is 1.37. Our average phosphate level this year is over 2, probably not an ideal number. But I'm not concerned about the health of the pond because the causes of high phosphate levels are varied and involve many variables. For example, rainwater at the time of sample collection can cause phosphate levels to rise because rainwater is naturally weakly acidic. Overall, although the phosphate levels in the ponds this year are not as low as in previous years, I still think the ponds are probably healthy overall because other important indicators such as bioabundance index and oxygen levels are not affected.