China’s water supplies threatened by blue-green algae outbreak.

Chaohu Lake is China’s fifth fresh water source, providing fresh water to over 300,000 people and is now being invaded by blue-green algae. Scientists say that, in order to thrive, these algae need a constant temperatures of over 25 degrees Celsius, at least 3 days of direct of sunshine and a lot of nitrogen and phosphorus. And, once again, man is to blame for this natural disaster, because it supplied the lake with the chemicals the algae needed to multiply at an increasing rate. The local area became increasingly polluted after cities became industrialized. The heavy snowfalls that eventually melted and carried the nitrogen and phosphorus into the lake, didn’t help very much either.

So, for the last 4 months the Chinese authorities have been trying to keep the situation under control while locals get involved and try to fish the blue-green algae as they know best. After all their drinking water source is at stake.

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