Human activities are making the world’s air, soil and fresh water saltierIf current trends continue, this could pose a serious global threat. This is the conclusion of a new scientific study recently published in the journal. Nature Reviews Earth and Environment.
According to University of Maryland Geology Professor Sujay Kaushal, geological and hydrological processes bring salts to the Earth’s surface over time, butHuman activities such as mining and land use are rapidly accelerating the natural “salt cycle.”
Agriculture, construction, water purification and the use of salt to de-ice roads and other industrial activities intensify salinization.
Agriculture, construction, water purification and the use of salt to de-ice roads and other industrial activities can also intensify salinization, which harms biodiversity and, in extreme cases, makes drinking water unhealthy.
“If you think of the planet as a living organism, When so much salt accumulates, the functioning of vital organs or ecosystems can be affected.“Removing salt from water is an energy-intensive and expensive process, and the resulting brine is saltier than ocean water and cannot be easily removed,” he added.
People affect salt concentration
Kaushal and colleagues described these perturbations as the “anthropogenic salt cycle” and found for the first time that humans influence salt concentration and cycling on a global, interconnected scale.
“Twenty years ago, all we had were isolated case studies. Here in New York or in drinking water supplies in Baltimore, we can say that surface water is salty,” said University of Ecologist Gene Likens, one of the study’s authors. Connecticut “Now we have shown that This is a significant disruption of the entire cycle, from the depths of the Earth to the atmosphere. by human activities”.
The new study took into account a variety of salt ions found in underground and surface waters. Salts are compounds composed of positively charged cations and negatively charged anions; Some of the most abundant are calcium, magnesium, potassium and sulfate ions.
“When people think of salt, they often think of sodium chloride, but our studies have shown that Over the years we have also modified other types of saltincluding those related to limestone, gypsum and calcium sulphate,” said Kaushal.
Salt even seeped into the air
These ions can cause environmental problems when released in higher doses. Kaushal and other co-authors of the study showed that: Human-caused salinization affects an area worldwide roughly the size of the United States.. Salt ions in streams and rivers have also increased over the last 50 years, coinciding with an increase in global salt use and production.
Salt even seeped into the air. In some areas, lakes are drying up and sending clouds of salty dust into the atmosphere. In areas with snow, road salt can become aerosolizedIt forms sodium and chloride particles.
Lakes are drying up in some areas, sending clouds of salty dust into the atmosphere
Salinization is also associated with “cascading” effects. For example, Salty dust could accelerate snowmelt and harm snow-dependent communities for your water supply. Due to their structure, salt ions can bind to pollutants in soil and sediments, creating “chemical cocktails” that circulate in the environment and have harmful effects.
“Salt has a small ionic radius and can squeeze itself between soil particles very easily,” Kaushal said. said. “This is actually how road salt prevents ice crystals from forming,” he recalls.
Road salt has a huge impact in the United States, which produces 44 billion pounds of de-icing material each year. Between 2013 and 2017, 44% of salt consumption in the US came from roadsand represents 13.9% of the total dissolved solids entering rivers nationwide. According to Kaushal, this could lead to a “significant” concentration of salt in the basins.
To prevent American waterways from being filled with salt in the coming decades, Kaushal has proposed policies that limit road salt or encourage alternatives.
Reference work: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-023-00485-y
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