Nutrients

Nutrients are chemical elements and compounds found in the environment that plants and animals need to grow and survive. For water-quality investigations the various forms of nitrogen and phosphorus are the nutrients of interest. The forms include nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, organic nitrogen (in the form of plant material or other organic compounds), and phosphates (orthophosphate and others). Nitrate is the most common form of nitrogen and phosphates are the most common forms of phosphorus found in natural waters. High concentrations of nutrients in water bodies can potentially cause eutrophication and hypoxia

More Information

• Nutrients National Synthesis Project, USGS National Water-Quality Assessment Program
• Nutrients in the Nation's Waters--Too Much of a Good Thing?, USGS Circular 1136
• Nutrients, South Florida Restoration Science Forum
• Nutrients, USGS Chesapeake Bay Activities
• Nutrient Enrichment and Criteria, USGS National Water-Quality Assessment Program
• Water Quality Criteria - Nutrients, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Related Headlines

• New Information on the Long-Term Fate of Ammonium in Ground Water
• Nitrogen Isotope Study Answers Questions about the Transport of Nutrients in Streams
• New Report on Science for Hypoxia in Gulf of Mexico
• Phosphorus Doesn't Migrate in Ground Water? Better Think Again!
• USGS Info Guides Gulf of Mexico Hypoxic Zone Action Plan
• USGS Leads a National Study on Hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico, Flux and Sources of Nutrients in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin

Nutrient Remediation Information

• USGS Patents Bioreactors that Treat Nitrate and Methyl Bromide Contamination
• Phosphorus Plume Remediation, USGS Toxics Program Remediation Activity
• Nitrate Remediation, Massachusetts Military Reservation, Cape Cod, MA, USGS Toxics Program Remediation Activity
• Handbook on Permeable Reactive Barriers Published, Handbook of groundwater remediation using permeable reactive barriers--Applications to radionuclides, trace metals, and nutrients: Academic Press

References

• Freeze, R.A., and Cherry, J.A., 1979, Groundwater: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc., p. 604.
• Hallberg, G.R., and Keeney, D.R., 1993, Nitrate, in Alley, W.M., Ed., Regional Ground-Water Quality: New York, Van Hostrand Reinhold, p. 297-322.
• Hem, J.D., 1985, Study and Interpretation of the Chemical Characteristics of Natural Water, Third Edition: U.S. Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper 2254, p. 263
• Mueller, D.K. and Helsel, D.R., 1996, Nutrients in the Nation's Waters--Too Much of a Good Thing?: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1136, p. 24.

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