China's marine ecosystems and nitrogen fertilizer

[Sophia123]

For my assignment I have to respond to my research question:

How has the use of fertiliser in agriculture impacted on the loss of biodiversity in China's marine ecosystems over the past 20 years?

 

I am having trouble finding resources to answer the question. Are there any sites you recommend? I can change the location and time frame in my research question to help get more evidence. 

 

The fertiliser is in relation to nitrogen fertiliser and the nitrogen cycle. For the analysis and interpretation, I was aiming on comparing the increase in algae blooms to the consumption / run off of nitrogen fertiliser through using tables and graphs. From there, I was going to explain how algae blooms affect marine biodiversity.

 

Do you have any recommendations or advice?

Thank you.

[CharonY]

That is actually a pretty complex question, which level of assignment are we talking about? From your outline it does seem that you may want to discuss the topic in more general issues which could be easy to talk about on a high level, though there are a lot of unknowns to any specific system under investigation.

For example, in many systems the relative contribution of a specific source (e.g. agriculture) to all other sources in a specific area may not be fully investigated, likewise the role of nutrient ratios (especially P) can have an important impact. There is the role of inorganic vs organic nitrogen and so on. And these are only some of the issues I picked up from various talks by aquatic people- it is really outside of my expertise. In other words, it really depends on the expectation how deep you need to go (e.g. high school vs 100-level uni vs advanced vs grad courses).

[Sophia123]

Thanks.

Im in grade 10.  I probably need to modify my research question because I've been having trouble finding data. So far, I have formed tables on:

- China's fertiliser consumption in kilograms per hectare of arable land from 2002 to 2016

- The number of algae blooms each year in the Northern Beibu Gulf of China from 1985 to 2017

I wanted to find data that shows the direct effect of the increased fertiliser use but it has been difficult - maybe the loss in marine species but I'll keep on researching.