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In the early 1980s the clear fresh waters of Lake Taihu, China’s third-largest lake lying in the Yangtze River delta, drew tourists from around the country. The algal blooms—seen here in a shallow area lined with fish traps—began in the 1990s, covering up to 600 square miles each summer. Today the lake has become the poster child for freshwater pollution in China. The algae, which thrive in warm, nutrient-rich waters, are fed by a trifecta of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from surrounding industries, municipal sewage plants that serve more than 40 million people, and fertilizer runoff from more than 13,900 square miles of agricultural fields. Waste from intensive aquaculture operations that began in the lake in the 1980s contributed to the nutrient load as well. Lake Taihu was closed to allaquaculture in 2019 to allow the ecosystem to recover, but the other sources of nutrient pollution have proved more difficult to control. And despite decades of government programs and some $14 billion spent to prevent them, the blooms continue to occur. Algal blooms have become a persistent problem in many parts of the globe, where human industry and agriculture have doubled the available nitrogen and tripled the available phosphorus in our watersheds, leading to more than four hundred eutrophic dead zones in waterways and coastal areas around the world.

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In the early 1980s the clear fresh waters of Lake Taihu, China’s third-largest lake lying in the Yangtze River delta, drew tourists from around the country. The algal blooms—seen here in a shallow area lined with fish traps—began in the 1990s, covering up to 600 square miles each summer. Today the lake has become the poster child for freshwater pollution in China. The algae, which thrive in warm, nutrient-rich waters, are fed by a trifecta of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from surrounding industries, municipal sewage plants that serve more than 40 million people, and fertilizer runoff from more than 13,900 square miles of agricultural fields. Waste from intensive aquaculture operations that began in the lake in the 1980s contributed to the nutrient load as well. Lake Taihu was closed to allaquaculture in 2019 to allow the ecosystem to recover, but the other sources of nutrient pollution have proved more difficult to control. And despite decades of government programs and some $14 billion spent to prevent them, the blooms continue to occur. Algal blooms have become a persistent problem in many parts of the globe, where human industry and agriculture have doubled the available nitrogen and tripled the available phosphorus in our watersheds, leading to more than four hundred eutrophic dead zones in waterways and coastal areas around the world.

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