Today's word of the day: hypoxia

An article on the BBC news website informs you about the dead zones of the Gulf of Mexico. There are several reasons why I like the word hypoxia. The first is that this word is not part of the GEMET thesaurus while it is a genuine term that deals with the environment. OmegaWiki, does know the term and as such it shows that an interested community can add value to a resource that is considered to be authoritative.

The sad thing about hypoxia is that it is preventable. Hypoxia was a phenomena that happened in the Wadden Sea as a result of the pollution that came in from the Rhine. As a result of cleaning up this river, the hypoxic areas or dead zones have diminished, the areas where seagrass is growing are on the rise again. The same could happen with the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. The main things required is the prevention of nitrate and phosphate getting into the waterways. It is well known how this can be done, it just takes the political will to make this happen.

My interest in this subject can be understood from the fact that I wrote most of the articles about the fresh water fish of the Benelux on the Dutch Wikipedia.

Thanks,
GerardM