San Francisco Estuary Scenarios

The restoration of the regions in San Francisco Estuary are based on many applications from water use, land use, dredging and waterway modification, wetlands management, and the pollution prevention and reduction fazes. I will be taking a look at the aspects of the pollution prevention and reduction within the San Francisco Estuary program. Estuaries are unique, dynamic transition zones, between the watershed and the world ocean system. In this paper I will try to discuss the abiotic and biotic characteristics of the San Francisco Estuary and how they are important to the diversity and productivity of the organisms in the estuary. Reviewing the population growth and how it affects the estuary. The behavior of humans that affects the habitats
of the estuary. Different types of conservation efforts that are being used to maintain and promote organism biodiversity among animals and plants in the estuary. Try to outline the progress of conservation efforts in the estuary.

The living and nonliving factors are a combination of factors in the environment that affect the estuary. The living factors are called biotic factors and the nonliving factors are called abiotic factors of living organisms within the estuary. These two factors have an immense affect on the productivity and diversity of organisms in the estuary. The biotic characteristics that have an effect on the San Francisco estuary are consumers, predators, and producers. The consumers such as zooplankton eat the producers such as Phytoplankton’s, in the process zooplankton is eaten by herring, smelt, grass shrimp that are interim eaten by larger consumers. The predators such as fish, birds, humans, otters, and seals. So you can see how all of the organisms above rely on each other to survive. Without one the entire balance of the estuary would be thrown out of whack. The abiotic characteristics that have an effect on the San Francisco estuary can be the amount of sunshine that is available, the salinity of the ocean water, dissolved oxygen concentration, and nutrient concentration. Organisms and plants rely on sunshine to photosynthesis; other primary producers use the sun to support the biodiversity of life among the estuary. The salinity of the estuary that consist of fresh water entering from the mouths of the river to seawater close to the river mouths. The dissolved oxygen is a key abiotic factor as the majority of marine organisms rely on this for their survival, this relates to the survival of other organisms with one another non would survive of prey or predators. The nutrients are important abiotic characteristics as the nutrients flow into the water ways, causing algae blooms that cause oxygen concentration to drop as the decomposers use the oxygen. This is many ways that the abiotic and biotic characteristics are involved in keeping the estuary in balance.

The population growth in the region affects the San Francisco estuary by putting strain on the resources and environment. From taking over habitats of other organisms, wiping out marsh lands to grow crops in has disrupted habitats of many bird species, shrinking the wetlands for their own habitat. Pollution is the biggest problem from population growth, wastewater, chemical contamination of water ways from run offs oil by products from ships and spills into the water ways and soil, and all of these contributions come from pollution. These have an effect on contaminates levels in organisms that they are a health risk for humans to consume. Along with causing of rapid algae growth from phosphorous known as eutrophication. This is called blooms; the algae will eventually die off and be consumed by bottom feeders on the bay floor causing them to deplete oxygen in the water. This effect has been causing aerobic organisms to die off, due to the lack of oxygen concentration levels in the water. The population growth is a significant factor in the issues that concern the estuary in damaging ways.

The habitat fracture has displaced many organisms to causing an extinction of several in the regions of the marsh lands that have been altered to accommodate the population growth. The habitats that are throughout the wetlands, mudflats, coastal beaches, river basins, forested areas, and grasslands. Are all in danger of being destroyed pushing species to endangerment, habitat destructions comes from pollution, urban sprawl, and global warming issues. Never less the human impact from invading the habitats to provide for themselves, will damage future food sources, reduction of one’s carbon footprint to endangering many species that the other ecosystems rely on. Conservation actions in the form of protecting the habitats within the San Francisco estuary contain better wastewater practices, setting up protected regions that benefit the organisms, Implementing better run off designs and setting up research to better manage the progress of conservation to protect habitats, species and human interaction to educating the local communities. The promotion of mechanisms that prevent pollution at the source, rather than waiting for it to all ready be distributed within the estuary. Along with where pollution prevention is not possible, control and reduce pollutants entering the Estuary with programs that are in place to monitor this. Clean up toxic pollution throughout the Estuary that has been an issue to the quality of water ways. Protect against toxic effects, including bioaccumulation and toxic sediment accumulation, with stricter laws to prevent this from happening. Promote restoration and enhancement of stream and wetland functions to enhance resiliency and reduce pollution in the Estuary and its watersheds.

The San Francisco Estuary has benefited with the help of many new programs and legist ration to protect and preserve the regions dedicated to repairing habitats and ecosystems.
The significant pollution effort to control the amount of pollution that enters the estuary has been noticed. There are still many issues that need attention. As humans continue to effect the pollution levels within the estuary, through trash and plastic trash end up in streams and creeks and rivers that are connected to the estuary. This continues to impact the water quality, organisms within and surrounding the estuary, the agriculture pollutions and urban runoff have always been an issue and still remains one of the biggest producers of pollution in the San Francisco estuary. Human waste, personal byproducts and pharmaceuticals are a new breed of pollution that has caused concerns. The waste water plants have upgraded to manage the waste that ends up in the water ways, the operation has not been able to contain all of the pollution that comes through the waste water plant leaving traces of pollutions still entering the estuary regions. There has been much progress over the years as resulting into government parks and preservation areas being established in this program. The endangered species that are flourishing from mussels and crab species that would have been extinct, are improving population in this system. New plant life is being planted and the education of how to preserve the areas has drawn many to volunteer to help maintain the estuary for future generations. This type of program makes a big difference in preserving habitats, species and water systems, along with building a better ecosystem that benefits all
species.

Reference
San Francisco Bay Joint Venture. (2011). General Conservation. Retrieved from San Francisco Bay Joint Venture: http://www.sfbayjv.org/strategy.php
Tangient LLC. (2011). Welcome to the San Francisco Bay Estuary! Retrieved from San Francisco Estuary Biome Project: http://sanfranciscoestuarybiomeproject.wikispaces.com/home