Silver River Spring Head

This is a photo from the Silver River Springs in Ocala, Florida. There are three main spring heads, along with several smaller spring heads downstream that feed the Silver River. These spring heads discharge 550 million gallons of clean, drinkable water everyday! However, the quality of this water has slightly decreased over the years due to human impacts. The ecological concept that I want to focus on is environmental degradation. Humans have increased the amount of nitrates entering this river, which lowers the quality of the water. This increase in nitrates comes from fertilizers or wastewater from the surrounding springshed. This then directly affects aquatic life negatively in this river. The scenery and environment here is beautiful to the eye but it is being degraded by our very own actions. Florida relies on these spring heads to supply water to its residents and we can not allow our actions to further decrease the quality of this water. This ties into the United Nations sustainable development goal number 6, clean water and sanitation. The goal is to ensure clean water and sanitation for all people. The United Nations state that millions of people die every year from unsafe water and that without proper management, millions will continue to die. It is not so much a problem at the Silver Springs River in Florida as it is in crowded over populated and underdeveloped countries. However, the fact that a very important source of clean water is being degraded, no matter the location is terrible. More attention needs to be brought to this problem worldwide and better management needs to be created to ensure that the future of our water sources around the world are improved to ensure that all people can have access to clean water.

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