Mission Creek

It's June. And it's dead week, meaning it's the week before Finals!
Wait WHAT?
I better start studying since they're within one week.

But I did visit the city's local creek over the weekend as a blow-off (as I wait for my English project group). The scenery was beautiful, but I was shocked by the eutrophication of Mission Creek and how dry it is. Hey that happens in this ongoing California drought. If you guys are interested, there's an earlier post called "Rain, rain and rain"in this blog comparing one rainy day earlier in the year from the pouring rainy day on December 7, 2014.

View of Mission Creek under the bridge

The Meandering creek

Algae flowing through the creek

Opening of the creek at Gomes Park

View of the sidewalk and Plant-overrun creek

Only plants can be seen here

Original Pictures

 Camera Raw edits:

Crop the image, increase exposure and shadow, decrease highlights, adjust temperature.

f/3.9

ISO-125

1/100 sec

Camera Raw edits:
Increased exposure, increase black content and white content, slightly crop the image

f/3.9

ISO-125

1/ 40 sec

Camera Raw edits:
Crop the bottom portion of the image, slightly increase saturation and adjust the exposure.

f/3.9

ISO-160

1/ 200 sec

Camera Raw edits:
Crop the top part out to only show the creek and adjust the contrast and exposure levels.

f/3.9

ISO-125

1/ 250 sec

 Camera Raw edits:
Slightly crop the left side and top side, then increase the contrast and white content of the image.

f/4.3

ISO-125

1/ 640 sec

Camera Raw edits:
Cropped out the left side and the top side, increase the saturation levels and increase contrast

f/4.4

ISO-125

1/ 800 sec

Eutrophication

In a balance ecosystem, there is a net exchange of nutrients that ensures the sustainability of the environment. There are limiting factors like nitrogen and phosphate that prevent some species from overgrowing. However due to runoff of nitrogen and phosphate sources like fertilizers caused by human activity can increases the limiting factors available and allow these species depend on them to overgrow. For water sources, when these aquatic plants and algae overgrow they decrease the water's oxygen for photo-respiration. And when they die off, the bacteria then use more oxygen to decompose the plants. As a result the water source is deoxygenated and cannot support wildlife eventually creating a death zone. All because of us.

So be careful when you apply fertilizes on your plants. It's best to naturally fertilize the soil with compost or other sustainable methods because in the end, the fertilizer along with many chemicals can accumulate in the food we eat and poison us and the environment.