The global salt cycle in nature is disrupted, which leads to salinization of fresh water, and the distribution of salt by ocean currents plays a role in regulating surface water temperature and sea level.
Ecologists have found that humanity releases into the environment approximately the same amount of salts that enter ecosystems from natural sources. This disrupts the global salt cycle in nature and leads to salinization of fresh water, the press service of the University of Maryland at College Park (UMD) reported. The collected information suggests that the global salt cycle, which involves both the Earth’s interior and its atmosphere, has been seriously disrupted as a result of human activity.
An analysis carried out by scientists showed that humanity releases huge amounts of table salt and fertilizers into aquatic and land ecosystems. They are comparable to the original mass of metal ions, chlorine, phosphoric, nitric and sulfuric acid, as well as other components of mineral salts present in nature untouched by humans. For example, approximately 271 million tons of table salt have been identified in rivers in the United States, about 70% of which is of natural origin, while the remaining 30% comes from anthropogenic sources.
The two largest of them are industrial salt (13.9%), used to clear roads of ice and snow, and compounds that are used to fertilize and cultivate fields (6.7%) and from there end up in groundwater and rivers.
The rapid growth of this anthropogenic pollution has led to disruption of the natural salt cycle and its accumulation in groundwater and soils over an area of approximately 10.12 million square meters. km, which is comparable to the size of the largest countries in the world. At the same time, the concentration of sodium and chlorine in large rivers has doubled compared to the middle of the 20th century. A further increase in salt concentration will lead to serious consequences for plants, animals, infrastructure and human health.