Nonpoint source water pollution regulations in the United States The primary nutrients found in water due to nonpoint source pollution are nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers. An influx of these nutrients can lead to eutrophication within the water. This is when there is an excess of nutrients in water, thus leading to an explosion in the growth of algae. The algae can cover the lake and block sunlight from reaching the organisms below, typically killing them. NPS water pollution is regulated at the federal, state, and local level. Yet, the pollution persists and remains a significant problem. There are a number of reasons why current regulations have failed to
Liebig's law of the minimum Liebig's law of the minimum Liebig's law of the minimum, often simply called Liebig's law or the law of the minimum, is a principle developed in agricultural science by Carl Sprengel (1828) and later popularized by Justus von Liebig. It states that growth is dictated not by total resources available, but by the scarcest resource (limiting factor). The law has also been applied to biological populations and ecosystem models for factors such as sunlight or mineral nutrients. This concept was originally applied to plant or crop growth, where it was found that increasing the amount of plentiful nutrients did not