Have you every wondered about how life is possible in water? What do little fishes eat? Are there plants in the ocean that serve as food for fishes and other organisms? Read this article to learn about the unappreciated phytoplankton and why we should care for them.

Phytoplankton start the food web of aquatic Eco systems

Why are Phytoplankton so important?

Flooding could be defined as the covering or submerging of land by water. Urban flooding is any flood in urban areas. Are there examples of flooding? What are the causes of urban flooding? How can we control Flooding? Read this article

Flooding; Definition, Causes and Examples

Definition of flooding

Flooding could simply be define as a body of water covering a mass of land where it initially wasn't present. From this definition, we could say that a flood is mostly unwanted. These floods (Especially urban floods) cause displacement of many and sometimes take lives.

Sango-otta Ogun state, Nigeria

As you can see in the above photo, a street in Ogun state Nigeria is covered by water. The water level is so high that it almost covered a car. Floods like these can easily be avoided yet there still occur.

Causes of flooding

Rain

Rain causes flooding by increasing the water size and exceeding the capacity of the drainage system. When water becomes too much for the drainage system to carry at a time, flood occurs. Rain water can exceed drainage capacity either by being too heavy at a time or falling non-stop for days.

Wind

Strong winds and hurricanes carry sea water into land causing flooding. Wind just like earthquakes and other disasters, can displace objects and properties into blocking the drainage systems or other waterways.

Land Pollution

If the movement of water is stopped because of dirt disposed the wrong way, flood would occur

Flood in Lagos, though caused by high tide, stayed for a long time because of blocked drainage

Dam breakage

Dams are man-made structures which hold flowing water and allow the water to flow through propellers to generate electricity. Sometimes, dams break due to age, cracks unattended to and pressure from the water. If a dam should break, all the waters it had being holding would flow at once, destroying properties, taking lives and causing floods.

Examples of Floods

View some pictorial evidences that floods occur everywhere in the world and we should do whatever it takes to prevent floods

Houston, Texas

Northern New South Wales

Rare wildlife killed as floods devastate India reserve

Ways to Prevent flooding

Clear drainage systems

Drainage system filled with dirt

In order to prevent flooding caused by land pollution, we need to clear these drainage systems so they'd be free from dirt.

Volunteers at the Ikotun Market, Lagos clearing the drainage system

Build more drainage systems

There are some streets with no drainage system at all. Even the smallest rain fall would cause water to accumulate. To solve this problem, drainage systems should be built

Channel water to another location

You could build more drainage systems to drive the water into rivers or the sea. If there isn't any around, you could drive the water into burrow pits

Don't block water ways with irrelevant structures

Rain water flow to lower plains. If the means to reach the lower plane has being blocked by buildings, the water would no longer flow and cause flooding. Not building on water ways is among the ways to prevent flooding on urban areas.

Make good use of Burrow pits

This is a cheap and reliable way to prevent flooding especially in developing countries. A burrow pit is an engineering term used to describe a place where materials (like sand) have being dug from to complete a construction. Burrow pits are usually deep. Burrow pits can be useful to prevent flooding because water can easily flow on them and hardly flow out since they're deep. Sign posts to alert people of a very deep body of water should be put in place though

Burrow pit in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

The burrow pit in the photo above is large and is used to keep rain water to prevent flooding. Without this burrow pit and others around, the city of Port Harcourt Nigeria would've been covered in water.

One of the entrances to the burrow pit

The entrance in the photo, as you can see, will soon be blocked because of dirt disposed the wrong way. When it eventually becomes blocked, the streets around would be flooded.

Garbage found above the burrow pit

The street is becoming covered with the dirt

The two photos above are the same dirt between a street and a burrow pit. The people of this street Igbogo in Port Harcourt Nigeria are faced with the dilemma of either leaving the dirt on the road (so that the burrow pit can still help prevent flood) or pushing the dirt in to the burrow pit (so that the road will be clean once again).

Since this place have being left as a garbage site, it is becoming an eyesore to people and a threat to the environment

 Case study: 2012 flood in Nigeria

Cause: Rain and Reservoir
Location: 33 out of 36 states in Nigeria
Duration: July to October 2012
Death toll: 363
People displaced: 2,100,000

Lokoja, Kogi state

Abuja

This article was created to share awareness to everyone about the causes and control of flooding. Please read

• Everything to know about plastics
• What about the earth? Why and how can we save it?

References:

• http://www.nairaland.com/4501610/sango-otta-after-rainfall-ogun-state
• http://eschooltoday.com/natural-disasters/floods/what-causes-floods.html
• https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/29/16216568/hurricane-havery-houston-flooding-experts
• https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/rare-rhinos-killed-floods-devastate-india-reserve-170820100608076.html
• https://thenewdaily.com.au/weather/2017/03/31/nsw-floods/
• https://autojosh.com/mega-city-why-does-the-lagos-state-government-still-construct-open-drainage-system/
• http://www.mormonnewsroom.org.ng/article/nigerian-latter-day-saints-provide-60-000-man-hours-in-nationwide-community-service
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Nigeria_floods
• https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/news/panic-accross-nigeria-as-flood-threaten/106485.html
• https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/103083-floods-sad-tale-from-affected-states-erafoen.html
• https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/nigeria-s-newest-flood-of-tears/205590.html

Plastics are found wherever humans are found. They're everywhere and they're the most common form of pollutants in land and water pollution. Plastic wastes affects both man and animals through various ways. Read this article to learn how theses wastes affects us, why and how to recycle plastics.

What are plastics

Plastics are both simple and complex. From house hold items like water bottles, plates, toys, chairs and so on to more complex items like bullet proof glass, DVDs and so on. Plastics can defined as solids which can be moulded and are flexible by heat depending on the thickness and type. Plastics are non-biodegradable so they can be found so many years later in same shape unless they're removed. This means that plastics must be recycled or reused else they stay as pollutants and are going no where.

A few facts about plastics

1. The word ‘plastic’ comes from 'plastikos', a Greek word meaning ‘capable of being shaped and moulded
2. Credit and Debit cards were first called plastic money in 1969
3. Plastics make up a large percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which is a very large floating landfill of garbage in the Pacific
4. Around 5 trillion plastic bags are produced yearly. That's about 160,000 plastic bags made every second
5. Plastics aren't biodegradable instead they're photo-degradable (meaning they're degraded by light) which is why we see some plastics changing their colour after a long time
6. It'll take around 700 years for plastics to start degrading and around 1000 years to be fully degraded
7. After breaking down, plastics remain toxic. They break down into smaller toxic bits which are harmful to the environment 
8. Plastic bags are produced using petroleum, natural gas and other chemicals meaning that they're toxic from production
9. Most marine animal mistake plastics for food. This causes their death
10. A sperm whale was found beached in California in 2008. It died due to more than 22 kilos of plastic in its stomach

Reusing

Fuel containers

Instead of going to the market to buy containers to store fuel, use those containers from Oils (red, vegetable) you bought earlier.

Recycling and Down-cycling

Some countries are building recycling industries. Both governmental and private firms take recycling seriously. Plastic recycling means producing materials from old plastics (e.g a plastic chair can be recycled into other chairs, tables, etc) while down-cycling means producing materials of less quality from old plastic materials with greater qualities (e.g a plastic chair can be down-cycled into plastic bags or bottles). There are different processes of recycling. They include

Thermal depolymerization

Since plastics are produced from petroleum, the 'de' in depolymerization implies that petroleum can be manufactured from plastics

Heat compression

This implies gathering plastics of different types, heating and stirring them inside large rotating drums known as tumblers.

Other processes

There are other processes to recycle plastics like compatibilization which requires use of special chemical bridging agents compatibilizers to use plastics as carbon source to recycle scrap steels.

Reduce

The best solution to the plastic problem facing the world today is reducing. Plastic reducing can be defined as the actions we take to reduce the use (demand) of plastics therefore reducing the production (supply). Here are a few ways we can reduce

Reusing

Reusing plastics around us can reduce our demands for them. We could take our own bags to the market instead of requesting for new bags

Co-operation with shops that are going Eco friendly

Some shops may not give you plastic bags or may give you substitutes. Instead of complaining, let's know their reason and support it

Other ways 

Instead of just throwing that plastic bag away, we could use it to carry other wastes. This will even reduce the amount of money we spend in buying waste bags

Conclusion

Plastic problem is worldwide issue we all need to solve. Applying the three Rs which are Reuse, Reduce and Recycle can help solve the plastic problem. Saving the world, apart from being a general issue, should also be a personal issue. Read What about the Earth? Why save it? What can we do? for the general Earth problem.

References:

• https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/top10facts/556136/Top-10-facts-about-plastic
• http://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/interesting-facts-about-plastic-bags
• http://www.scjohnson.com/en/green-choices/Reduce-and-Recycle/Articles/Article-Details.aspx?date=12-08-15&title=Ten-Uses-for-Plastic-Lids
• http://www.scjohnson.com/en/blog/blog/post.aspx?date=16-01-04&title=10-Creative-Ways-to-Reuse-Plastics
• https://www.budgetdumpster.com/blog/diy-plastic-bottles-recycling/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_recycling

We hear a few people everyday talk about the harms our actions cause on the Earth. Sometimes, we may be unconcerned and might even think we're doing nothing wrong to the Earth. Are are really spoiling the Earth? What part(s) of the Earth is/are affected by our actions? Why should we reduce the causes of harm we do and try to save the Earth? Read this article

What is happening in the Earth today

To help us understand the various ways our actions are ruining the Earth, let us split the Earth into various parts.

• Lithosphere (Land)
• Hydrosphere (water)
• Atmosphere (Air) and
• Biosphere (Life supporting)
• How can we save the Earth?

What's happening in the lithosphere?

• Dirt littered around in different places
• These dirt block gutters and other water passages which in turn, results to floods here and there
• The dirt are filled with germs which means they're unhygienic and cause different diseases. 
• This makes the Earth (where the dirt is) become unfit for us to live in

Would we like our lands to continue this way? Should our Children be welcomed with a germ-filled environment? Please view a few pictures from around the world to see the various harms done on the lithosphere and the side effects

A street in India

Flooded street in Lagos caused by blockage of water passage

Skin infection (Eczema) caused by dirty environment

What's happening in the Hydrosphere?

About 70% of the whole Earth today is covered in water. Water isn't just part of the Earth, it's part of our lives. Most organisms need water to survive. To bath, drink, wash our clothes and do others things, we need water. Do you know that we are making water to become unfit for our needs by some actions we take everyday? Here are a few ways we spoil the water in the Earth:

• Industries pour their wastes into the sea
• We throw dirt into various water bodies
• Most of the wastes which industries pour into the sea are toxic
• When we burn our wastes, the smoke enters into the atmosphere then later comes down as rain into various water bodies and even into the lithosphere

Pollution in the Lachine Canal, Canada

Raw sewage and industrial waste in the New River as it passes from Mexicali to Calexico, California

What's happening in the Atmosphere

I don't need to give the importance of the air to us. Even a little child would quickly know how valuable air is to him/her. Here are a few ways we damage our air

• Some people smoke everyday
• Some people (especially in developing countries) burn up their wastes themselves
• Industries like Refineries release toxic gases into the air every moment
• In developing countries, people switch on their generators as alternate power source
• Most cars today release toxic gases into the air