Prompt 11

Acid Deposition

When you hear the words acid deposition what do you think of? Chances are whatever you think about isn’t good. In fact you probably think of something extremely scary and dangerous. Well you should think about that because acid deposition is severely hazardous and not to mention terrifying.

The exact definition of acid deposition is any combination of airborne dry acidic particles and precipitation that fall to the earth. It occurs in forms such as rain, snow, mist, and fog. It can imply both wet and gaseous precipitation. Acid deposition is growing large in danger because of the numerous industries throughout the world. The two types of acid deposition are natural emissions and anthropogenic. Natural emissions include volcano eruptions and lightning, while anthropogenic ones are basically man made pollution. Theses emissions mix with water vapors in the air and combine at unusual proportions that create acid rain (snow, mist or fog). Acid deposition affects buildings by causing corrosion, it affects our plants, soil, water, our fish and other animals and it is also detrimental to us as people. Acid deposition causes problems like asthma, bronchitis and lung edema.

There are some options as to stop acid deposition like coal washing to remove sulfur before the coal is burned, fuel switching, reductions in energy consumption. There are other resolutions these are only a few; keep in mind even though these look like good ideas they are far from simple, and have effects of their own and require a lot of consideration before being put into affect.