Mathematical modeling of algal blooms due to swine CAFOs in Eastern North Carolina

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Dramatic strides have been made in treating human waste to remove pathogens and excess nutrients before discharge into the environment, benefit of ground surface water quality. Yet these advances undermined by dramatic growth Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) which produce voluminous quantities untreated waste. Industrial swine routinely streams similar that a municipality, yet wastes are held open-pit "lagoons" at risk rupture or overflow. Eastern North Carolina is coastal plain with productive estuaries imperiled more than 2000 permitted facilities housing over 9 million hogs; associated 3,500 manure lagoons pose sensitive estuarine ecosystems, as breaches overflows send large plumes nutrient pathogen-rich waters. Understanding relationship between pulses quality environments essential effective CAFO policy formation. In this work, we develop system ODEs model algae estuary due lagoon breach investigate thresholds above algal blooms unresolvable.</p>