h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Looking great so far

Have you been on h2g2 before, as it looks like you know a lot of Guide ML already..

*Sits under the shade of a tree*

I was Mystic Martin a little while ago. But there were technical problems with the page over there, and it was impossible for me to log back on. My page and another's kept getting mixed up in the postings, as though the server thought we were the same person, so I've started again with HOON.

Very strange, maybe you had similar loggin details

Starting afresh was probably the best option then

I kind of like Hoon better anyway...he's far more chilled out!

It's a good name

Unconformity ACE is an even better one. It sort of fits nicely into your page too!

Well, unconformities were what I was revising when I joined, used as I like the sound of it, and ACE is what I am..

Your username certainly fits in ith your space

How are your studies going by the way? Have you finished them yet, or is there still a ways to go?

I've finished my first year at university, I've two more to come.

What will you be qualified to do when you're done? What would you really like to do?

Well, the subject is very broad, popular jobs involve areas such as environmental impact assesments and work with the water industry. What I'd most like to do though is go on to become a tutor at a field studies centre.

That's interesting. Where I work in Coventry we are trying to get a section of the river Stowe cleaned up, which runs through a deprived area. There is all kinds of rubbish in the river, shopping trolleys, old cars, petrol, drugs, even dead bodies on occasions. The river is poluted to the point where even the wildlife used to keep away. Then only last week, a family of ducks were found breeding there. It seems they have been there for generations (of ducks, not people), and a re able to survive in the polution.

I suppose this all sounds very naive to you, but to a layman like me, it was wonderful to think these animals had managed to survive in the effects of human carelessness. There are moves afoot, (at last) now, to have the river cleaned up.

Water pollution is certainly a big issue . The main problems come from nutrients being washed into the river from farmland or sewage, the end result is the water being chocked by algae..

Cleaning up a river is relatively simple, but it only takes a lot of rainfall to reduce the river to its polluted state

Why will the rainfall return the river to a polluted state if the reason for the pollution is removed? (excuse ignorance)

Well, if the source is removed, then there isn't a problem, but in most cases fertiliser is washed from farmland into the watercourse and causes euthropication (a process by which algae takes over and the river becomes starved of oxygen).

Thank you for explaining that! I mis-understood you. When the debris is removed from the river, and the banks cut back, then we should be able to see the river in its natural state again.

Yes, as long as the banks are vegetated

Vegitated?

Another example of my feeble attempts to spell...


Otherwise the bank would erode, clouding the water with sediment..

I wasn't correcting your spelling, I would never be so rude! I was wondering what you meant by vegitating the banks. Do you mean actually planting there? If so, what needs to be put there? Don't forget your talking to an old townie that knows nothing of these things.