Review Paper:
Acid rain and
its effect on aquatic ecosystem: A critical review on plants
Neha S., Jyotika Jayan, Vasukhi S.M. and Jidhu Vaishnavi S.
Disaster Advances; Vol. 18(6); 74-81;
doi: https://doi.org/10.25303/186da074081; (2025)
Abstract
Acid rain is one of the serious environmental problems in recent days. It creates
a major impact on terrestrial as well as aquatic ecosystems. The main purpose of
the review is to emphasize the impact of acid rain on the aquatic ecosystem. The
main contributing factors to acid rain are the release of nitrogen dioxide, sulphur
dioxide and ozone into the atmosphere. The important effect of acid rain is eutrophication
which means over- enrichment of lakes and pond. Acid rain creates a impact on lake
and stream by increasing the concentration of nitrogen and sulphur in the water
which leads to the loss of buffering capacity and leads to the death of aquatic
organisms.
Acid rain influences the metabolic activity of aquatic animals. At very low pH levels,
adult fishes tend to die. Acid rain affects the aquatic plants by impacting an effect
on leaf micromorphology, leaf organelles, photosynthesis, enzyme activities and
causes damage to plant leaves. Acid rain has wet and dry deposition forms. Legislations
should be made available to control the effect of acid rain to save the biodiversity.
