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NOAA News

NOAA's Coastal Ocean Program (COP) News is compiled by David Hilmer, David.Hilmer@noaa.gov. For more information on the Coastal Ocean Program, contact the Coastal Ocean Office, NOAA, 1305 East-West Highway, #8307, Silver Spring, MD 20910-3233 or call 301-713-3338.

CSCOR Sponsored HAB Identification Training Helps Coastal Tribal Communities
Avoid Illness and Promotes Trust Between Tribal Communities and State Managers
The Northwest Indian College, the Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC), the Quinault Indian Tribe, and the National Indian Center for Marine and Environmental Research and Education (NICMERE) collaborated to initiate a training course in Taholah, on the central Washington coast. The goal of the class was to empower coastal tribes with knowledge about harmful algal blooms (HABs), enabling them to monitor phytoplankton in their coastal waters. The training will benefit the Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research (CSCOR) sponsored HAB monitoring and research effort known as the Olympic Regional Harmful Algal Bloom (ORHAB) project. ORHAB is a part of CSCOR's Monitoring and Event Response for Harmful Algal Blooms (MERHAB) program, and supports ongoing research along the Olympic Coast's beaches, nearshore and offshore waters to understand the limiting oceanographic factors controlling the formation and distribution of blooms producing domoic acid.
The course concluded with a community forum for the people of the Quinault Tribe to exchange information about the training opportunity and to promote trust between the Tribal community, the Tribal scientists, and State managers. The Tribal community consumes more razor clams per capita that any other group along the Washington state coastline and Tribal community members are often confused about shellfish harvest bans enacted by State agencies. As a result, Tribal member often continue to collect razor clams (which can contain the toxin, domoic acid) even when the level of toxin is above the recommended regulatory level. For more information on CSCOR's Monitoring and Event Response for Harmful Algal Blooms research efforts, contact Marc Suddleson at 301-713-3338.

Synthesis of water conditions in the National Estuarine Research Reserve System
The National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS) has completed its first synthesis of water quality conditions in the reserves. The report, titled A Synthesis of Water Quality Data from the National Estuarine Research Reserve's System-wide Monitoring Program (on the Web at www.ocrm.nos.noaa.gov/nerr/monsys.html) and funded by the Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology (CICEET), provides an analysis of water quality data collected by 22 of the 25 National Estuarine Research Reserves between 1996 and 1998.
In 1995, the reserve system established a System-Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP) to track short-term variability and long-term change in coastal ecosystems by monitoring water quality conditions, biotic diversity and land-use/habitat change in order to contribute to effective coastal zone management. The initial phase of the monitoring program focuses on recording water quality variables (depth, temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen (mg/L and % saturation), pH, and turbidity) every 30 minutes throughout the year via unattended, automated data sondes (YSI 6000â or YSI 6600â). The long-term nature of the SWMP data set makes it possible to examine both intra-annual (seasonal) and inter-annual patterns in estuarine systems, as well as on the effects of large scale (e.g., El Niño and La Niña climatic conditions) and localized (i.e., floods, drought) episodic events.
The National Estuarine Research Reserve System, composed of over one million acres of estuarine waters, wetlands and uplands nationwide, represents a variety of estuarine conditions and regions. This diversity, together with a management framework linking research, stewardship and public education provides an ideal vehicle for a nationally coordinated monitoring program such as the SWMP.
Substantial efforts were made to collect, quality assure, and archive the data collected by the SWMP (http://inlet.geol.sc.edu/cdmohome.html). Water quality data for 44 sites from the monitoring program between 1996 and 1998 are analyzed in this report. Several important findings from this study are listed below

§ Generally, depth, salinity, and dissolved oxygen (mg/L or percent saturation) were dominated by 12.42-hour cycles at sites that experienced moderate daily tidal amplitudes (2-4 m). Twenty-four hour cycles (i.e., day-night cycle, wind, man-made perturbations) dominated sites where salinity was characterized as very low (tidal freshwater environment) or very high (marine environment), and where tidal effects were minimal.
§ Twenty-four hour cycles accounted for 30-50% of water temperature variance sites at most sites and 12.42 hour cycles accounted for <20% of water temperature variance at most sites. In the summer, water temperature fluctuated by as much as 10°C over 24 hours at some sites.
§ Hypoxia (DO < 28% saturation) was strongly influenced by latitude and climate. Half of the sites where hypoxia was observed (on average) for more than 20% of the first 48 hours post-deployment were located in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean; however, 92% of hypoxia events persisted less than 8 hours. Hypoxia was most frequently observed during summer.
§ Temporal and spatial distribution of supersaturation (DO > 120% saturation) events was not as clear as the temporal and spatial distribution of hypoxic events. Supersaturation events primarily occurred in cooler months, particularly winter; however supersaturation events were observed in all seasons. Although supersaturation events sometimes co-occurred with hypoxic events during the same day, supersaturation was negatively correlated with hypoxia.
§ At 92% of the sampling sites evaluated (25 of 27), aquatic respiration exceeded aquatic production. Water temperature was significantly correlated with aquatic metabolic rates at most sites; however, salinity was only significantly correlated with aquatic metabolic rates at half of the sites evaluated. Metabolic rates were not noticeably different among geographic regions; however, metabolic rates were strongly influenced by habitat type.

The System-wide Monitoring Program provides valuable information about the short-term dynamics of water quality in shallow estuarine systems. These data have been used in the analysis of water quality conditions related to oyster diseases, to measure recovery of estuarine areas after hurricanes, and to evaluate estuarine restoration projects. The program represents tremendous progress towards developing a water quality-monitoring program to monitor the condition of the nation's estuaries. The reserve system represents a suite of comparatively healthy ecosystems and SWMP provides information for scientists, coastal managers and the public about water quality issues. Water quality data from SWMP also provides background data from which specific questions can be explored to understand changes in estuarine ecosystems and the requirements to maintain and restore estuarine habitats. The reserve system plans to continue collecting water quality and weather data over the coming decades and expand the monitoring program to include ecological and land-use/habitat change data.
For more information on The National Estuarine Research Reserve System's research efforts, contact Maurice Crawford at 301-713-3155.

COP Plans Release of Announcement of Opportunity for Monitoring and Event Response for Harmful Algal Bloom (MERHAB) Program
The Coastal Ocean Program (COP) plans to release an announcement of opportunity for the Monitoring and Event Response for Harmful Algal Bloom (MERHAB) Program early next year. The announcement will solicit projects that build the capacity of existing State, Tribal, or regional coastal monitoring programs to provide early warning of harmful algal bloom (HAB) events to coastal communities through regional multi-investigator partnerships for intensive monitoring of HABs. The program will also focus on targeted studies to research and develop tools, approaches, and technologies that could be included as routine components of existing monitoring programs and increase HAB event response capabilities for coastal communities. Funding is contingent upon the availability of Federal FY 2002 appropriations. Stay tuned to the CSCOR website: http://www.cop.noaa.gov/funding.html.
For more information, contact CSCOR's MERHAB Coordinator, Marc Suddleson at 301-713-3338.