Planktonic communities tend to flourish on the western margins of the East China Sea (ECS) fueled by substrates delivered largely from the Changjiang River, the fifth largest river in the world. To study the effects of the Changjiang River discharge on planktonic community respiration (CR), physical?chemical variables and key processes ...

Numerical experiments are conducted to investigate how axial winds affect stratification and circulation in the partially mixed estuary of Chesapeake Bay. In the absence of rotational effects, stratification in the estuary decreases following both down?estuary and up?estuary winds, but stratification experiences larger reduction and takes longer to recover under up?estuary ...

Salt marsh ecosystems are sensitive habitats that may be susceptible to oil and oil spill mitigation chemicals during clean up. This research project assessed the toxicity of three shoreline cleaners (SLC) in laboratory and mesocosm exposures, determined petroleum hydrocarbon distributions in water and sediment, and evaluated efficacy of each SLC ...

Egg deposition by the intertidal spawning fish Atlantic silverside (Menidia menidia) was compared among six shoreline types (Spartina alterniflora, Phragmites australis, sandy beach, riprap, riprap-sill, and bulkhead) and various substrates. In spring 2010, M. menidia egg density was measured daily near Roosevelt Inlet, Delaware Bay, USA. Over 3,000,000 eggs were ...

Oceanographic features, such as eddies and fronts, enhance and concentrate productivity, generating high-quality patches that dispersive marine larvae may encounter in the plankton. Although broad-scale movement of larvae associated with these features can be captured in biophysical models, direct evidence of processes influencing survival within them, and subsequent effects on ...

A large region of low-dissolved-oxygen bottom waters (hypoxia) forms nearly every summer in the northern Gulf of Mexico because of nutrient inputs from the Mississippi River Basin and water column stratification. Policymakers developed goals to reduce the area of hypoxic extent because of its ecological, economic, and commercial fisheries impacts ...

Provides a critical synthesis of potential consequences of the construction, presence, and use of small docks and piers on the coastal environment. Shading, contamination, and boating associated with docks are discussed, as well as navigation, aesthetic, and quality of life issues. The workshop, which focused on the status of the ...

The results from this study represent a snapshot of ecological condition in coastal waters of Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne-Mississippi Sound two months after the passing of Hurricane Katrina. The comparison of ecological indicators before and after the hurricane suggests considerable stability of these systems with respect to short-term ecological ...

Coupled physical-biological models are capable of linking the complex interactions between environmental factors and physical hydrodynamics to simulate the growth, toxicity and transport of infectious pathogens and harmful algal blooms (HABs). Such simulations can be used to assess and predict the impact of pathogens and HABs on human health. Given ...

Stable isotope analysis has become a common tool for mapping trophic relationships, describing foodweb changes, and assessing ecosystem health. Clear interpretation of stable isotopes is facilitated by understanding how environmental factors can affect isotopic values; in estuarine systems, these factors may include salinity, land use, and shoreline habitat. To evaluate ...

Nearly one hundred New England lobstermen have installed temperature sensors on their traps to record hourly values at fixed locations since 2001. These moorings are distributed primarily along the shelf edge in the northern Mid-Atlantic Bight and along the entire western edge of the Gulf of Maine in a range ...

This document is the first annual statistical summary for the Carolinian Province estuaries component of the nationwide Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP). EMAPEstuaries in the Carolinian Province is jointly sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The program is being ...

A study was conducted to assess the environmental condition of estuaries in the EMAP Carolinian Province (Cape Henry, VA St. Lucie Inlet, FL). A total of 87 randomly located stations was sampled from July 5 September 14, 1995 in accordance with a probabilistic sampling design. Wherever possible, synoptic measures were ...

This report presents data generated from samples of water, sediment, and biota collected in the Neuse River, NC during the summer of 1998. The sampling effort is part of a joint study, initiated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), to ...

The National Status and Trends Program is comprised of three nationwide programs: Benthic Surveillance, Mussel Watch, and Bioeffects. These programs are in place to observe estuarine and coastal waters nationwide to describe the current status and detect changes in the environmental quality using long-term, continuous monitoring. Special Studies is another ...

A caveat in the concluding section of our paper states that it would be impossible to provide a comprehensive sample of synthesis case studies that reflects all the major research areas in estuarine and coastal science. In retrospect, however, we realize that the paper generally ignores two key fields of ...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Ocean Service (NOS) Strategic Plans present a vision for protecting, restoring, and managing our nation's aquatic resources through proactive ecosystem approaches to management. These approaches require integrated, multidisciplinary models and coordination across research and modeling activities to provide a sound basis ...

Ocean acidification (OA) has the potential to restructure ecosystems due to variation in species sensitivity to the projected changes in ocean carbon chemistry. Ecological models can be forced with scenarios of OA to help scientists, managers, and other stakeholders understand how ecosystems might change. We present a novel methodology for ...

Estuaries exhibit a large range in their responses to nitrogen loadings determined in part by characteristics of the driver, such as magnitude and frequency, but also by such intrinsic characteristics as physical/chemical factors (e.g., depth, volume, hypsometry, salinity, turbidity) and biological factors (e.g., nature of ecological communities, trophic interactions). To ...

This is the original (1992) Gulf of Mexico regional component of NOAA's Estuarine Living Marine Resources (ELMR) Project, a national database of ecologically and economically important fishes and invertebrates in the Nation's estuaries. The distribution and relative abundance are depicted in a consistent format for 44 species of fishes and ...