Data and Reports Explorer

The absence of accurate, contemporary, or detailed bathymetric data in nearshore coastal waters impedes coastal research, conservation, disaster response, planning, and management efforts. The use of small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) and low cost RGB (red, blue, green) cameras, coupled with advanced photogrammetry methods, structure from motion (SfM), provides a ...

This document presents an overview of the current state of seagrass conservation and restoration in the United States, discusses important issues that should be addressed in planning seagrass restoration projects, describes different planting methodologies, proposes monitoring criteria and means for evaluating success, and discusses issues faced by resource managers ...

Hypoxia is a critical issue in the Gulf of Mexico that has challenged management efforts in recent years by an increase in hypoxia sensitivity to nitrogen loads. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the recent increase in sensitivity. Two commonly cited mechanisms are bottom-water reducing conditions preventing nitrification and ...

Bay scallop (Argopecten irradians) populations existed in Chesapeake Bay until 1933, when they declined dramatically due to a loss of seagrass habitat. Since then, there have been no documented populations within the Bay. However, some anecdotal observations of live bay scallops within the lower Bay suggest that restoration of the ...

Global habitat decline may displace organisms from optimal environments, increasing reliance on ecosystems with lower habitat suitability and availability. For coral reef fishes, potentially marginal mesophotic coral ecosystems (~30–150 m) may be buffered from anthropogenic stressors; however, variation in habitat quality across depths can alter population demographics, reproductive output, and ...

Seawater desalination by reverse osmosis (RO) is a reliable method for augmenting drinking water supplies. In recent years, the number and size of these water projects have increased dramatically. As freshwater resources become limited due to global climate change, rising demand, and exhausted local water supplies, seawater desalination will play ...

The Harmful Algal Bloom - Forecasting Branch (HAB-FB) is a research group within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) tasked with forecasting and monitoring HABs. One of the more effective ways to do so is through satellite based monitoring, which provides a ...

Along the Pacific coast of North America, from Alaska to Mexico, harmful algal blooms (HABs) have caused losses to natural resources and coastal economies, and have resulted in human sicknesses and deaths for decades. Recent reports indicate a possible increase in their prevalence and impacts of these events on living ...

This report is the product of a panel of experts in the science of blooms of unicellular marine algae which can cause mass mortalities in a variety of marine organisms and cause illness and even death in humans who consume contaminated seafood. These phenomena are collectively termed harmful algal blooms ...

This chapter describes the procedures for determining the reproductive stage of oysters, mytilid mussels, and dreissenid mussels collected for NOAA’s National Status and Trends Mussel Watch Project. Analyses are conducted on paraffin-embedded tissues sectioned at a 5-µm thickness and stained using a pentachrome staining procedure. Each slide is examined microscopically ...

During the mid-1950s, massive and widespread oyster mortalities, particularly in the Delaware and Chesapeake Bay areas, served as a stimulus to establish a federal oyster mortality study program. Consequently, Congress appropriated funds to the then Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (BCF) within the U.S. Department of the Interior. These appropriations enabled ...

The purpose of this analysis is to examine the historical fluxes of N and P to the northern Gulf of Mexico and discuss the implications that this may have for primary productivity, hypoxia and management strategies ...

Over the past two decades China has become the largest global consumer of fertilizers, which has enhanced river nutrient fluxes and caused eutrophication and hypoxia in the Yangtze (Changjiang) large river delta-front estuary (LDE). In this study, we utilized plant pigments, lignin-phenols, stable isotopes (?13C and ?15N) and foraminiferal microfossils ...

There is growing awareness that fluctuations in larval flux (connectivity) depress the long-run growth of marine metapopulations, but by how much is unclear. Here, we explore how reproductive schedule and larval behavior affect how much connectivity fluctuations depress growth. We combine larval dispersal simulations from the Florida Keys with theoretical ...

The goal of this pilot project was to assess the presence of a number of commonly prescribed human use pharmaceuticals in three coastal areas of the U.S. Water samples were collected in conjunction with three NOAA monitoring/research projects to assess sediment contamination, macrobenthic infaunal communities, and bioeffects in the Chesapeake ...

The purpose of this document is to provide a guide for sanctuary managers interested in developing fisheries acoustic surveys in support of National Marine Sanctuary Program (NMSP) goals and objectives, using GRNMS as an example. Recently, a partnership between the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) and the National Centers ...

Hydrographic and chemical data were collected for a week in late July between 1994-1997 in order to survey the coastal hypoxia on Louisiana continental shelf. Nutrient, pigment, suspended sediment and station information data were also acquired. Data files provided in Microsoft Access format, from which NCEI provides a redundant copy ...

Low oxygen zones in coastal and open ocean ecosystems have expanded in recent decades, a trend that will accelerate with climatic warming. There is growing recognition that low oxygen regions of the ocean are also acidified, a condition that will intensify with rising levels of atmospheric CO2. Presently, however, the ...

Hypoxia (< 2 mg O2 l? 1) is a major global water quality and fisheries management issue in coastal ecosystems. Although the impact of hypoxia on benthic communities has been intensively studied, less is known about hypoxia's effect on pelagic communities. Herein, we explored how hypoxia can influence the horizontal ...

We investigated interactions between hypoxia and nutrient cycling in Chesapeake Bay using quantitative analysis of long?term monitoring data covering the periods 1965?1980 and 1985?2007. The data included vertical water column profiles of temperature, salinity, NH+4, PO3?4, and O2, as well as rates of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) ...