Data and Reports Explorer

This report describes the development and assessment of shallow-water (0<35 m) benthic habitat maps for Northeast Puerto Rico and Culebra Island. The objective of this effort, conducted by NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) in partnership with the Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambientales (DRNA), was to provide ...

This report documents the entire process of benthic habitat mapping in St. John. Chapter 1 provides a description of the benthic habitat classification scheme used to categorize the different habitats existing in the nearshore environment. Chapter 2 describes the steps required to create a benthic habitat map from visual interpretation ...

We used structured expert judgment and economic analysis to quantify annual impacts on ecosystem services in the Great Lakes, North America of nonindigenous aquatic species introduced by ocean-going ships. For the US waters, median damages aggregated across multiple ecosystem services were Open image in new window 138 million per year, ...

Coastal shoreline hardening is intensifying due to human population growth and sea level rise. Prior studies have emphasized shoreline-hardening effects on faunal abundance and diversity; few have examined effects on faunal biomass and size structure or described effects specific to different functional groups. We evaluated the biomass and size structure ...

Effective management of rare species, including endangered native species and recently introduced nonindigenous species, requires the detection of populations at low density. For endangered species, detecting the localized distribution makes it possible to identify and protect critical habitat to enhance survival or reproductive success. Similarly, early detection of an incipient ...

The Shellfish Information Management System (SIMS) is a web-based application designed in partnership with the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference (ISSC) to integrate information important to coastal managers responsible for ensuring the safe harvest of mulluscan shellfish. While the primary purpose of SIMS is to map and analyze classified waters, both ...

The continental shelf of the northern Gulf of Mexico receives high dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus loads from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers. The nutrient load results in high primary production in the river plumes and contributes to the development of hypoxia on the Louisiana shelf in summer. While phytoplankton ...

We hypothesized that the grazing on phytoplankton by the microzooplankton community is size-dependent and, therefore, the top-down control on phytoplankton by microzooplankton community could be one possible mechanism explaining why small phytoplankton become less abundant than large phytoplankton in eutrophic waters. We tested this hypothesis using the dilution method to ...

Simulation models coupling physics to biological processes in the ocean are central to many current programs. Ocean physical models have approached a high level of sophistication; the physical relationships are canonical, and modern computational technology for fluid mechanics has advanced steadily for two generations or more. The complexity of biological ...

Coupled biological/physical models of marine systems serve many purposes including the synthesis of information, hypothesis generation, and as a tool for numerical experimentation. However, marine system models are increasingly used for prediction to support high-stakes decision-making. In such applications it is imperative that a rigorous model skill assessment is conducted ...

A numerical hydrodynamic simulation of the Texas-Louisiana continental shelf circulation is compared with hydrographic and moored observations of temperature, salinity, and current velocity. The spatial and temporal structure of the model error suggests that the model is able to reproduce the observed broad-scale features and seasonal patterns faithfully. However, there ...

Since 2012, NOAA has generated model guidance for the probability of occurrence of the harmful marine bacteria Vibrio vulnificus in Chesapeake Bay. The system employs NOAAs Operational Forecast System for Chesapeake Bay (CBOFS) to force a statistical model developed by NCCOS and provides daily guidance for the entirety of the ...

Seasonal hypoxia [dissolved oxygen (DO)???2 mg?l?1] occurs over large regions of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf during the summer months (June–August) as a result of nutrient enrichment from the Mississippi–Atchafalaya River system. We characterized the community structure of mobile fishes and invertebrates (i.e., nekton) in and around the ...

A series of studies was initiated to assess the condition of benthic macroinfauna and chemical contaminant levels in sediments and biota of the Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary (GRNMS) and nearby shelf waters off the coast of Georgia. Four key objectives of the research are (1) to document existing environmental ...

In 2016, NOAA launched a four-year initiative to study deep-sea coral ecosystems in waters off the southeast United States. This multidisciplinary effort, known as the Southeast Deep Coral Initiative (SEDCI), is led by a NOAA team from multiple offices and works in collaboration with partners from federal and academic institutions ...

Coral reefs are vibrant, productive ecosystems that face a variety of threats, including disease, temperature stress and pollution. In order to effectively manage coral reef resources, adequate data are required to assess status and track change in these systems. The state of Florida has over 100 linear miles of coral ...

Nearly every summer, a large hypoxic zone forms in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Research on the causes and consequences of hypoxia requires reliable estimates of hypoxic extent, which can vary at sub-monthly time scales due to hydro-meteorological variability. Here, we use an innovative space-time geostatistical model and data collected ...

Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) are a growing problem in freshwater systems worldwide. CyanoHABs are well documented in Green Bay, Lake Michigan but little is known about cyanoHAB toxicity. This study characterized the diversity and spatial distribution of toxic or otherwise bioactive cyanobacterial peptides (TBPs) in Green Bay. Samples were ...

This report contains summary data of bottlenose dolphins stranded in South Carolina. The intent of this report is to provide data on bottlenose dolphin strandings in South Carolina to marine mammal researchers and managers. This report is an accumulation of 14 years of stranding data collected through the collaborations of ...

Coastal stewardship involves recognizing important aspects of landscape function in order to identify and mitigate impacts affecting the sustainability of ecosystems and communities. In collaboration with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), NOAA's National Ocean Service has worked to enhance our understanding of current conditions and potential impacts at ...