OnMarch 27-28, 2012, NOAA led the third annual Gulf of Mexico ResearchCoordination Meeting in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, where all five NOAAline offices and numerous state, federal, and academic partners will updatethe science behind hypoxic or ‘dead’ zones and identify remaining researchand management gaps.
Nutrient pollution has caused most of the 300-plusdead zones recorded nationwide in the last 50 years, destroying habitat andthreatening fisheries.Nutrients feed large blooms of algae that eventually die and fall to the bottom; their decay takes large amounts of oxygen from the water.
The largest U.S. dead zone forms every summer in thenorthern Gulf of Mexico, where NOAA has led research for more than 20years and provided an Interagency Hypoxia Task Force with the actionablescience to support two management plans.