This document contains the results and analysis from the fourth national coastal assessment, published in 2012 ...

NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) works in partnership with other federal agencies and coastal states to conduct assessments of ecological condition and potential stressor impacts throughout our Nation’s estuaries, coastal-ocean waters, and NOAA protected areas; carry out ...

Spatial information about the seafloor is critical for decision-making by marine resource science, management and tribal organizations. Coordinating data needs can help organizations leverage collective resources to meet shared goals. To help enable this coordination, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric ...

Ecosystem-based management (EBM) of the ocean considers all impacts on and uses of marine and coastal systems. In recent years, there has been a heightened interest in EBM tools that allow testing of alternative management options and help identify tradeoffs ...

Amoebophrya is a marine parasite recently found to infect and kill bloom-forming dinoflagellates in the California Current System (CCS). However, it is unknown whether parasitism by Amoebophrya can control dinoflagellate blooms in major eastern boundary upwelling systems, such as the ...

This study explores the cycling of phosphorus (P) in the euphotic zone following upwelling in northeastern Monterey Bay (the Red Tide Incubator region) of coastal California, with particular emphasis on how bacteria and phytoplankton that form harmful algal blooms mediate ...

Pseudo-nitzschia blooms often occur in coastal and open ocean environments, sometimes leading to the production of the neurotoxin domoic acid that can cause severe negative impacts to higher trophic levels. Increasing evidence suggests a close relationship between phytoplankton bloom and ...

Predicting water column integrated phytoplankton biomass from near-surface measurements has been an important effort in marine ecological research, particularly since the advent of satellite remote sensing of ocean color. Quantitative relationships between chlorophyll-aconcentrations (Chl-a) at the surface and its depth-integrated ...

Spatial information about the seafloor is critical for decision-making by marine science, management and tribal organizations. While this type of information is important, its collection is expensive, time consuming and logistically intensive. Developing a network of partners and coordinating data ...

Harmful blooms formed by species of the dinoflagellate Cochlodinium have caused massive fish kills and substantial economic losses in the Pacific Ocean. Recently, prominent blooms of Cochlodinium have occurred in central and southern California (2004–2008), and Cochlodinium cells are now ...