You are here:
THE LOCAL EFFECT TIME (LET) AND HOW IT INCORPORATES ECOLOGY INTO RESIDENCE TIME
Citation:
Abdelrhman, M. THE LOCAL EFFECT TIME (LET) AND HOW IT INCORPORATES ECOLOGY INTO RESIDENCE TIME. Presented at New England Estuarine Research Society Annual Meeting, Block Island, RI, October 6-9, 2004.
Description:
A clear and direct connection between constituent/water residence times and ecological effects is necessary to quantitatively relate these time scales to ecology. The concept of "local effect time" (LET) is proposed here as a time scale with adequate spatial resolution to relate ecological components to spatial distributions of various water column constituents within an embayment. The LET can be used to predict the susceptibility of real-world ecological components to changes in water column conditions. Further, it can provide an efficient way to allow managers and agencies to evaluate the degree of stress or relief from current or projected changes in the loading of contaminants or nutrients. The methodology for calculating LET and defining its correlation with the existing ecological components and processes of an embayment will be presented along with an illustrative application to loading from riverine inflow in New Bedford Harbor, MA. The LET successfully identified the areas within the harbor that could be prone to ecological changes due to the loading rate of freshwater and its constituents.