Grantee Research Project Results
2000 Progress Report: CISNet: In Situ and Remote Monitoring of Productivity and Nutrient Cycles in Puget Sound
EPA Grant Number: R826942Title: CISNet: In Situ and Remote Monitoring of Productivity and Nutrient Cycles in Puget Sound
Investigators: Emerson, Steven
Institution: University of Washington
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: October 1, 1998 through September 30, 2001 (Extended to September 30, 2002)
Project Period Covered by this Report: October 1, 1999 through September 30, 2000
Project Amount: $581,876
RFA: Ecological Effects of Environmental Stressors Using Coastal Intensive Sites (1998) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Environmental Statistics , Aquatic Ecosystems , Ecological Indicators/Assessment/Restoration
Objective:
The purpose of this research project is to develop a profiling mooring?the oceanic remote chemical/optical analyzer (ORCA)?to monitor water quality remotely from south Puget Sound, WA. With extensive urbanization of the area predicted for the next 10 years, south Puget Sound is potentially at risk to impacts from eutrophication. ORCA will enable us to monitor tidal, diel, seasonal, and inter-annual cycles and trends in stratification, oxygen, nutrients, water clarity, and phytoplankton abundance and community distribution. In addition to the mooring itself, there is a field component for verification of the mooring derived data. The mooring data combined with the survey data and optics data from the mooring location will allow extension of interpretations to greater Puget Sound through the broader survey and remote sensing data.
Progress Summary:
The goal of the second year of the project was to continue testing ORCA, deploy it in south Puget Sound, maintain it, continue development of additional sensors and continue the field-sampling component. During the first 8 months, ORCA underwent extensive testing and redesign. After a successful overnight deployment in Port Madison, Puget Sound (May 11-12), ORCA was moored in Carr Inlet on May 24-26. ORCA is composed of an Atlas surface float moored in a triple-point configuration. On top of the Atlas float rests a platform with computer, winch, batteries, solar panels, cell-phone system, and a superstructure with light and radar reflector. Beneath the float hangs a ballast ring providing stability to wind and wave action. The software driving the system is a C-code running on a Tattletale-8 microprocessor. The program takes pressure data from the sensor package to run the winch and drive the sensor package through the water column, then uploading all the data from the sensor package and transmitting it back to University of Washington for automatic data processing and Web display.
Since its permanent deployment, ORCA has been providing a near-continual stream of high-resolution water quality data from Carr Inlet. We currently are conducting data quality assurance, data reduction, and time-series analysis in an effort to understand the dynamics of variability in this ever-growing data set. Throughout the summer and early fall, variability in wind, rainfall, and sunlight force temperature and salinity between intermittent periods of strong stratification and deep mixing. The seasonal cycle also is intense with intermittently high surface temperatures disappearing entirely in the fall and salinity increasing steadily throughout the summer and fall. Oxygen and chlorophyll co-vary in the summer through a combination of physical response to the intermittent stratification and mixing and biological response to primary production and respiration. At depth, we have observed the generation and strengthening of low oxygen conditions throughout the summer with destruction of these conditions with the onset of intense mixing in the fall.
We also are developing a database of in-water optical measurements for the development of remote-sensing algorithms specific to Puget Sound. We completed the evaluation and purchase of optical instrumentation necessary for this research, and conducted a series of field studies to characterize Puget Sound waters and to establish our database.
We continued collection of water samples from the Washington Department of Ecology's long-term monitoring program. These samples are taken monthly at approximately 30 stations throughout Puget Sound (including the mooring location site). The Washington Department of Ecology also completed four high-resolution surveys of south Puget Sound in support of this project (December 1999, April 2000, July 2000, and September 2000). At each station, we obtained profile data for temperature, salinity, oxygen, fluorescence, and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). At about half of these stations, we collected samples for nutrients, chlorophyll a, and dissolved oxygen. At four to six stations during each cruise (including the CISNet mooring site), primary productivity was determined. We notice strong gradients in ammonium and oxygen in the vicinity of the CISNet mooring site as well as in other inlets within the South Puget Sound system. Nutrient limitation of primary production is evident, thus eutrophication affects carbon cycling and environmental quality in this system. The data will provide the spatial context for the fixed CISNet mooring and allow us to better understand oxygen, nutrient, and productivity variation and seasonal dynamics in south Puget Sound.
Future Activities:
During the coming year, we will augment the current data set with a high resolution time-series of the 2000 spring bloom in south Puget Sound. We currently are developing the software to incorporate additional sensors onto ORCA including the meteorological station, underwater par, AC-9. We will continue to develop the nutrient and dissolved gas sensors, maintain ORCA, and conduct field studies and sampling in Puget Sound for the purpose of increasing this database. We also will begin collection of optical data from ORCA, which will provide a high resolution time series of an annual cycle in South Puget Sound. We will develop a biogeochemical model to help us to understand biological and physical controls on oxygen and evaluate the vulnerability of Carr Inlet to hypoxia through eutrophication. We also will explore and evaluate inverse models for estimating chlorophyll and other water quality indicators from remotely-sensed imagery.
Journal Articles on this Report : 1 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 11 publications | 1 publications in selected types | All 1 journal articles |
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Type | Citation | ||
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Dunne JP, Devol AH, Emerson S. The Oceanic Remote Chemical/Optical Analyzer - An autonomous moored profiler. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 2002;19(10):1709-1721. |
R826942 (2000) R826942 (2001) R826942 (Final) |
not available |
Supplemental Keywords:
water, marine, estuary, effects, vulnerability, population, water quality, nitrate, oxygen, environmental chemistry, ecology, modeling, monitoring, Pacific Coast, Pacific Northwest, Washington, WA, EPA Region 10., Scientific Discipline, Water, Geographic Area, Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, Nutrients, State, Monitoring/Modeling, Ecological Risk Assessment, anthropogenic stress, aquatic ecosystem, coastal ecosystem, eutrophication, nutrient supply, nutrient transport, remote sensing, CISNet, bioavailability, chemical speciation, coastal zone, remote sensing data, Puget Sound, CISNet Program, biomass, Washington (WA), nutrient cycling, water quality, gas concentrations, nutrient transport model, in situ chemical profilesRelevant Websites:
Oceanic Remote Chemical/Optical Analyzer:
http://www.ocean.washington.edu/research/orca
Washington State Department of Ecology's
long-term monitoring program:
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/eap/mar_wat/mwm_intr.html
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.