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Science and Social Justice at the Caño Martín Peña Estuary in San Juan, Puerto Rico
Citation:
Oczkowski, A., Alana Hanson, AND D. Katz. Science and Social Justice at the Caño Martín Peña Estuary in San Juan, Puerto Rico. IN: CERF's Up!, Coastal & Estuarine Research Federation, Port Republic, MD, (46.2):4-5, (2020).
Impact/Purpose:
Coastal cities in tropical areas are often low-lying and vulnerable to flooding. Portions of San Juan, Puerto Rico are a good example of this. A canal that used to connect lagoons in the San Juan Bay Estuary has filled in with sediment and debris and the communities adjacent to the canal are frequently flooded with sewage-enriched waters. Here we look at the biogeochemistry of the sediments in the estuary and the peat of the mangrove forests to document the ecological impact of the closed canal on the whole San Juan Bay Estuary. As tropical urban areas are so understudied, we make new observations about nutrient cycling in the region and identify how the urbanization of the area is impacting the estuary.
Description:
The communities adjacent to the Caño Martín Peña, a canal that is part of Puerto Rico's San Juan Bay Estuary, regularly flood with sewage enriched waters. These communities are working to eliminate this problem by dredging the channel and to move people in the most vulnerable locations to higher ground. We are working to map the flooding and to better understand the urban influences on the San Juan Bay Estuary as a whole.
