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Overview of U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development’s planned research on analysis and monitoring in fresh and coastal/estuarine environments
Citation:
Mash, H., Jim Lazorchak, T. Sanan, T. Jones-Lepp, J. Morgan, M. Elovitz, Joel Allen, J. Lu, J. Santodomingo, R. Zucker, AND A. Delacruz. Overview of U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development’s planned research on analysis and monitoring in fresh and coastal/estuarine environments. Presented at 9th US Symposium on Harmful Algae, Baltimore, MD, November 11 - 17, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
Several factors are contributing to the development of the “perfect” Harmful algal Bloom (HAB) storm. For example, climate change associated with elevated temperatures over prolonged time periods, changes in population demographics, agricultural land use linked to nitrogen loading increases, chronic economic stress and an aging water treatment infrastructure all combine to increase the probability of toxins breaking through to consumers’ taps.
Description:
This research plan has several objectives: 1) develop new or refine existing chemical, instrument and biological methods for the detection of cyanobacteria and their toxins; test such methods in field studies in both HAB and non HAB environments; 2) determine the method(s) that can be best uses as early warning (pre bloom conditions within days to weeks) systems for the detection of cyanobacteria and their toxins. We will discuss ongoing efforts of research projects that include chemical detection of toxins, use of molecular, flow cytometry, mass spectrometric, 2 phone apps 1) HABs early warning app for estimating the percentage of bluegreens vs other algae, 2) microscopic approaches for phyto/zooplankton identification, and advanced instrumental and hyperspectral image analysis approaches.