Sustainable management of water bodies for small-scale fisheries resorces research and development

Abstract The rapid growth of both formal and informal high density urban settlements around major water resources has led to increased pollution of streams, rivers, lakes and estuaries, due to contaminated runoff from these developments. The paper identified major contaminants to be : organic waste (sewage), industrial effluent, pesticides and litter. Pollutant loads vary depending on the hydrology of the urban area, local topography and soil conditions. In some instances, severe pollution of neighbouring and downstream water courses has been observed. The management of catchment land uses, riparian zones, in stream habitat, as well as in stream water flow patterns and quality are necessary in order to sustain the integrity and "health" of water resources, for fisheries and other developments. As such, attempts to ensure a certain level of water quality without attention to other aspects will not automatically ensure a "healthy" ecosystem even as fish habitat. Proper management leads to better water quality and conducive environment for increased fish production

Developing effective restoration plans to tackle the widespread impairment of coastal swimming and shellfishing waters

Congress established a legal imperative to restore the quality of our surface waters when it enacted the Clean Water Act in 1972. The act requires that existing uses of coastal waters such as swimming and shellfishing be protected and restored. Enforcement of this mandate is frequently measured in terms of the ability to swim and harvest shellfish in tidal creeks, rivers, sounds, bays, and ocean beaches. Public-health agencies carry out comprehensive water-quality sampling programs to check for bacteria contamination in coastal areas where swimming and shellfishing occur. Advisories that restrict swimming and shellfishing are issued when sampling indicates that bacteria concentrations exceed federal health standards. These actions place these coastal waters on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencies’ (EPA) list of impaired waters, an action that triggers a federal mandate to prepare a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) analysis that should result in management plans that will restore degraded waters to their designated uses. When coastal waters become polluted, most people think that improper sewage treatment is to blame. Water-quality studies conducted over the past several decades have shown that improper sewage treatment is a relatively minor source of this impairment. In states like North Carolina, it is estimated that about 80 percent of the pollution flowing into coastal waters is carried there by contaminated surface runoff. Studies show this runoff is the result of significant hydrologic modifications of the natural coastal landscape. There was virtually no surface runoff occurring when the coastal landscape was natural in places such as North Carolina. Most rainfall soaked into the ground, evaporated, or was used by vegetation. Surface runoff is largely an artificial condition that is created when land uses harden and drain the landscape surfaces. Roofs, parking lots, roads, fields, and even yards all result in dramatic changes in the natural hydrology of these coastal lands, and generate huge amounts of runoff that flow over the land’s surface into nearby waterways. (PDF contains 3 pages)

Watershed monitoring and the TMDL modeling to assess bacterial loading in estuarine environments to improve management

Shellfish bed closures along the North Carolina coast have increased over the years seemingly concurrent with increases in population (Mallin 2000). More and faster flowing storm water has come to mean more bacteria, and fecal indicator bacterial (FIB) standards for shellfish harvesting are often exceeded when no source of contamination is readily apparent (Kator and Rhodes, 1994). Could management reduce bacterial loads if the source of the bacteria where known? Several potentially useful methods for differentiating human versus animal pollution sources have emerged including Ribotyping and Multiple Antibiotic Resistance (MAR) (US EPA, 2005). Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) studies on bacterial sources have been conducted for streams in NC mountain and Piedmont areas (U.S. EPA, 1991 and 2005) and are likely to be mandated for coastal waters. TMDL analysis estimates allowable pollutant loads and allocates them to known sources so management actions may be taken to restore water to its intended uses (U.S. EPA, 1991 and 2005). This project sought first to quantify and compare fecal contamination levels for three different types of land use on the coast, and second, to apply MAR and ribotyping techniques and assess their effectiveness for indentifying bacterial sources. Third, results from these studies would be applied to one watershed to develop a case study coastal TMDL. All three watershed study areas are within Carteret County, North Carolina. Jumping Run Creek and Pettiford Creek are within the White Oak River Basin management unit whereas the South River falls within the Neuse River Basin. Jumping Run Creek watershed encompasses approximately 320 ha. Its watershed was a dense, coastal pocosin on sandy, relic dune ridges, but current land uses are primarily medium density residential. Pettiford Creek is in the Croatan National Forest, is 1133 ha. and is basically undeveloped. The third study area is on Open Grounds Farm in the South River watershed. Half of the 630 ha. watershed is under cultivation with most under active water control (flashboard risers). The remaining portion is forested silviculture.(PDF contains 4 pages)

Characterizing Jobos Bay, Puerto Rico: a watershed modeling analysis and monitoring plan

Land-based pollution is commonly identified as a major contributor to the observed deterioration of shallow-water coral reef ecosystem health. Human activity on the coastal landscape often induces nutrient enrichment, hypoxia, harmful algal blooms, toxic contamination and other stressors that have degraded the quality of coastal waters. Coral reef ecosystems throughout Puerto Rico, including Jobos Bay, are under threat from coastal land uses such as urban development, industry and agriculture. The objectives of this report were two-fold: 1. To identify potentially harmful land use activities to the benthic habitats of Jobos Bay, and 2. To describe a monitoring plan for Jobos Bay designed to assess the impacts of conservation practices implemented on the watershed. This characterization is a component of the partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) established by the Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) in Jobos Bay. CEAP is a multi-agency effort to quantify the environmental benefits of conservation practices used by private landowners participating in USDA programs. The Jobos Bay watershed, located in southeastern Puerto Rico, was selected as the first tropical CEAP Special Emphasis Watershed (SEW). Both USDA and NOAA use their respective expertise in terrestrial and marine environments to model and monitor Jobos Bay resources. This report documents NOAA activities conducted in the first year of the three-year CEAP effort in Jobos Bay. Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the project and background information on Jobos Bay and its watershed. Chapter 2 implements NOAA’s Summit to Sea approach to summarize the existing resource conditions on the watershed and in the estuary. Summit to Sea uses a GIS-based procedure that links patterns of land use in coastal watersheds to sediment and pollutant loading predictions at the interface between terrestrial and marine environments. The outcome of Summit to Sea analysis is an inventory of coastal land use and predicted pollution threats, consisting of spatial data and descriptive statistics, which allows for better management of coral reef ecosystems. Chapters 3 and 4 describe the monitoring plan to assess the ecological response to conservation practices established by USDA on the watershed. Jobos Bay is the second largest estuary in Puerto Rico, but has more than three times the shoreline of any other estuarine area on the island. It is a natural harbor protected from offshore wind and waves by a series of mangrove islands and the Punta Pozuelo peninsula. The Jobos Bay marine ecosystem includes 48 km² of mangrove, seagrass, coral reef and other habitat types that span both intertidal and subtidal areas. Mapping of Jobos Bay revealed 10 different benthic habitats of varying prevalence, and a large area of unknown bottom type covering 38% of the entire bay. Of the known benthic habitats, submerged aquatic vegetation, primarily seagrass, is the most common bottom type, covering slightly less than 30% of the bay. Mangroves are the dominant shoreline feature, while coral reefs comprise only 4% of the total benthic habitat. However, coral reefs are some of the most productive habitats found in Jobos Bay, and provide important habitat and nursery grounds for fish and invertebrates of commercial and recreational value.

Variation in composition of macro-benthic invertebrates as an indication of water quality status in three bays in Lake Victoria

Knowledge of how biota can be used to monitor ecosystem health and assess impacts by human alterations such as land use and management measures taken at different spatial scales is critical for improving the ecological quality of aquatic ecosystems. This knowledge in Uganda is very limited or unavailable yet it is needed to better understand the relationship between environmental factors at different spatial scales, assemblage structure and taxon richness of aquatic ecosystems. In this study, benthic invertebrate community patterns were sampled between June 2001 and April 2002 and analysed in relation to water quality and catchment land use patterns from three shallow near-shore bays characterized by three major land uses patterns: urban (Murchison Bay); semi-urban (Fielding Bay); rural (Hannington Bay). Variations in density and guild composition of benthic macro-invertebrates communities were evaluated using GIS techniques along an urban-rural gradient of land use and differences in community composition were related to dissolved oxygen and conductivity variation. Based on numerical abundance and tolerance values, Hilsenhoff's Biotic Index ofthe invertebrates was determined in order to evaluate the relative importance of water quality in the three bays. Murchison Bay supported a relatively taxa-poor invertebrate assemblage mainly comprising stenotopic and eurytopic populations of pollution-tolerant groups such as worms and Chironomus sp. with an overall depression in species diversity. On the contrary, the communities in Fielding and Hannington bays were quite similar and supported distinct and diverse assemblages including pollution-intolerant forms such as Ephemeroptera (mayflies), Odonata (dragonflies). The Hilsenhoff Biotic Index in Murchison Bay was 6.53. (indicating poor water quality) compared to 6.34 for Fielding Bay and 5.78 for Hannington Bay (both indicating fair water quality). The characterization of maximum taxa richness balanced among taxa groups with good representation of intolerant individuals in Hannington Bay relative to Fielding and Murchison bays concludes that the bay is the cleanest in terms of water quality. Contrary, the dominance of few taxa with many tolerant iqdividuals present in Murchison Bay indicates that the bay is degraded in terms of water quality. These result are ofimportance when planning conservation and management measures, implementing large-scale biomonitoring programs, and predicting how human alterations (e.g nutrient loading) affect water ecosystems. Therefore, analysis of water quality in relation to macro-invertebrate community composition patterns as bio-indicators can lead to further understanding of their responses to environmental manipulations and perturbations.

Imminent Geologic and Hydrologic Hazards on Fort Ord BLM Land

The Bureau of Land Management acquired 7,500 acres of land as part of the re-use of the decommissioned Fort Ord Army base. A variety of geologic hazards exist on the landscape including gully erosion, mass wasting, and decaying earthen dams. This short report highlights a few critical areas that deserve closer evaluation and remediation. Of particular concern are decaying earthen dams and mass wasting of tall stream banks that may impact BLM infrastructure or adjacent urban development. (Document contains 13 paGES)

Air Flow Land-Sea-Air Interface: Monterey Bay, California - 1971. Annual Report, Part 1, July 1972

Air flow at the land-sea-air interface influences to a large extent the atmospheric conditions that determine the transport, di lution, and trapping of natural and man-made air pollutants in the coastal areas of Monterey Bay and the Salinas Valley. Analysis of the hourly air flow on a daily and monthly basis indicates patterns of stagnation from midnight to noon of the fol lowing day with moderate to strong air flow during period 1300 to 2200. Throughout the year 1971 whenever flow is greater than 5 mph, the prevailing wind direction is onshore and from a westerly direction. Suggestions for urbanization and industrialization are made on the basis of an understanding of the atmospheric conditions which lead to trapping and dispersal of atmospheric waste. (27 page document)

Chief Kerry's moose : a guidebook to land use and occupancy mapping, research design, and data collection

Aboriginal peoples in Canada have been mapping aspects of their cultures for more than a generation. Indians, Inuit, Métis, non-status Indians and others have called their maps by different names at various times and places: land use and occupancy; land occupancy and use; traditional use; traditional land use and occupancy; current use; cultural sensitive areas; and so on. I use “land use and occupancy mapping” in a generic sense to include all the above. The term refers to the collection of interview data about traditional use of resources and occupancy of lands by First Nation persons, and the presentation of those data in map form. Think of it as the geography of oral tradition, or as the mapping of cultural and resource geography. (PDF contains 81 pages.)

Land Use and Spring Protection

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Appraisal of water resources in the east central Florida region

The rapidly expanding population and economic growth in the seven counties of the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council as shown in Figure 1, herein called the East Central Florida Region or the Region, has resulted in increasing demands on its water resources. Although there is abundant water in the Region as a whole, the water in some areas of the Region is of unacceptable quality for most uses. As the population increases the demand for water will become much greater and the available supply may be reduced by pollution and increased drainage necessitated by urbanization and other land development- Ground-water supplies can be increased by capturing and storing water underground that now drains to the sea or evaporates from swamp areas. Research is needed, however, to develop artificial-recharge methods that are feasible and which will preserve or improve the quality of water in the aquifer. (PDF contains 57 pages)

Support for Integrated Ecosystem Assessments of NOAA’s National Estuarine Research Reserves System (NERRS), Volume I: The Impacts of Coastal Development on the Ecology and Human Well-being of Tidal Creek Ecosystems of the US Southeast

A study was conducted, in association with the Sapelo Island and North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserves (NERRs), to evaluate the impacts of coastal development on sentinel habitats (e.g., tidal creek ecosystems), including potential impacts to human health and well-being. Uplands associated with southeastern tidal creeks and the salt marshes they drain are popular locations for building homes, resorts, and recreational facilities because of the high quality of life and mild climate associated with these environments. Tidal creeks form part of the estuarine ecosystem characterized by high biological productivity, great ecological value, complex environmental gradients, and numerous interconnected processes. This research combined a watershed-level study integrating ecological, public health and human dimension attributes with watershed-level land use data. The approach used for this research was based upon a comparative watershed and ecosystem approach that sampled tidal creek networks draining developed watersheds (e.g., suburban, urban, and industrial) as well as undeveloped sites. The primary objective of this work was to clearly define the relationships between coastal development with its concomitant land use changes and non-point source pollution loading and the ecological and human health and well-being status of tidal creek ecosystems. Nineteen tidal creek systems, located along the southeastern United States coast from southern North Carolina to southern Georgia, were sampled during summer (June-August), 2005 and 2006. Within each system, creeks were divided into two primary segments based upon tidal zoning: intertidal (i.e., shallow, narrow headwater sections) and subtidal (i.e., deeper and wider sections), and watersheds were delineated for each segment. In total, we report findings on 24 intertidal and 19 subtidal creeks. Indicators sampled throughout each creek included water quality (e.g., dissolved oxygen concentration, salinity, nutrients, chlorophyll-a levels), sediment quality (e.g., characteristics, contaminants levels including emerging contaminants), pathogen and viral indicators, and abundance and genetic responses of biological resources (e.g., macrobenthic and nektonic communities, shellfish tissue contaminants, oyster microarray responses). For many indicators, the intertidally-dominated or headwater portions of tidal creeks were found to respond differently than the subtidally-dominated or larger and deeper portions of tidal creeks. Study results indicate that the integrity and productivity of headwater tidal creeks were impaired by land use changes and associated non-point source pollution, suggesting these habitats are valuable early warning sentinels of ensuing ecological impacts and potential public health threats. For these headwater creeks, this research has assisted the validation of a previously developed conceptual model for the southeastern US region. This conceptual model identified adverse changes that generally occurred in the physical and chemical environment (e.g., water quality indicators such as indicator bacteria for sewage pollution or sediment chemical contamination) when impervious cover levels in the watershed reach 10-20%. Ecological characteristics responded and were generally impaired when impervious cover levels exceed 20-30%. Estimates of impervious cover levels defining where human uses are impaired are currently being determined, but it appears that shellfish bed closures and the flooding vulnerability of headwater regions become a concern when impervious cover values exceed 10-30%. This information can be used to forecast the impacts of changing land use patterns on tidal creek environmental quality as well as associated human health and well-being. In addition, this study applied tools and technologies that are adaptable, transferable, and repeatable among the high quality NERRS sites as comparable reference entities to other nearby developed coastal watersheds. The findings herein will be of value in addressing local, regional and national needs for understanding multiple stressor (anthropogenic and human impacts) effects upon estuarine ecosystems and response trends in ecosystem condition with changing coastal impacts (i.e., development, climate change). (PDF contaions 88 pages)

Biological Platforms for Environmental Sensor technologies and their uses as indicators of the marine environment, Seward, Alaska, September 19-21, 2007: workshop proceedings

The Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) Workshop entitled, "Biological Platforms as Sensor Technologies and their Use as Indicators for the Marine Environment" was held in Seward, Alaska, September 19 - 21,2007. The workshop was co-hosted by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and the Alaska SeaLife Center (ASLC). The workshop was attended by 25 participants representing a wide range of research scientists, managers, and manufacturers who develop and deploy sensory equipment using aquatic vertebrates as the mode of transport. Eight recommendations were made by participants at the conclusion of the workshop and are presented here without prioritization: 1. Encourage research toward development of energy scavenging devices of suitable sizes for use in remote sensing packages attached to marine animals. 2. Encourage funding sources for development of new sensor technologies and animal-borne tags. 3. Develop animal-borne environmental sensor platforms that offer more combined systems and improved data recovery methodologies, and expand the geographic scope of complementary fixed sensor arrays. 4. Engage the oceanographic community by: a. Offering a mini workshop at an AGU ocean sciences conference for people interested in developing an ocean carbon program that utilizes animal-borne sensor technology. b. Outreach to chemical oceanographers. 5. Min v2d6.sheepserver.net e and merge technologies from other disciplines that may be applied to marine sensors (e.g. biomedical field). 6. Encourage the NOAA Permitting Office to: a. Make a more predictable, reliable, and consistent permitting system for using animal platforms. b. Establish an evaluation process. c. Adhere to established standards. 7. Promote the expanded use of calibrated hydrophones as part of existing animal platforms. 8. Encourage the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) to promote animal tracking as effective samplers of the marine environment, and use of animals as ocean sensor technology platforms. [PDF contains 20 pages]

Small-scale fisheries resources management options - an overview: a key note address

Small-scale fisheries is traditional and rural based. Therefore, the paper is an over view of small-scale fisheries resources management in Nigeria. It provides about 80-90% employment to surrounding population. The small-scale fisheries are grouped in to two major sectors:- the artisanal or capture fisheries and aquaculture farming. The paper identified some management problems such as:- multi uses of the water bodies, lack of or inadequate data upon which sound management strategies are based, ownership of inland water bodies is a problem, uncontrolled exploitation hampers sustainable development, poor and low technology and lack of capital, land and credit facilities. The paper presented some management options for sustainable management. Measures to reduced fish spoilage have been advanced. Also highlighted is the role of fish culture in small-scale fisheries management

What is coastal climate?

Historical definitions of what determines whether one lives in a coastal area or not have varied over time. According to Culliton (1998), a “coastal county” is defined as a county with at least 15% of its total land area located within a nation’s coastal watershed. This emphasizes the land areas within which water flows into the ocean or Great Lakes, but may be better suited for ecosystems or water quality research (Crowell et al. 2007). Some Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) documents suggest that “coastal” includes shoreline-adjacent coastal counties, and perhaps even counties impacted by flooding from coastal storms. An accurate definition of “coastal” is critical in this regard since FEMA uses such definitions to revise and modernize their Flood Insurance Rate Maps (Crowell et al. 2007). A recent map published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Coastal Services Center for the Coastal Change Analysis Program shows that the “coastal” boundary covers the entire state of New York and Michigan, while nearly all of South Carolina is considered “coastal.” The definition of “coastal” one chooses can have major implications, including a simple count of coastal population and the influence of local or state coastal policies. There is, however, one aspect of defining what is “coastal” that has often been overlooked; using atmospheric long-term climate variables to define the inland extent of the coastal zone. This definition, which incorporates temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and relative humidity, is furthermore scalable and globally applicable - even in the face of shifting shorelines. A robust definition using common climate variables should condense the large broad definition often associated with “coastal” such that completely landlocked locations would no longer be considered “coastal.” Moreover, the resulting definition, “coastal climate” or “climatology of the coast”, will help coastal resource managers make better-informed decisions on a wide range of climatologically-influenced issues. The following sections outline the methodology employed to derive some new maps of coastal boundaries in the United States. (PDF contains 3 pages)

To pave or not to pave: A social landscape analysis of land use decision-making in the towns of the lamprey watershed

Population pressure in coastal New Hampshire challenges land use decision-making and threatens the ecological health and functioning of Great Bay, an estuary designated as both a NOAA National Estuarine Research Reserve and an EPA National Estuary Program site. Regional population in the seacoast has quadrupled in four decades resulting in sprawl, increased impervious surface cover and larger lot rural development (Zankel, et.al., 2006). All of Great Bay’s contributing watersheds face these challenges, resulting in calls for strategies addressing growth, development and land use planning. The communities within the Lamprey River watershed comprise this case study. Do these towns communicate upstream and downstream when making land use decisions? Are cumulative effects considered while debating development? Do town land use groups consider the Bay or the coasts in their decision-making? This presentation, a follow-up from the TCS 2008 conference and a completed dissertation, will discuss a novel social science approach to analyze and understand the social landscape of land use decision-making in the towns of the Lamprey River watershed. The methods include semi-structured interviews with GIS based maps in a grounded theory analytical strategy. The discussion will include key findings, opportunities and challenges in moving towards a watershed approach for land use planning. This presentation reviews the results of the case study and developed methodology, which can be used in watersheds elsewhere to map out the potential for moving towns towards EBM and watershed-scaled, land use planning. (PDF contains 4 pages)