The impacts of the 2004 hurricanes on hydrology, water quality, and seagrass in the Central Indian River Lagoon, Florida

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 954-965 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel S. Steward ◽  
Robert W. Virnstein ◽  
Margaret A. Lasi ◽  
Lori J. Morris ◽  
Janice D. Miller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Indian River Lagoon ◽  
Indian River

Volunteer Algae Monitoring Program (VAMP) in the Indian River Lagoon

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 88-93
Author(s):  
Susan Hamburger ◽  
Kenneth T. Gioeli ◽  
David Berthold ◽  
H. Dail Laughinghouse
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Harmful Algal Blooms ◽  
Algal Blooms ◽  
Monitoring Program ◽  
Indian River Lagoon ◽  
Fort Lauderdale ◽  
Quality Testing ◽  
Indian River ◽  
Research And Education ◽  
The University

AbstractThe University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Florida Master Naturalist Program (FMNP) is an adult environmental education program with more than 450 trained program graduates in St. Lucie County, Florida. It is a collaborative effort of the UF/IFAS Extension St. Lucie County, St. Lucie County Environmental Resources Department, and partner agencies. Four UF/IFAS Florida Master Naturalist volunteers were recruited and received training and supplies to conduct water quality testing and algae collection in the Indian River Lagoon as part of the Volunteer Algae Monitoring Program (VAMP). The UF/IFAS research and extension faculty developed VAMP in response to the 2016 harmful algal blooms (HABs) in the Indian River Lagoon that resulted in dramatic impacts on businesses, residents, and visitors in Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River counties. These HAB episodes demonstrate the importance of having informed citizen scientists with an understanding of the problems and threats. The VAMP citizen scientists conducted a water quality awareness survey with the general public after proactively scouting for HABs by collecting samples and conducting water quality testing at three waypoints in the Indian River Lagoon during May to November 2017 (excluding October) and February 2018. They utilized UF/IFAS Water Watch chemistry tests and processed and shipped water samples to the Laughinghouse Lab at the UF/IFAS Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, which conducted algae counts and genetic testing to determine the presence of harmful algae expressing microcystin-producing genes. Test results indicated fluctuating and inconsistent levels of saxitoxin but no indications of microcystins across the three sites and over time.

Modeling Water Quality in Indian River Lagoon, Florida

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detong Sun ◽  
Peter Sucsy ◽  
Getachew Belaineh ◽  
David Christian ◽  
Ed Carter
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Indian River Lagoon ◽  
Indian River

Seagrass management in Indian River Lagoon, Florida: dealing with issues of scale

1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Virnstein
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Light Attenuation ◽  
Indian River Lagoon ◽  
Aerial Photographs ◽  
Major Theme ◽  
Fine Scale ◽  
Geographic Scale ◽  
Indian River ◽  
Remote Sensing Mapping

The major theme of this paper is that management of seagrass must deal with issues of geographic scale. Approaches at several scales are needed. Examples are drawn primarily from management programmes for the 250 km long Indian River Lagoon system on the south-east coast of Florida. The Lagoon has several attributes of spatial variation that require approaches at various scales (e.g., from 1:1 000 000 to 1:1). Risks and errors of scaling up and scaling down are described. For large-scale approaches, remote-sensing mapping methods are generally appropriate. In the Indian River Lagoon, true-colour aerial photographs. are typically taken every 2?3 years at 1 :24 000 scale. Such Lagoon-wide maps have fuzzy boundaries and cannot be scaled down to fine scale, but they can be scaled up. At large scale, seagrass restoration/protection targets (to a depth of 1.7 m) are reasonable, but are unreasonable at fine scale. For monitoring change within a bed or meadow at metre to 500 m scale, monitoring of fixed transects is a powerful tool. However, the technique has limited power for comparisons among beds, which requires multiple transects. To build a predictive model, a site-specific study examined the relationships among light, water quality, and seagrasses. The link between seagrass and water quality is made through a light attenuation model incorporating both water column and epiphytes. Extensive sampling is required to test the robustness of the model at all scales. No single scale is appropriate for all approaches, and no approach applies over all scales. If such considerations of scale are not incorporated, errors of measurement, inappropriate techniques for assessment, implementation of wrong solutions, and a lack of understanding of the system under study can result.

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