Rationale for a New Generation of Indicators for Coastal Waters

Abstract

More than half the world’s human population lives within 100 km of the coast, and that number is expected to increase by 25% over the next two decades. Consequently, coastal ecosystems are at serious risk. Larger coastal populations and increasing development have led to increased loading of toxic substances, nutrients and pathogens with subsequent algal blooms, hypoxia, beach closures, and damage to coastal fisheries. Recent climate change has led to the rise in sea level with loss of coastal wetlands and saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers. Coastal resources have traditionally been monitored on a stressor-by-stressor basis such as for nutrient loading or dissolved oxygen. To fully measure the complexities of coastal systems, we must develop a new set of ecologic indicators that span the realm of biological organization from genetic markers to entire ecosystems and are broadly applicable across geographic regions while integrating stressor types. We briefly review recent developments in ecologic indicators and emphasize the need for improvements in understanding of stress–response relationships, contributions of multiple stressors, assessments over different spatial and temporal scales, and reference conditions. We provide two examples of ecologic indicators that can improve our understanding of these inherent problems: a) the use of photopigments as indicators of the interactive effects of nutrients and hydrology, and b) biological community approaches that use multiple taxa to detect effects on ecosystem structure and function. These indicators are essential to measure the condition of coastal resources, to diagnose stressors, to communicate change to the public, and ultimately to protect human health and the quality of the coastal environment.

Selection of multiple seagrass indicators for environmental biomonitoring

“…It is therefore important to carry out a preliminary assessment of an indicator's variability at a range of scales along an environmental gradient, and to specifically test the scale of interest (e.g. between-site variation) against smaller-scale variations using nested sampling designs (Morrisey et al 1992, Niemi et al 2004).…”

“…Because of the complexity of biological systems, their inherent high variability, and the influence of multiple environmental factors or stressors, the search for indicators should not be confined to only one level of biological organisation (Niemi et al 2004). The effects of stressors on the biota can be studied at different biological levels, ranging from the metabolism of a single organism to complex communities.…”

Renegotiation of the 1987 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement: From Confusion to Promise

“…For example, Niemi et al (2004) [19] remark that coastal resources have traditionally been monitored on a stressor-by-stressor basis. To fully measure the complexities of coastal systems, they contend, there is a need for a new set of ecologic indicators that span the realm of biological organization and are broadly applicable across geographic regions while integrating stressor types.…”

Development of a Low Cost Multi-Robot Autonomous Marine Surface Platform

“…Unfortunately, monitoring and understanding large spatially distributed systems is difficult due in part to partial observability, complex dynamics, high cost, and the diversity of data that must be collected. Radically new approaches to sampling and monitoring that enable collection of collecting large A. Valada · P. Velagapudi · B. Kannan · C. Tomaszewski · G. Kantor · P. Scerri The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA e-mail: {avalada,pkv,bkannan,ckt,kantor,pscerri}@cmu.edu amounts of data over large areas and extended periods are required if we are to balance economic development with conservation for future generations [1].…”