| Primary Task Objective: Identify, quantify and model the impacts of urbanization on benthic habitat distribution, health, and restoration.
Description: Monitoring and research on the distribution of seagrass in Tampa Bay has, historically, been of highest priority to the Tampa Bay scientific community as one of the primary ecological indicators for estuarine health. The CCMP seagrass restoration goal is to recover an additional 12,350 acres of seagrass over 1992 levels, while preserving the bay’s existing 25,600 acres. Much emphasis has been focused on examining the impact of nutrient loading on seagrass health, and monitoring the re-growth of seagrass as nutrient loads have reduced. Thus, numerous seagrass research and monitoring programs are ongoing by TBEP partners (appendix 1). In 2000, the emphasis of seagrass research in Tampa Bay was refocused on examining factors other than nutrient loading that may be affecting seagrass growth, distribution, and health in the Bay including the impact of groundwater seepage, surface water and sediment quality, sediment transport and wave energy, sediment resuspension and light attenuation, and urbanization impacts.
Quantifying the relations among seagrass productivity and environmental impacts will provide critical information for modeling potential future impacts. Seagrass mapping and transect monitoring exercises are being achieved primarily by our partners (see list below). Thus, objectives of the Benthic Habitat task are focused on synthesizing historical and current seagrass data from our partners with urbanization and geophysical data from Tampa Bay Study project tasks (e.g. bathymetry, groundwater, sediment contaminants, sediment resuspension, circulation) to identify correlations among these natural and anthropogenic factors, and performing process monitoring and experiments to determine the impact of these elements on seagrass health and restoration in the Bay.
A coupled urbanization/seagrass visualization model will serve as a foundation upon which to assess correlations with other geospatial data sets to characterize the links among urbanization, its resulting environmental impact, and seagrass health and distribution. As the primary ecological indicator for estuarine health, the submerged aquatic vegetation component of the integrated model will serve as one gauge for examining impacts from dredged material management activities. Subtask objectives provide critical information for developing and validating this predictive model including: general rates of productivity for representative substrate types in the bay, benthic fluxes of nutrients (in partnership with FMRI), light attenuation and contaminant impacts to seagrass. Experimentation on restoration techniques in partnership with USF will further identify impediments to continued seagrass restoration and recovery in the Bay. Identification and research on seagrass epiphytes in partnership with FMRI will identify early warning ecological indicators for various stressors to existing seagrass beds.
Subtask Strategic Objectives: Five subtask objectives address two focus areas of research: 1) modeling to determine urban and environmental impacts to seagrass distribution and health and 2) process monitoring and experimentation to quantify urban and environmental impacts to benthic habitats and seagrass restoration.
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