Dr. Denise Breitburg collaborating with international science and policy community to understand/improve coastal fisheries and water quality.

Dr. Denise Breitburg will be working with international scientists and policymakers to tackle the issues of fisheries management and coastal water quality in early 2009.

Dr. Breitburg has been invited to participate in a UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission workshop in February aimed at understanding and improving water quality throughout the world. A marine and estuarine ecologist studying the combined effects of fishing and nutrient load in estuaries, Dr. Breitburg will be attending the workshop "Coastal Eutrophication: Linking nutrient sources to coastal ecosystem effects and management. The intersection of several UNESCO-IOC programmes related to nutrients.” The goal is to develop tools for policy specialists from developed and developing areas of the world as they evaluate and implement policies for improving coastal water quality.

In January, she will be co-chairing a workshop to discuss the effects of nutrient enrichment and hypoxia on fish and invertebrates. Specifically, the 12-member working group will focus on better understanding how those dual stressors impact the abundance of fish and invertebrates in estuaries and semi-enclosed seas. Nutrient enrichment and hypoxia are thought to be responsible for degradation of habitat critical to fishing stocks throughout the world, but scientists do not fully understand how these conditions interact with fisheries practices and other management concerns. The workshop participants, scientists representing the US, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Finland and Germany hope a better understanding of these issues will lead the way to more effective management of resources. The January workshop will serve as the opening dialogue for a series of workshops funded by Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone LOICZ and the Marine Sciences Network with support for data synthesis from NOAA Coastal Ocean Program.

For more information, on Dr. Breitburg's research, please contact SERC science writer Kimbra Cutlip .