Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research (CSCOR)

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NOAA AWARDS $376,124 GRANT TO BATTELLE MEMORIAL INSTITUTE TO STUDY HYPOXIA IMPACT ON ESTUARINE ECOSYSTEMS

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded Battelle Memorial Institute a $376,124 grant to study the historical trends of hypoxia in Puget Sound. This grant is the first installment of a two-year award from NOAA for $517,012.

The grant supports research to reconstruct the history of hypoxia in two basins of Puget Sound by examining the chemical and biological record of past hypoxic events recorded in age-dated sediment cores. The retrospective approach will include analysis of a broad set of environmental indicators or biomarkers from different regions of Puget Sound that experience different physical oceanographic conditions, land-use patterns, river flow and urbanization. Tools in the form of either biomarkers or chemical parameters will allow a predictive capability for given current conditions and potential natural or anthropogenic scenarios, including management alternatives, such as nutrient removal and river flow control.

Hypoxia in aquatic systems refers to waters where the dissolved oxygen concentration is below two milligrams per liter. Most organisms avoid, or become physiologically stressed in, waters with oxygen below this concentration. While hypoxia can occur naturally, it is often a symptom of environments stressed by human impacts (e.g. nutrient enrichment). Over half of U.S. estuaries experience natural or human-induced hypoxic conditions at some time each year and evidence suggests that the frequency and duration of hypoxic events have increased. These hypoxic events can have large impacts on the affected ecosystems and have associated economic impacts.

“Assembly of a historical database within this ecosystem is an important first step toward the establishment of an environmental hypoxia baseline for Puget Sound,” said retired Navy Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “NOAA's partnership with Battelle Memorial Institute will help to determine the extent to which seasonal hypoxia within the Puget Sound ecosystem is determined by natural events, which may not be controllable, versus anthropogenic events, which may be responsive to management changes in the watershed.”

This project is part of the Coastal Hypoxia Research Program (CHRP), managed by the NOAA Ocean Service's Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research. CHRP will provide resource managers new tools, techniques and information for making informed decisions and assessing alternative management strategies regarding hypoxia in U.S. coastal ocean waters, estuaries and Great Lakes. Determining the causes of hypoxia, developing the capability to predict its occurrence in response to varying levels of anthropogenic stress, and evaluating the subsequent ecological and economic impacts are necessary to assess potential management alternatives.

Each year, NOAA awards approximately $900 million in grants to members of the academic, scientific, and business communities to assist the agency in fulfilling its mission to study the Earth's natural systems in order to predict environmental change, manage ocean resources, protect life and property, and provide decision makers with reliable scientific information. The NOAA Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research awards approximately $25 million in grants annually to institutions of higher education, state, local, and tribal governments, and other non-profit research institutions to assist NOAA in fulfilling its mission to study our coastal oceans. NOAA-sponsored competitive research programs such as CHRP demonstrate NOAA's commitment to these basic responsibilities of science and service to the nation for the past 35 years.

NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners and nearly 60 countries to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes.

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