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Final Report: Environmental Research in Coastal Louisiana
EPA Grant Number: R827785E01Title: Environmental Research in Coastal Louisiana
Investigators: Dagg, Michael
Institution: Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium
EPA Project Officer: Winner, Darrell
Project Period: March 17, 2002 through March 16, 2003
Project Amount: $483,939
RFA: EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) (1999)
Research Category: EPSCoR (The Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research)
Description:
Objective:The overall goal of this research project was to establish and maintain a system of instrument platforms throughout the Louisiana coastal waters to allow university scientists and students to monitor environmental variables of interest to them for their research and educational needs. The specific objectives of this research project were to: (1) provide Internet access to basic information about Louisiana's coastal environment for students and scientists in Louisiana's university community for educational and research activities; and (2) provide a monitoring system accessible to all university scientists for developing their own research or educational programs requiring coastal information. It is the intent of this State Implementation Program (SIP) to deploy and maintain three instrument moorings to relay the data back to the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) Marine Center and display these basic data openly and in a completely nonproprietary manner to the public. The two Science and Engineering Environmental Research (SEER) projects included in the Louisiana proposal utilized data from this environmental monitoring network to address their scientific hypotheses and educational objectives.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):LUMCON is located on the coast, approximately 80 miles southwest of New Orleans, LA. It serves as a marine laboratory facility for all the universities within Louisiana and conducts its own research and educational programs. LUMCON's coastal monitoring stations bring coastal environmental information to students and researchers throughout the state (see Figure 1). The Pontchartrain station and parts of the Audubon station were constructed under the auspices of this joint U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Board of Regents award.
Instrumentation for part of the Southwest Pass Station (under construction) also was purchased with funds from this grant.
Four of LUMCON's stations measure an array of meteorological parameters, including temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed, wind direction, solar radiation, quantum radiation, precipitation, and an array of hydrographic parameters, including water level, temperature, and salinity. The Pontchartrain, Tambour Bay, and Audubon stations also measure turbidity and chlorophyll. The Audubon station on the Mississippi River presently measures dissolved nitrate in addition to these other parameters. The station under construction at Southwest Pass will measure all of these parameters and is expected to be operational by the end of 2003. All data,
Figure 1. LUMCON's Coastal Monitoring Stations
with the exception of nitrate, are sent to the LUMCON Marine Center at 1-minute intervals and displayed on our Web page. All data are freely available via the Internet and the system has become widely used by many facets of society and the academic community. There are several important coastal issues in Louisiana that benefit greatly from data provided by these coastal monitoring stations.
Coastal Land Loss
One of the most serious environmental, economic, and social problems in the
Nation's marine regions is coastal land loss in Louisiana. Louisiana
has more than 4 million acres of wetlands, representing 40 percent of the Nation's
total. These wetlands, however, are in a state of rapid degradation and 80
percent of the Nation's coastal land loss occurs in Louisiana. The state
loses 25-35 square miles per year. Several factors contribute to this loss
(see http://www.tulane.edu/~bfleury/envirobio/enviroweb/LandLoss/LandLoss.htm 
).
Coastal Eutrophication
In addition to suspended sediments, the Mississippi River and its major distributory, the Atchafalaya River, discharge large amounts of dissolved nutrients into the Northern Gulf of Mexico. Concentrations and loadings of these nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, have been increased greatly in recent decades by anthropogenic activity in the drainage basin. This eutrophication has enhanced coastal biological production (Ortner and Dagg, 1995) and contributed to the annual development of a large zone of bottom-water hypoxia that develops each summer in the Northern Gulf of Mexico (Rabalais, et al., 1996). One consequence of this eutrophication is that there is great interest in the inputs and fates of dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus into the Northern Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River.
Coastal Flooding
Coastal regions in the Northern Gulf of Mexico are especially vulnerable to flooding induced by severe storms such as hurricanes because the topographic relief in this region is so small. In addition, most of New Orleans, LA, the major population center in the Central Gulf Coast, is below sea level, parts of it by more than 6-7 m. As a consequence, there is great interest in coastal weather, especially wind direction, wind speed, and water height. Current users of our data reflect these interests but also indicate that coastal data are much more broadly relevant. Data from our current monitoring stations are widely used in support of research, education, and public outreach. All data are freely available on the LUMCON Web Site. To encourage use, we do not require any sign-in procedure, passwords, etc. Persons who wish to access the archived monitoring data, however, must complete a short online form. A brief summary of those who have requested archived data in the past year (September 2002-September 2003) is provided below. Selected examples of why they used the data also are provided. Please note that these are not all users of our data, only users that request specific data sets from our database. Many have submitted multiple requests. Requests have been broadly divided into five categories.
University Research–163 total, including:
• Tulane University–resuspension modeling.
• Texas Tech University–study Hurricane Lili and Tropical Storm Isidore.
• University of New Orleans–atmospheric deposition.
• University of South Carolina–long-term record of sea level.
• Louisiana State University Coastal Fisheries–blue crab movements in relation
to water levels.
• Binghampton University–rainfall for atmospheric flux of hydrocarbons.
K-12 Education–15 total, including:
• LUMCON–workshop.
• Grand Calliou Middle School–weather.
• St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School–student project.
• LUMCON–Bayouside classroom.
• Lafourche Parish School Board–weather.
Private Industry–51 total, including:
• Construction Services, Inc.–construction: bulkhead repairs,
etc.
• Eric G. Ryals, Inc.–coastal surveying.
• State Farm Insurance–past weather conditions.
• ChevronTexaco–historical weather for sizing wind generators.
• Keystone Engineering–solar collector and wind generator design.
• The Courier (local newspaper)-news story.
• Morris P. Hebert, Inc.–weather for coastal restoration project on Isles
Dernieres.
• Liskow and Lewis–litigation research.
Private Citizens–61 total, including:
• Camp owner–weather.
• Personal–fishing.
• Personal–sailing.
• Personal–navigation and cruise planning.
• Personal–swimming.
• Personal–tides.
• Personal–salinity patterns.
State or Federal Agency–52 total, including:
• Kenner Police Department–Lake Pontchartrain temperatures for
design of rescue equipment.
• U.S. Geological Survey–water height.
• EPA–meteorological conditions.
• National Hurricane Center–weather and data on Tropical Storm Isidore
and Hurricane Lili.
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service–weather data to analyze abnormalities
in stage and flow data.
• Texas Commission on Environmental Quality–wind data for emissions modeling
for Houston ozone.
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers–atmospheric pressure.
• National Wetlands Research Center–water height.
• Terrebonne Parish–hurricane damage assessment.
Education and Outreach
LUMCON's educational programs reach audiences that include university
students, K-12 students and teachers, and the general public. Many of these
programs, including the Bayouside Classroom and the LUMCON Estuarine Awareness
and Discovery Camp (see http://www.lumcon.edu/education/ ), are incorporating
monitoring data as part of the overall means used to communicate information
about coastal issues.
Public Outreach. LUMCON is a partner in the developing Center for River-Ocean Studies (CeROS) recently initiated by Tulane University. CeROS has met with the Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans to discuss the establishment of an educational display at the Audubon Zoo. Several possible elements of a display are under discussion, including:
• The Mississippi River system–controlled (present) versus natural
(past).
• Suspended sediments in the river and coastal ocean.
• Dissolved nutrients (fertilizers) in the river and coastal ocean.
• River water temperate, air temperature and humidity, and river fog.
• Climate change and the river-ocean interface.
How many of these components will be expanded into full displays is not yet clear, but each component will incorporate real-time data from the LUMCON monitoring stations at the Audubon Zoo and at Southwest Pass, and perhaps other stations in the future.
The SIP has successfully accomplished its initial objectives by making real-time coastal information broadly available to the academic community and general public. As pointed out by the external review of this program in March 2002, Louisiana, by establishing a coastal observing system, is well positioned to participate in the national, coordinated coastal observing system that is planned for major funding in 2006.
Supplemental Keywords:coastal monitoring, Internet, monitoring system, ecosystems, ecosystem protection, environmental exposure and risk, international cooperation, waste, water, aquatic ecosystem, aquatic ecosystem restoration, estuarine research, biochemistry, ecology and ecosystems, environmental microbiology, fate and transport, monitoring, modeling, restoration, terrestrial ecosystems, water, watershed, Lake Pontchartrain, coastal ecosystems, coastal zone, continuous monitoring, ecological impact, ecological research, ecology assessment models, ecosystem stress, environmental measurement, environmental monitoring, environmental stress, heavy metals, hydrology, integrated watershed model, particle reactive contaminants, restoration strategies, sediment transport, source load modeling, water circulation, water monitoring, water quality, watershed influences, watershed management, watershed restoration. , Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, Water, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, Scientific Discipline, Waste, RFA, ECOSYSTEMS, Water & Watershed, Restoration, Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration, Aquatic Ecosystems & Estuarine Research, Terrestrial Ecosystems, Aquatic Ecosystem, Biochemistry, Fate & Transport, Watersheds, Monitoring/Modeling, Ecology and Ecosystems, heavy metals, water quality, ecological impact, fate and transport, watershed management, watershed restoration, particle reactive contaminants, ecological research, ecology assessment models, coastal ecosystems, environmental monitoring, continuous monitoring, aquatic ecosystems, environmental measurement, environmental stress, sediment transport, watershed sustainablility, water circulation, hydrology, watershed influences, coastal zone, restoration strategies, ecosystem stress, water monitoring, integrated watershed model, source load modeling
Relevant Websites:
http://weather.lumcon.edu/
http://www.lumcon.edu/education/
Progress and Final Reports:
2002 Progress Report
Original Abstract