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The Rocky Intertidal Health Sub-Committee is developing bioindices for rocky shores which can be used to predictably “rank” the relative health of rocky intertidal communities. Our goal, once bioindices are developed, is to evaluate the health of the Pacific rocky shores in a “State of the Rocky Shores” public document. |
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During Fall 2007, MARINe teamed up with federal, state, and local agencies to add 13 new sites to a network of locations where mussels are collected for water quality analysis. This increase results in a total of 34 Mussel Watch sites in southern California. |
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MARINe has embarked on a number of mapping efforts at large and small scales to improve our understanding of the habitat. These efforts are unique because the habitat is only exposed at low tide and other mapping efforts do not account for tide.
MARINe efforts include:
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Large scale mapping from planes and helicopters |
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| California Department of Fish and Game Planes: CDFG volunteered the use of their plane so the Pacific Region Intertidal Survey & Monitoring Team (PRISM) could conduct overflights of Ventura County sites at low tide. Markers were used at the site to delineate plots and significant features. |
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| California Coastal Marine Habitat Maps: Funded by NOAA and BOEMRE, Tenera Environmental has produced a GIS incorporating data from two BOEMRE mapping studies from the late 70’s/early 80’s for easy application to current technologies. These mapping efforts used a low-flying helicopter at low tide, with periodic groundtruthing with transects. They represent one of the only existing baseline mapping efforts. Slides taken during these studies are also available through BOEMRE. | |
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scale mapping using blimps and remote helicopters A small, 15 foot blimp with an undermounted camera was piloted at several sites to determine its utility for mapping at a site-wide scale. The blimp is easily transported, takes photos at scaled heights, and is useful for examining changes within and without the plots at the site. It is somewhat limited by wind. |
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A 10 foot remotely controlled helicopter was also tested but was found to not be appropriate for the wind conditions encountered along the open coast. |
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Tide-height
laser measurements for within-site mapping A laser measuring device used to obtain the elevation at specific points at a site has greatly improved the within site mapping capability and improved elevation comparison between sites.
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