The flushing of pollution from recreational boating in tidal embayments with application to Great Salt Pond on Block Island

Abstract

Pollution loading from recreational boating has been gleaned from seasonal boat count data, published results of pollutant releases from marine engines, and boat type and size distributions from marine association data. These loading functions have then been used in the single-basin MSB model of pollution-flushing, a systems-dynamic model written in Stella (Stella is a product of ISEE Systems, Inc., formerly High Performance Systems of Hanover, New Hampshire, USA), which has been validated in tank tests and in a specific application to Great Salt Pond on Block Island. The results of the present study allow the concentration of various aqueous pollutants associated with the propulsion component of recreational boating to be computed in well-mixed tidal embayments.

Evaluation of a popular spatial cumulative impact assessment method for marine systems: A seagrass case study

“…In addition, the intensity of stressors is likely to vary. For example, the concentration of pollutants at a specific location is dependent on several factors such as their residence time in the water column (Ranke 2002), the level of freshwater flushing (Mecca et al 2008) and the sorption rate to suspended sediment in a given area (Wicke et al 2007). Future studies that comprehensively investigate direct relationships between spatial stressor data and seagrass condition may help to identify which, if any, of the spatial stressor datasets most influence seagrass condition.…”