Water Quality Drivers in 11 Gulf of Mexico Estuaries

Abstract

Abstract:Coastal water-quality is both a primary driver and also a consequence of coastal ecosystem health. Turbidity, a measure of dissolved and particulate water-quality matter, is a proxy for water quality, and varies on daily to interannual periods. Turbidity is influenced by a variety of factors, including algal particles, colored dissolved organic matter, and suspended sediments. Identifying which factors drive trends and extreme events in turbidity in an estuary helps environmental managers and decision makers plan for and mitigate against water-quality issues. Efforts to do so on large spatial scales have been hampered due to limitations of turbidity data, including coarse and irregular temporal resolution and poor spatial coverage. We addressed these issues by deriving a proxy for turbidity using ocean color satellite products for 11 Gulf of Mexico estuaries from 2000 to 2014 on weekly, monthly, seasonal, and annual time-steps. Drivers were identified using Akaike's Information Criterion and multiple regressions to model turbidity against precipitation, wind speed, U and V wind vectors, river discharge, water level, and El Nino Southern Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation climate indices. Turbidity variability was best explained by wind speed across estuaries for both time-series and extreme turbidity events, although more dynamic patterns were found between estuaries over various time steps.

Identifying Metocean Drivers of Turbidity Using 18 Years of MODIS Satellite Data: Implications for Marine Ecosystems under Climate Change

“…Environmental variables correlating strongest with turbidity here were wave power, easterly winds, and rainfall. These findings are consistent with other regions, such as the inner shelf of the Great Barrier Reef, where wind driven waves were the major driver of turbidity [28,90], the Gulf of Mexico where wind and ENSO were primary drivers of turbidity [91], and an open coast in New Zealand where turbidity was primarily correlated with wave energy and rainfall [92]. It is likely that these turbidity drivers (higher water levels, wave power and rainfall) along with cyclones (due to the immense, but short-lived, wave power and winds) are the mechanism behind increased turbidity in the Gulf during La Niña phases of ENSO.…”

Unravelling the complex habitat use of the white mullet, Mugil curema, in several coastal environments from Neotropical Pacific and Atlantic waters

“…Avigliano, Pisonero, et al, 2019), could help to reveal which estuaries are of greatest importance as spawning/nursery areas, and could therefore help to prioritize the management policies for the region. In terms of pollution and loss of habitat, estuaries are among the most affected environments in the neotropics (McCarthy et al, 2018; Barletta, Lima & Costa, 2019). So, the challenge is to guarantee not only good fishing practices but also the conservation of estuarine environments to ensure the sustainable use of the species.…”

The influence of seagrass donor source on small‐scale transplant resilience

“…These patches are often located in abiotically diverse environments based on degree of watershed influence (Handley et al, 2007). One defining environmental characteristic among these nGoM potential donor H. wrightii patches is variation in the light availability that can range from chronically turbid to predominantly clear (McCarthy, Otis, Méndez‐Lázaro, & Muller‐Karger, ). For seagrasses, light conditions and environmental variability can drive phenotypic responses that lead to distinct morphological and growth attributes (McDonald et al, ; Ralph, Durako, Enríquez, Collier, & Doblin, ).…”