Thrust 1: Assessing Biological and Ecosystem Impacts
Goals
- Create an Integrated Bay Observatory to collect and disseminate continuous real-time, in situ ecological and environmental data for Narragansett Bay and key riverine watersheds, providing high-resolution assessments of when and where different functional groups are present as a function of the environmental conditions.
- Identify linkages between physical and biogeochemical factors, anthropogenic stressors, and the presence and co-occurrence of species and metabolisms, including the land-activity that impacts the Narragansett Bay ecosystem.
Expected Outcomes
- Create a networked observatory in Narragansett Bay with live-stream data which is publicly available for real-time data analysis, as well as for hind- and forecasting
- Develop a much better understanding of the relationship of the planktonic species in Narragansett Bay with environmental dynamics to resolve unanswered questions, such as:
- What changes in the ecosystem result in toxic algal blooms
- What prevents bivalve recruitment into upper Narragansett Bay?
- What are the ecosystem impacts of extended hypoxia?
- Provide ecosystem modelers with high-resolution data, needed for better understanding monitoring and management of the bay