In recent years, coastal communities in the southeastern US and caribbean have been plagued by increasingly severe inundations of floating macroalgae (sargassum SP.). When sufficient aggregations of…

In recent years, coastal communities in the southeastern US and caribbean have been plagued by increasingly severe inundations of floating macroalgae (sargassum SP.). When sufficient aggregations of sargassum biomass become entrained in nearshore waters or wash up onto the coastline, they can become harmful algal blooms (habs). These events can have catastrophic impacts on local ecosystems (e.g., shading or smothering benthic environments, releasing toxic gas, degrading water quality, accelerating eutrophication) and economies (e.g., cleanup costs, disruptions to ecotourism revenue, physical clogging of critical infrastructure). In response to this threat, a number of mitigation strategies have been developed, but lead-time is required to stage and / or deploy equipment to minimize HAB impacts. Toward that end, this project team has been at the forefront of sargassum detection (from satellite remote sensing), forecasting (using numerical models), and assessment of biochemical impacts.