Research Areas > Regional Monitoring > Bight Regional Monitoring > Coastal Wetlands and Estuaries

Project Group: Coastal Wetlands and Estuaries

SCCWRP Research

The Coastal Wetlands component of the Southern California Bight (Bight) Regional Monitoring Program was added in 2008. The impetus for the formation of this group is from the Southern California Wetland Recovery Project (WRP), a collaboration of 17 state and federal agencies committed to developing a regional plan for wetland recovery. Initially, SCCWRP became involved with the WRP through work towards the development of an Integrated Wetlands Regional Assessment Program (IWRAP). Because the Bight Regional Monitoring Program shares a similar geographic focus with IWRAP, and has a well-functioning administrative structure, linking implementation of the two surveys represented a cost-effective partnership.

The recommended design for IWRAP includes a probability-based survey of estuarine condition with respect to several physical and biological indicators. Because eutrophication was a high priority indicator, it is the focus of the first survey of the Bight Coastal Wetlands workgroup. Eutrophication is a global environmental issue, with clear linkages demonstrated between anthropogenic changes in watersheds and increased nutrient loading to coastal waters. It leads to a range of effects, including harmful algal blooms, hypoxia, lowered fishery production, degradation of seagrass, and other associated impacts on aquatic food webs and as well as human and marine mammal health. These effects have significant economic and social costs.

In California, the extent of eutrophication in estuaries has not been well monitored, with the notable exception of San Francisco Bay. In southern California, only three of the region's more than 50 estuaries were included in the NOAA’s National Estuarine Eutrophication Assessment Report. The need to monitor the magnitude of eutrophication in southern California estuaries is heightened by the State Water Resources Control Board’s intent to develop nutrient criteria for estuaries. Data from southern California estuaries may help to drive the selection of appropriate indicators for this measure.

The Bight 2008 assessment will characterize the extent and magnitude of eutrophication in estuaries. These data will be used to examine whether differences exist among estuarine classes (i.e., protected embayments, perennially tidal lagoons, seasonally tidal lagoons, nontidal lagoons, river mouth estuaries). The results will also be used to characterize differences in eutrophication extent between muted and fully tidal portions of estuaries, and to determine the nature of the relationship between terrestrial nutrient loads and estuarine biological response. More than 40 organizations are participating in the Coastal Wetlands component of the Bight effort.

The main project in this group is:

• Bight '08 Coastal Wetlands and Estuaries

Data from this and other Bight surveys are available on the SCCWRP website.