NOAA’s Activities and Products
in Support of
Ecosystem Services
Nathalie Valette-Silver
NOAA/NOS
National Centers for Coastal Ocean
Sciences
ACES, December 8-11, 2008
Ecosystem Services
• Human Demands for Natural
Assets
– Providing Services: Food, fiber, clean
water, biochemicals, etc.
– Regulating Services: flood prevention, CO2
sequestration, oxygen production, etc.
– Supporting Services: climate regulation,
nutrient cycle, etc.
– Cultural Services: Spiritual inspiration,
recreation, education, cultural heritage,
etc.
– Preserving Services: Biodiversity
maintenance, refugia, etc.
Ecosystem Services
• These services are not free
•
•
•
or infinitely available
As human population grows
so does the pressure
imposed on ecosystems
Ecosystems services are
threatened
We must balance conflicting
uses
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
• Mission:
“To understand and predict
changes in Earth’s
environment and conserve
and manage coastal and
marine resources to meet
our Nation’s economic social
and environmental needs”
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
• One of NOAA’s goals is:
“To protect, restore and
manage, the use of
coastal and ocean
resources through an
Ecosystem Approach to
Management (EAM)”
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
• EAM is a holistic, evolutionary
management strategy designed to
improve the productivity of coastal and
marine ecosystems
• Shifts current management practices:
– From short-term perspective with humans
independent of ecosystems
– To ecosystem-based , long-term
perspectives with humans as an integral
part of the ecosystems.
• Balances exploitation and protection of
our coastal resources in the ocean,
estuaries and Great Lakes
NOAA’s Activities and Products
•Integrated Assessment: Introduction of Lionfish to the
Western Atlantic Ocean
• Question: What will be the impact of lionfish on the
affected ecosystems?
• Background:
-Venimous invasive species coming from the Indo-Pacific
-Was introduced in Florida (aquarium releases)
-Lionfish is spreading rapidly. Observed from Miami to
Boston and Bermuda and spreading South
-Numbers continuing to increase (400% on NC reefs), and
reportedly even higher in the Bahamas now
• Ecosystem effects:
-Very voracious and with no known predator (eats smaller
fish, shrimps, crabs)
- Preys have no experience with lionfish (Ambush
predator)
- SE reef fish predators that could be competitors are
overfished (e.g., groupers, etc)
- Observed a 79% decrease in recruitment of native
species to experimental reef units in the Bahamas (Hixon
and Albins-2008)
http://coastalscience.noaa.gov/about/ia.html
NOAA’s Activities and Products
•Integrated Assessment: Introduction of Lionfish to the
Western Atlantic Ocean
• Future outcomes with no management action
-Introduction is irreversible. Lionfish population will
continue to grow (change in ocean temperature)
- Effects on SE ecosystems will become more severe
- Incidents of envenomations of divers and/or fishers
along the East coast of the US very likely
• Recommended management actions
-Reduce population abundance: encourage divers and
fishers to catch lionfish (bounty?)
-Increase outreach and education efforts (distribution,
risks, raise public awareness, educate aquarium
industry about dangers of aquarium releases)
-Increase research efforts to better understand lionfish
biology and their impact on the ecosystems
-Regulate/restrict import of live fish to protect against
further introductions (e.g., Hawaii, Bermuda, etc),
-Enforce the Lacey Act of 1900 (e.g., mechanism to
prohibit import of injurious species)
NOAA’s Activities and Products
• Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA)
- Critical science support element enabling an
EAM strategy
- IEA formally bridges science and management
- Is a subset of an IA for a specific ecosystem
-Does not have examples yet but NCCOS is
working on an IEA in Chesapeake Bay
-Needs to identify an overarching question
Examples of Questions:
-What is the likelihood that a given ecosystem
will remain healthy?
-If an ecosystem is not healthy, what is needed
to make it healthy?
http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/assets/25/6801_07302008_144647_IEA_TM92Final.pdf
NOAA’s Activities and Products
• Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA)
Five Steps Process:
Identify goals of IEA and threats
to achieving goals
Develop ecosystem indicators
and targets
Monitoring of ecosystem
indicators and management
effectiveness
Risk Analysis
Assessment of ecosystem status
relative to EAM goals
Management strategy evaluation
NOAA’s Activities and Products
• Ecological Forecast: Harmful Algal Bloom
Movement and Landfall
-Red tides are frequent along
the coasts of Florida.
-The microscopic algae that
forms them, called Karenia
Brevis, produces the
brevetoxin
-Brevetoxon is a substance
toxic to marine animals
(manatees, dolphins, fish,
oysters, etc) and detrimental
to humans (respiratory
problems)
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/hab/
NOAA’s Activities and Products
• Ecological Forecast: NOAA Harmful Algal
Bloom Bulletin Forecast
NOAA’s Activities and Products
• Restoration Efforts: Calibration of the effect of
injury size on spatial models predicting the recovery
of sea grasses from vessel injuries
-Seagrass meadows in
shallow waters of the Florida
Keys National Marine
Sanctuary severely impacted
by vessel groundings.
-NOAA has developed tools
for injury assessment and
restoration of seagrasses.
Vegetative growth very slow for seagrass species like Thalassia,
recovery horizons for larger injuries may be dependent on seedling
recruitment, survival and growth.
http://www.ccfhr.noaa.gov/stressors/landuse/
NOAA’s Activities and Products
• Restoration Efforts: Calibration of the effect of
injury size on spatial models predicting the recovery
of sea grasses from vessel injuries
-Development and calibration of injury recovery
model for seagrasses that assumes recovery from
vegetative in-growth of adjacent side populations.
- Presently, development of a spatial model that
incorporates sexual propagules (seagrass seedlings
or coral recruits).
The model support claims for damages
to seagrass beds in the Florida Keys
National Marine Sanctuary and result in
the recovery of 20 to 30 claims per
year. The money recovered in these
claims cases will then be used to
restore the damaged seagrass beds.
NOAA’s Activities and Products
• Models: Oil Spill Response
NOAA OR&R draws on three decades of
experience in responding with the U.S. Coast
Guard to spill emergencies, and resolving the
sometimes long-term problems presented by
major oil spills.
Among the services that NOAA OR&R provides
are:
• Trajectory analyses to estimate
where spilled pollutants may move;
• Information about the fate and
effects of the different types of oil;
and
• Environmental assessments,
including clean-up assessment
surveys and resources-at-risk
surveys.
http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/
NOAA’s Activities and Products
• Models: Oil Spill trajectory
•GNOME (General NOAA Operational Modeling
Environment) is an oil spill trajectory model
used by NOAA OR&R Emergency Response
Division responders during an oil spill.
•Modelers use GNOME in Diagnostic Mode to set up
custom scenarios quickly.
•In Standard Mode, anyone can use GNOME (with a
Location File) to:
-Predict how wind, currents, and other
processes might move and spread oil spilled on
the water.
-Learn how predicted oil trajectories are
affected by uncertainty in current and wind
observations and forecasts.
-See how spilled oil is predicted to change
chemically and physically ("weather") during
the time that it remains on the water surface.
NOAA’s Activities and Products
• Tools: Tool kits for HAB toxins identification
of Domoic Acid
-Domoic acid (DA) is a neurotoxin
produced by Pseudo-nitzchia microalgae.
-Frequent blooms along the west coast of
the US
-Domoic acid is concentrated in the food
web to levels that threaten human and
animal health.
-For example, in 1998, high levels of toxin
in razor clams in Oregon and Washington
resulted in beach closures lasting more
than a year and a half.
-During this time, recreational,
commercial and tribal subsistence harvest
of clams, valued at over $20 million
annually was lost.
http://www.ccfhr.noaa.gov/
NOAA’s Activities and Products
•Tool kits for HAB toxins identification of Domoic Acid:
• Many coastal Tribal nations from northern
California through Alaska depend on local
harvest of clams and crabs as a food source
and cash crop
• No access to sophisticated and expensive
HPLC instrumentation currently needed to
measure DA acid contamination
•Development of ELISA Detection Method
and Characterization of Toxin Production
Pathways for Algal Toxin Detection and
Monitoring
•The technique provides recreational
fishermen, citizens monitoring groups, and
commercial fishermen the ability to test for
potentially harmful levels of domoic acid.
•This method allow for expediting decisions
to harvest or not to harvest.
NOAA’s Activities and Products
• Other Products: The State of the Coral Reef
Ecosystems of the United States and Pacific Freely
Associated States: 2002, 2005, 2008
-On-going series of assessments of the condition of
coral reef ecosystems
-Summarize the results of coral reef ecosystem
monitoring
-Present data on status of water quality, benthic
habitats, coral reef associated communities
-Evaluate the impacts of thirteen major threats
-Summarize current conservation management
activities
-Provides recommendations for future actions
http://ccma.nos.noaa.gov/ecosystems/coralreef/
NOAA’s Activities and Products
in Support of Ecosystem
Services
• Only a few examples of NOAA’s activities and
products to maintain, protect and restore Great
Lakes, estuarine, coastal and ocean ecosystems
services
• NOAA is a major player in coastal and ocean
ecosystem service preservation and restoration
using its unique capabilities and assets:
- Weather forecast,
- Climate forecast,
- Ecological forecast,
- Social science,
- Observation and monitoring,
For more information:
- Research,
http://www.noaa.gov/
- Outreach and education,
- Management support,
Nathalie Valette-Silver: 301- 713-3020,
- Policy Support, etc
nathalie.valette-silver@noaa.gov