Topical Area: Water Quality

J. C. Ogden, S. L.Vargo, J. C. Humphrey, and T. C. Moore, Florida Institute of Oceanography, St. Petersburg, FL; J. Hendee, NOAA/AOML/Ocean Chemistry Division, Miami, FL; R. Timko, National Data Buoy Center, Stennis Space Center, MS

The Sustained Ecological Research Related to the Management of the Florida Keys Seascape (SEAKEYS) was organized by the Florida Institute of Oceanography (FIO) in 1989 with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as a research framework for scientists monitoring physical oceanography, benthic communities, and water quality. FIO, in cooperation with the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) established six enhanced Coastal Marine Automated Network (C-MAN) environmental monitoring stations. This SEAKEYS network encompasses the geographic scale of the Florida Keys and provides near real-time environmental baseline data for researchers, resource managers, and the public. These stations record wind speed, wind direction, air temperature, barometric pressure, sea temperature, salinity, solar irradiance, and water depth.

The South Florida Ecosystem Restoration, Prediction and Monitoring (SFERPM) program is administered by the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), which is a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This summer, SFERPM and SEAKEYS will complete enhancement of the monitoring capabilities of two SEAKEYS sites by adding instruments measuring turbidity, in vivo fluorescence, and water level. Measuring these additional parameters should give SFERPM researchers a better understanding of chlorophyll concentrations, sediment transfer dynamics, and the primary productivity of Florida Bay, as well as impacts of bay waters on the coral reef tract within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. A seventh monitoring station, a cooperative effort between FIO and the University of South Florida's Department of Marine Science (USF/DMS), is nearing completion in Northwest Florida Bay at 25° 05' 00" N, 81° 05' 30" W. This platform will contain a full suite of instrumentation and will be part of the SEAKEYS system as well as the southernmost link in the "West Florida Coastal Ocean Monitoring " initiative of USF/DMS.

USF/DMS will soon be receiving the raw data via a DOMSAT downlink for relay to a data-management system administered by AOML. Provisional quality control and analysis of the data in near real-time enables reliable reporting of meteorological and oceanographic events. Tracking ephemeral environmental events as well as long-term trend analysis is of strategic importance to resource managers, researchers, and emergency management planners. AOML's near real-time environmental data e-mail (Coral-Fax) and internet postings (CHAMP) continue to benefit the SFERPM program and other principal investigators.