A. ECOLOGICAL RISK ASSESSMENT / SOCIOECONOMIC
ANALYSIS
1. Background
Diverse research and
monitoring programs are being conducted in South Florida to obtain
information on the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of
the environment. Generally, these programs are focused on specific
geographic subregions (e.g., Florida Bay, Biscayne Bay, etc.). However,
none of these programs is directed at integrating information into a
systematic and unified analysis framework that can be used by to examine
the consequences of management options to the health and sustainability
of the region's ecological and societal systems. The ecological risk
assessment paradigm provides just such an essential framework for
systematically integrating and analyzing diverse types of scientific
information, collected from a variety of programs, and for conducting the
assessments needed to for the decision-making process.
A key attribute of the ecological risk assessment approach is that it specifically identifies the potential causal linkages among human activities (e.g., land use changes, restoration activities), environmental drivers and stressors, and their ecological and societal consequences. Because the risk assessment process is both causal and predictive, it provides policy- and decision-makers with a process for exploring the ecological and societal consequences of management actions before they are implemented. An other key value of the risk paradigm is that it explicitly acknowledges the role of societal preferences in goal and endpoint selection and it provides a vehicle for involving stakeholders and the public in a meaningful dialogue with both scientists and policy makers.
Finally, the risk assessment framework provides the scientific foundation for the ecosystem management process which ultimately seeks to integrate scientific knowledge of ecological relationships within a complex sociopolitical and societal values framework aimed at protecting ecological and societal integrity over intergenerational time frames. Adopting a risk-based assessment framework is particularly important in South Florida where there is a need to integrate the regional restoration goals (e.g., Governor's commission preferred alternative), implementation options being developed by state and federal agencies, and both ecological and societal consequences. The application of risk-based principles, framework, and processes provides the necessary science-policy framework for managing the environmental and societal issues facing South Florida.
2. Objectives
The goal of this activity is to develop an integrated ecological
risk assessment and ecosystem management framework for policy and
decision makers. The first objective is to use the ecological risk
assessment process as a design and analysis tool to provide a relative
ranking assessment of the potential risks posed by human activities,
including ecosystem restoration activities, to critical coastal
ecosystems of South Florida. The second objective is to conduct a
comprehensive ecological risk assessment that integrates hydrodynamic and
fate-and-transport models with spatially explicit models of critical
ecological resources and stress response models for specific ecosystem
components. The comprehensive ecological risk assessment will be
developed into an ecosystem management decision context to provide the
decision-maker with the tools to examine the risks to ecological
resources of a variety of management scenarios and options.
The scope
of this effort will include assessing ecological effects upon Florida
Bay, the Florida Keys, and the coral reef tract of the Florida Keys
National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS). Evaluating the potential risks to
FKNMS is particularly appropriate given that the FKNMS is among the
principal NOAA mandates in South Florida . The FKNMS is potentially
vulnerable to upstream (Florida Bay) environmental changes (e.g. greater
turbidity, increased frequency and extent of algal blooms, increased
nutrient loads) which have the potential to impact adversely the health
and vitality of the reef tract. The reef tract is not only the
centerpiece of the FKNMS, but is inextricably linked to the economic
vitality of the Florida Keys and to regional commercial and recreational
fisheries.
A major focus of these activities will be risk assessment
in regard to effects upon living marine resources. This is also a
specific component of the NMFS FY97 SFER Spending Plan which contemplates
modeling the impacts of restoration on stock status and condition.
Projects complementary to NMFS modeling efforts will be specifically
solicited.
3. Approach
Ecological risk assessment
is defined as the process that evaluates the likelihood that adverse
ecological effects are occurring, or may occur, as a result of exposure
to one or more stressors (EPA 1992). Ecological risk assessment is a
relatively new field that derives, only in part, from the more formalized
classical applications of risk analysis (e.g., automobile, life, and
health insurance, industrial failures, natural disasters) and more
recently from the assessment of risks to human health from toxic
chemicals (NRC 1983). The ecological risk assessment framework provides a
systematic process for identifying, organizing, and analyzing diverse
types of environmental information that can be used to produce a
qualitative or quantitative statement that assesses the magnitude and
probability of adverse effects. However, the risk assessment process can
be used in a less rigorous manner to provide a relative ranking of
potential risks that can be used effectively to reduce the dimensionality
of the problem, prioritize research activities, and allocate
resources.
Recently the US Environmental Protection Agency
developed a paradigm for conducting ecological risk assessments whose
central elements of stress regime characterization and ecological effects
characterization are divided into a three-step process: problem
formulation analysis; and risk characterization (Figure 2). Problem formulation identifies the stress
regimes, ecosystem components of interest, selects ecological endpoints,
and develops a conceptual model of stress response relationships. Stress
regime characterizes exposure to a stress, including natural physical
variability and time/space patterns of multiple natural and anthropogenic
stressors. Ecological effects characterization is complicated because of
the inherent diversity of ecosystems and extreme range of scales
(time/space) that simultaneously operate in ecosystems.
There are three important functions for problem formulation:
Philosophically, what separates the ecological risk paradigm from other risk paradigms is the challenge of defining the appropriate endpoints (i.e., what is at-risk) that reflect the intersection of scientific and social values. Thus, evaluating ecological health requires a suite of ecological endpoints spanning organizational scales (species, population, community, ecosystem, and landscape).
The conceptual model describes, qualitatively or quantitatively, the potential causal relationships among landscape activities, system drivers, stressors, and co-occurring ecological systems. In essence, the conceptual model is a formal statement of the causal pathways that leads to the development of a suite of testable hypotheses that describes the full spectrum of potential ecological risks. Depending on available data, these risks can be ranked and used to prioritize research activities and the allocation of resources. The ultimate quantification of the elements comprising the conceptual models provides the scientific basis for the quantitative estimation of risks.
The analysis phase of the ecological risk assessment focuses on developing and testing methods and models, conducting experiments, and analyzing data to characterize stress regimes and to establish stress-response models. Stress-response models can be developed from monitoring data using eco-epidemiological or laboratory studies. The stress-response relationship is essential to predicting ecological consequences from changes in stress regime.
Risk characterization integrates stress and effects into a predictive and probabilistic statement of the risks and uncertainties which is used along with societal and economic factors by the decision maker. As such, the risk characterization phase of the risk assessment, like problem formulation, is a critical point of intersection between the risk assessor, decision-makers, and the public. Given the ongoing NOAA (and other agency) programs within the region of interest, both problem formulation and risk characterization will be the primary areas of emphasis for this element of the Coastal Ocean Program.
The Science Subgroup (and Working Group) and Interagency Florida Bay PMC have done much of the groundwork and information gathering for conducting the "problem formulation" phase of the risk assessment process. Similarly, the projects conducted under the aegis of the Interagency Florida Bay Restoration Science Program (see the subsequent Research and Modeling element subsection), the FKNMS Research and Monitoring Action Plan, and the planned NOS/ORCA monitoring program will provide the information necessary for "Stress Regime Characterization" and "Ecological Effects Characterization". There are several ongoing programs that will contribute information necessary to conduct the proposed ecological risk assessment.
First, there is the COP-sponsored Cumulative Effects research project being conducted by the University of Miami's Center for Marine and Environmental Analyses in adjacent Biscayne Bay and upper Florida Keys. This program includes field studies along stressor gradients, laboratory and microcosm experiments to characterize individual and synergistic effects of stressors on ecological processes, and the development of system models to evaluate ecosystem management alternatives. Similarly, the ongoing Florida Bay research funded by COP and other parts of NOAA is collecting a wealth of ecosystem-specific information characterizing the biological, chemical, and physical attributes of that ecosystem. This research will contribute essential information to all aspects of the proposed ecological risk assessment process. It is essential that this risk assessment initiative derive maximal benefit from the relevant research and analysis activities conducted within these NOAA-sponsored research activities.
Other agency-funded research will form the foundation for the proposed risk assessment. For example, Corps of Engineers- and South Florida Water Management District-sponsored mesocosm and microcosm research will provide important information for developing stress-response relationships and for developing an integrated seascape model that links hydrodynamic, ecological effects, and decision modules. In addition, other research is underway to develop human environment models through multiple sponsors (e.g., US Man and the Biosphere Program) that are particularly germane to how the preferences of stakeholders are solicited and integrated into the risk and decision process. These studies will have to be made available to the larger research (and risk assessment) communities in the future.
It is clear that additional socioeconomic data will be required for conducting a meaningful risk assessment within the broadened scope and context of this proposal. This can most efficiently be done in close concert with the risk assessment itself under the aegis of this COP- program element. Examples of the sorts of information required but currently unavailable include among other topics:
4.
Budget
Although the geographic extent of this effort is
considerably more ambitious than the recent risk assessment successfully
conducted in Tampa Bay, since the requisite research, monitoring and
environmental modeling are being separately supported, i.e. - the
Environmental Research and Modeling component described below, the
Interagency Florida Bay Science Program, and the FKNMS water quality
research and monitoring program, and the planned NOS/ORCA regional
ecosystem monitoring program, the Risk Assessment and supporting
Socioeconomic analysis effort will be comparatively modest. Approximately
$300K will be spent on these project in FY97. It is difficult to be
precise since specific projects funded will be determined by an RFP to be
issued in November 1997, but a substantial fraction of these funds (>
50%) are likely to be spent on projects directly relevant to the FKNMS.
The PMC and TAG has been augmented to provide the requisite expertise
both to help craft this RFP and to properly evaluate the responses
received. Moreover, the chair of the PMC has been appointed to Chair the
Science Advisory Committee of the Cumulative Stress COP program to assure
maximum complementarity and the exchange of information between the
programs. Since the reach of proposed activities extends well beyond
Florida Bay in addition to involving the Interagency Florida Bay PMC in
reviewing and approving funding decisions the SFERTF Science Subgroup to
which the PMC reports will also be asked to review and approve these
activities and both FKNMS and the NMFS/SEFC staff will be explicitly
included in the review process.
A. Outreach/Community
Education
1. Background
Outreach/Education
activities within the COP program would be conducted on behalf of the
entire Florida Bay Interagency Research Program (and to a lesser degree
the FKNMS). Now that the "Florida Bay Science Plan" of 1994 is firmly
established in a multi-million dollar research program, it is both
appropriate and necessary to the long-term management and restoration
goals for the ecosystem to create a coordinated effort for outreach and
education within Monroe (the Keys) and southern Dade and Collier Countys.
The Interagency Science Plan states that the "management objective for
Florida Bay is to restore it to a naturally functioning ecosystem."
Scientists will contribute data vital to the description, understanding
and prediction necessary to ecosystem management. But ultimately the
success of management will depend on the awareness and knowledge of
citizens, businesses and organizations in the Florida Bay region. These
interests need to understand (and ultimately endorse) "ecological
restoration".
2. Objectives
The aim of the
activities within this element is to connect research, science, ecosystem
management with the diverse public audiences and individual interests of
those living beside Florida Bay, To do this a comprehensive program of
education and outreach is required. In sum, this effort should draw from
the expanding store of multiagency and multidisciplinary research
information about Florida Bay, and provide knowledge via print, broadcast
and new electronic media to public and private interests involved with or
dependent upon the resources of Florida Bay. With an objective
information base, residents, tourists, businesses and local agencies all
can develop rational decisions concerning sustainable economic and
environmental issues.
3. Approach
Major elements of the program would include:
Florida Sea Grant has already begun conducting some of these activities-e.g., one local radio broadcast station, development of video news stories for television audiences, publication of descriptive brochures and organization and publication of annual research conferences on behalf of the Interagency Florida Bay Science Program. Their efforts have received considerable local attention and are well appreciated by the Interagency PMC.
What is proposed here is to formalize this relationship and ask Florida Sea Grant to become the official arm of the Interagency (federal and state) Florida Bay PMC in regard to Outreach and Education. Florida Sea Grant not only has the requisite experience and expertise but is uniquely institutionally appropriate body in that while they are a state of Florida entity within the state University system they are explicitly linked to and supported by the federal agency (NOAA) which is not only the major present sponsor of Florida Bay research but also responsible for the FKNMS. As with all SFER outreach and education activities, those conducted on behalf of the PMC would have to be fully integrated through the Interagency Working Groups' Public Information and Education Subgroup which has the lead for the entire S. Florida ecosystem. Within Florida Bay, other activities of the PI &E;Subgroup would be coordinated with Florida Sea Grant which would be the primary vehicle for outreach activities within the Florida Bay sub region. In addition Florida Sea Grant would retain the lead for organization, coordination of annual and special workshops and meetings conducted under the auspices of the Interagency Florida Bay Science program.
4. Budget
Requisite funds would be transferred to Florida Sea Grant to be used and
distributed by its Director upon approval of a specific work plan through
the Interagency PMC and IWG's Public Information and Education Subgroup.
Annual COP funding will be ca. $180K which includes NOAA contributions to
the funds required to conduct the annual meeting , publish the
proceedings and facilitate arrangements for the special workshops (see
Research Section above for examples) that have become regular Interagency
PMC activities. At least for FY97 funds for the travel and honorarium of
the outside panelists and advisors either for the annual meeting or the
special workshops have not been provided herein since they have already
been expended from the Program Management account. If interagency funds
can be put into a prefunded pool for this purpose in FY98 and beyond,
funding for this component will be augmented with funds currently
allotted to Program Management.
C. Environmental Research and
Modeling
1. Background
The FY97 Environmental
Research and Modeling component will continue to be guided by the
research priorities identified by the Interagency "Florida Bay" Program
Management Committee. The overall goal has been to generate the requisite
information base and model structure to provide timely evaluation of the
effects on Florida Bay of various restoration scenarios. In this way,
NOAA and other agency research in Florida Bay when integrated with other
regional research by the participants in the Interagency effort, will
guide the Federal Task Force in selecting restoration options. However,
in light of the insights provided by various review panels (Boesch et
al., 1995; Armstrong et al., 1996; and Boesch et al., 1996) as well as a
programmatic concern that as much of the Environmental Research and
Modeling component as possible should constitute a more readily
identifiable and coherent sub-program within the overall Interagency
effort, substantive enhancements are now proposed for FY97 Implementation
Plan. Moreover, only recently has the Interagency "Florida Bay" Program
Management Committee produced a Strategic Plan to refine and focus
individual agency implementation of the Interagency Science Plan. A draft
of this plan has been distributed in anticipation of the annual
Interagency Florida Bay Science Conference and will be made available on
World-Wide Web and fttp sites.
2. Objectives
The
Interagency Florida Bay science program has sought to develop an
understanding of the structure and function of Florida Bay in the context
of the overall S. Florida Ecosystem and its restoration. Restoration of
the Bay implies establishing and sustaining the natural diversity,
abundance and behavior of the marine and estuarine flora and fauna. To
date the principal factor controlling these parameters appears to be
freshwater input or the lack thereof. However, additional flow through
the Everglades may not be sufficient. Timing, location, type and quality
of input are all critical to Bay ecology. The challenge to the Bay
research community, including NOAA, is deliver timely information to
South Florida Ecosystem Restoration managers. Although this will be
politically difficult, restoration must be an iterative process through
which management alternatives are developed and selected, the preferred
alternative implemented, physical and biological responses assessed,
results reported to managers and the process repeated over and over again
as restoration proceeds.
Underlying Interagency Priorities: As a contribution to the Interagency Florida Bay Science Program, NOAA environmental research and modeling activities must be directed towards the central issues recently articulated in the Strategic Science Plan. Each agency has been asked to give these issues the highest priority in formulating their Research and Modeling programs in FY97 and beyond. They include:
With the possible exception of the paleo-ecological element, all the research and modeling elements contribute directly to answering one of the above questions and are specifically identified as such in the Science Plan. However, the paleo-ecological perspective is thought to be essential to another fundamental obligation of the interagency program: helping define for the SFERTF the restoration objectives for Florida Bay.
Evolution of the Environmental Research and Modeling Component: The NOAA Florida Bay Program FY96 Implementation Plan relying principally upon the Standing Panel review of the October 1995 Annual Principal Investigators meeting, began the process of changing direction and refocusing its program about a central theme. As expressed therein:
How and why has the Florida Bay ecosystem (and its function as a nursery for commercially and recreationally significant species) changed as a result of seagrass die off and the consequent shift from a purely seagrass dominated benthic system to a semi-pelagic system experiencing dense episodic plankton blooms? This general question specifically includes the question: what is the cause, consequence and fate of plankton blooms?...an area that has received comparatively little attention in the overall Interagency effort is the "effect of changing species composition, both plants and animals, on ecosystem processes and trophic pathways"... In fact , bloom mechanisms are but one aspect of a more general and fundamental phenomenon, ecosystem shift. From a NOAA perspective the fundamental ecosystem shift, its causes and consequences, is a critical issue since it is directly relevant to the two most significant regional management concerns of NOAA- i.e., the commercially and recreationally significant living resources for whom the Bay represents a nursery ground and the adjacent Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and its fragile coral reef systems. The former since those resources depend upon the underlying ecosystem and the primary productivity that supports it and the latter in light of reports that the reef ecosystem is being deleteriously affected by the quality of the Florida Bay waters that exit through the passes between the Keys and contact the reefs.
Figure 3 represents graphically this concept of
the Florida Bay Ecosystem and its relationship to Living Resources and
the FKNMS reef tract. It is intended to depict some of the primary
linkages the Research and Modeling component seeks to understand. For
example, with respect to FKNMS Water Quality, Florida Bay nutrients enter
the system from both the Everglades and from the Gulf of Mexico, are
incorporated into both algae and seagrass (both of which can contribute
to turbidity). The two primary production pathways differ in the
trophodynamic significance and markedly affect ecosystem structure within
the Bay. Changes in physical forcing and ecosystem structure can be
reflected in the sediment historical record. As a result of the general
southwesterly mean circulation, the remaining dissolved nutrients,
water-borne particulate material and phytoplankton can make their way
from the Bay out through the Keys and may adversely affect water quality
within the FKNMS. This is of course considerably simplified. For example,
it makes no attempt to depict either nutrient inputs from the atmosphere
and Keys or the complex interaction between nutrients and suspended or
settled sediments.
Interagency Project Guidance: The FY96 Plan outlined directions in FY97 and beyond and set the stage for expansion of the program in FY97. There is no reason to repeat those details herein. However, in addition to the comprehensive review proceeded in October 1995, over the last few months the Interagency PMC has convened three workshops directly germane to the Research and Modeling Program: A Workshop on Circulation Modeling was held in mid-April and another on Nutrient Dynamics in early July and in early October a Water Quality Modeling workshop. The expert outside panel reports submitted to the PMC after these workshops supplemented by the specific input we have received from our agency partners on the Interagency "Florida Bay" Program Management Committee have been the major significant determinants of the substantive content of the Strategic Science Plan and therefore of the Research and Modeling component herein.
From a purely scientific perspective, the fundamental changes the Bay has undergone and the changes it is likely to undergo as Restoration proceeds constitute a large-scale ecosystem manipulation experiment that represents a unique opportunity to study the relationship between fundamental ecosystem structure and its regulation by the physical environment. Even in the absence of societal interest in the South Florida Ecosystem, studying the Bay ecosystem and the physical processes that control it as Restoration is initiated and proceeds to completion over the next decade, represents to biological oceanographers and community ecologists a unique scientific opportunity.
3.
Approach
Modeling: The relationship of various
models is depicted in Figure 4. NOAA is relied
upon to continue to support a Regional Circulation Model which provides
tides and advective inputs to the Bay Circulation Model of the Army Corps
of Engineers while our Atmospheric Model provides the Everglades
Hydrology Model with rainfall and the Bay Circulation Model with both
rainfall and wind fields.
NOAA has been specifically asked by the SFWMD to determine how and to what degree the ecological and physical changes associated with Ecosystem Restoration will affect microclimates within the South Florida penninsula. This is a logical extension of our current modeling meteorological modeling effort. This effort would most likely represent an explicit NOAA/SFWMD collaboration. The SFWMD would support its scientists and the COP program the NOAA participants.
Last and perhaps most important we plan to address a critical deficiency. We intend to initiate a pelagic habitat/lower trophic level (plankton) ecosystem modeling effort that will integrate the research results of our biological and physical process projects. It would rely upon the ACoE Florida Bay Circulation and Water Quality models and the other ecological modeling planned by the National Biological Service (NBS/DOI), SFWMD and the NMFS Living Marine Resources program. The latter efforts focus upon higher trophic levels and benthic habitats including seagrasses. This pelagic ecosystem model is essential to guide (and prioritize) subsequent or continuing NOAA SFER research activities including the NMFS and NOS components. An explicit emphasis of the pelagic plankton model would be linkages to the adjacent coral reef tracts of the FKNMS.
Research Project Areas: Considerable expansion of our physical oceanographic field efforts is planned with particular emphasis on the linkage between the west Florida Shelf and the western Bay, immediately offshore of the Keys and the southwesterly flow connecting the Bay to the reef tract. As stated by the Circulation Model Panel in regard to Bay modeling, "boundary conditions are inadequetely addressed at this time...that the western boundary be extended over the shelf and northward of the Shark River inflow point and .. (possibly) offshore of the keys". Complementary algal bloom related process studies are contemplated along the latter gradient. Physical studies would be closely integrated with the ACoE modeling effort and NOAA would be lead agency in providing the requisite physical data for parameterizing and validating the Bay Circulation Model. As noted earlier, the geographic scope of that model has been extended both to the west and the south and now includes the FKNMS. As stated by that Panel "NOAA should tailor existing and expanded circulation monitoring and modeling efforts using expert crews already available to provide these data". This emphasis was further supported by the Nutrient Dynamics Panel, "an important determinant of the supply of nutrients to the Bay is water flow and circulation, the most poorly quantified element of which is the exchange between western and central Florida Bay".
The Nutrient Panel strongly suggested it would be most profitable to focus further efforts upon cycling and transformation of nutrients, upon mechanisms and fluxes rather than inferences from nutrient distributions. An expansion of phytoplankton and biogeochemical process studies is required including previously unmeasured parameters such as the availability of Bay sediment nutrient loads to phytoplankton, the exchange between available and unavailable chemical species and physical states, limitation by micro-nutrients and the relative roles of bacteria and phytoplankton (delineated the significance of the so-called microbial loop). Answering these important questions requires sophisticated experimentation and the most modern biochemical techniques. Moreover one of the major nutrient input fluxes (atmospheric deposition) has been to date inadequately characterized. Doing so will be given high priority. In regard to algal blooms, multidisciplinary process studies are required to simultaneously assess production and loss terms over appropriate time and space scales throughout the Bay.
As noted by the earlier Annual Science Conference review "historical reconstruction is an appropriate goal in Florida Bay studies at this juncture", that panel further noted of the present NOAA project principal investigators that "their work on the long-term effects of short-lived catastrophic events (i.e. hurricanes) is very significant and calls attention to a fundamental question:
Which, in the long run, is more important in the evolution of the Bay?
Accurate knowledge of the historical sequence of changes is essential to make predictions (and help understand) the sequence of change observed as Bay restoration proceeds and water flow (and related parameters) are altered. From the interagency PMC perspective paleo-ecology is essential to defining the restoration objectives for Florida Bay.
Multidisciplinary projects explicitly linking the Bay and the reef tract (as depicted in Figure 3) will be solicited. The former would specifically include monitoring outflow from and exchange between the Bay and the FKNMS reef tract. These CRI-related activities would specifically include additional fixed moorings in and near inlets and enhancing instrumentation on present and planned fixed stations in and near inlets as well as provision of a central real time WWW site that will assimilate and distribute the data from these fixed sites to the scientific user community.
As noted by the Standing Panel in October 1995, experimental studies relating to ecosystem shifts are absolutely required and collection of biological field data will have to be closely coupled to physiological experiments upon planktonic organisms. There has been to date a dearth of the latter. In fact, the establishment and maintenance of explicit linkages between field scientists, experimentalists and ecosystem modelers will be strongly encouraged throughout the duration of the Research and Modeling program. This collaborative web will include all the partipants in the interagency Florida Bay program and is facilitated by the formal structure of that program and our mutual reliance upon a common Strategic Science Plan in establishing individual agency priorities.
3. Budget
As described above, specific
projects to be funded will be determined by a competitive peer review
process. Present projects would in addition to the general requirements
be required to substantially document both Progress to Date and
compliance with all Data Administration policy requirements. The
resources required for proposed Environmental Research and Modeling
activities will be considerably expanded to ca. $2M. We anticipate
continued contributions to the rainfall estimation component from other
sources ($103K from ERL and in-kind SFWMD contributions) as well as SFMD
support of their scientists within the micro-climate research element.
Moreover a proposal is being prepared (FY98 funding) within NESDIS/NODC
to fully support and markedly augment the present Data Management
Activity (see Annual Progress Report) for this component.
Given the focus upon linkages between the Bay and the FKNMS described above we estimate that ca. 25% of new FY97 COP funds ($325K) will be spent upon activities essentially consistent with CRI. The geographic scope of this contribution would be predominately restricted to the inlet exchange areas. Given the Research &;Modeling emphasis upon upstream algal blooms and physical circulation a considerably greater sum will be spent on activities called for in the FKNMS Water Quality and Research &;Monitoring Action Plans (>$1000K).
D. Overall Budget Summary
Including Management Costs
As in years past explicit
funding will be required for Program Management. Given the expanded scope
of the effort the position of Executive Director has been established to
give the Program Management Committee Chair the requisite staff
assistance. Prior program management funding has contributed to program
data management (where we have taken the lead on behalf of the overall
Interagency "Florida Bay" Program), to Interagency meeting/workshop
support and has provided secretarial support services. The data
management activity will continue to be lead by AOML's NODC liaison
officer assisted by academic subcontractors (within the University of
Florida system). In FY97 $25K will be made available for this purpose
since NESDIS/NODC funding will not be available until FY98 to support the
university contracts and requisite travel. NODC will continue to support
the salary of the liason officer. In FY98 and beyond we anticipate that
$200K will be provided for this purpose from NESDIS/NODC ($105K to Miami
and $95K to Silver Spring) to significantly augment this activity. The
proposal under preparation contemplates development of a rigorous data
operations facility at AOML which can provide computational and
management resources to the overall Interagency Florida Bay Science
program.
To date field efforts have relied upon a shallow draft NMFS vessel primarily used for Marine Mammal observations. The condition of this vessel (and other demands upon it) have made this arrangement unfeasible. Program management will therefore be required to purchase as well as maintain and support a dedicated NOAA Florida Bay Research Program vessel which can be deployed from the Key Largo Station Ranger station.
In summary FY97 funding of various elements (exclusive of
the LO matching funds required of NOAA investigators receiving COP
funding) would be:
FY97
Risk Assessment/Socioeconomic
Analysis 300K
Community Education / Outreach 180K
Environmental
Research and Modeling 2000K
Program Management, Data Management
and Facilities Support 220K
Total: 2700K
FY97 Sources:
COP
2300K
ERL 100K
NMFS FY97 SFER Supplement 300K
Total: 2700K
