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Ecological Forecasting

Dock and Harbor View from James IslandThe Center for Human Health Risk at Hollings Marine Laboratory actively engages with Hollings Marine Laboratory partners as well as other NOAA and academic researchers to develop ecological forecasts that are useful for coastal decision makers. Improved planning and decision-making in our coastal environments is critical for protecting and restoring critical ecosystem services as well as protecting the health and well-being of coastal communities. Ecological forecasts can be defined as “…the process of predicting the state of ecosystems, ecosystem services, and natural capital, with fully specified uncertainties, and is contingent on explicit scenarios for climate, land use, human population, technologies, and economic activity.” (Clark et al. 2001) The ability to predict the consequences of different activities on the ocean and coastal environments provides decision-makers with strong justification for taking specific actions that balance the multiple demands on these environments. CHHR scientists conduct, coordinate and deliver the best science to support management decisions, through development and use of predictive models and ecological forecasts for determining relationships such as: 1) increasing coastal land development and associated ecosystem impacts, and 2) marine environmental health and human health risks.

Current Work at the Center for Human Health Risk includes:

Stormwater runoff prediction models:
Forecasting tools for predicting the impacts of development in coastal ecosystems allow scientists to predict changes to stormwater runoff, pollution loadings, ecosystem integrity and community resilience. Currently, 53% of the US population lives in coastal areas, and even in the context of normal growth, existing human density and land conversion pressures will intensify (Crossett et al. 2004).. Additionally, as stated in the IPCC Technical Paper VI, climate change models indicate an increase in the frequency of heavy precipitation events, magnifying the impact of coastal development. More information is needed to support decision-making in coastal ecosystems in the face of both increasing development and climate change.

The capability to predict increases in stormwater runoff at a local scale is critical for coastal managers in developing appropriate land management approaches preserving ecosystem services that protect communities against increased hazards of flooding and pollution and to support ecosystem resiliency to changing environmental conditions. CHHR’s stormwater runoff models predict relative changes in watershed runoff at local scales for changing levels of development, storm intensity, and annual precipitation. The models are being refined as a major step toward developing pollutant loading forecasting ability. Future model refinement will address sea level rise (SLR) because, in coastal areas, SLR exacerbates the hazards resulting from increased development and climate change.
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Human health risk models:
CHHR researchers are developing models to predict human exposures to harmful chemical contaminants, algal toxins and microbial pathogens through the marine environment and to understand the potential long-term health effects. Models developed at CHHR integrate exposure data from sentinel marine species and sentinel habitats to identify coastal areas with the highest risks for human exposures to chemical contaminants and microbial pathogens.

Certain algae produce toxins that impact human health, particularly respiration and nervous system function. Trophic transfer models are used to understand the movement of algal toxins through marine food webs to predict likely human exposures. Human health risks from the predicted exposures are assessed by comparing exposure estimates with threshold values established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). CHHR studies of toxic effects and development of exposure-response models for marine organisms such as marine mammals help to better understand potential adverse health effects in humans and refine human risk assessment models.

Environmental monitoring and research studies of habitat and marine animal condition provides critical baseline information for forecasting. When combined with appropriate data analysis and exposure modeling the information can be used to identify and quantify critical vectors and pathways of exposure. These types of predictive models will assist health practitioners and coastal managers in understanding the strong linkages among ecosystem health of coastal environments and human health. Through the use of these predictive forecasts human health risks can be avoided, reduced or—perhaps—eliminated.

Forecasts offer scenarios for coastal managers to consider in their decision making. Research and model development is driven by identified coastal manager needs to better understand linkages between ecosystem condition, changing environmental impacts (e.g. climate change, coastal development), and human health concerns. Additionally, contributions of these assessments at CHHR, and others across NCCOS, are expected to support various marine spatial planning needs nationally and internationally. The broad range of science expertise available at the Hollings Marine Laboratory is useful for developing ecosystem assessments as expertise in environmental microbiology, contaminant chemistry, marine animals, marine ecotoxicology, statistics, risk assessments, and marine ecology capabilities are able to be successfully applied.

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