| NSF Org: |
OCE Division Of Ocean Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | October 20, 2017 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | October 20, 2017 |
| Award Number: | 1763167 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Henrietta Edmonds
hedmonds@nsf.gov (703)292-7427 OCE Division Of Ocean Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | October 15, 2017 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2020 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $157,063.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $157,063.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
110 INNER CAMPUS DR AUSTIN TX US 78712-1139 (512)471-6424 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
750 Channel View Dr Port Aransas TX US 78373-5015 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Hurricane Harvey 2017 |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
This project involves rapid-response research into the effects of Hurricane Harvey on the Mission-Aransas estuary system in south Texas. Hurricane Harvey passed directly over this region on August 25-26, 2017. Because these waters are the site of the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve (MANERR), the investigators have a history of data from before the storm with which to compare the data they will collect. They proposed to investigate the effect of the passage of the storm on carbon and nitrogen cycling, and thus the ecosystem, in the waters and sediments of Copano Bay and Aransas Bay. Their results will be important to understanding coastal processes both in general and in response to extreme events.
The investigators pose two hypotheses, which can be summarized broadly as 1) inputs of nutrients from river flooding will stimulate algal blooms in the estuary and 2) changes in sediment grain size distribution will affect sediment nitrogen cycling. They will collect water samples for nutrients, pigments, lipids, bulk carbon, and carbon isotope analyses, together with standard water quality parameters using a YSI Sonde (salinity, temperature, pH, chlorophyll a, dissolved oxygen and turbidity) at the five System Wide Monitoring Program sites of the MANERR on a biweekly to monthly basis. Sediment samples will be collected at all sites in the fall of 2017 and examined for grain size, pigments, carbon and nitrogen content, carbon isotopes, pigments, and lipids. The results will be used, in combination from data collected earlier this year, to examine physical, chemical, and biological responses to this major event. The project will support a graduate student research assistant and three undergraduate student researchers. Communication with the public will occur through well-established and effective programs at the Mission-Aransas NERR and the University of Texas Marine Science Institute.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
In this project our major goal was to investigate the impact of Harvey, a category 4 hurricane, on water column and sediment of the Mission-Aransas Estuary in south Texas, with an overarching question of ?How did Hurricane Harvey affect water and sediment geochemistry of this estuary over both short and long time periods?? To address this question, we collected a series of biogeochemical parameters before and following Hurricane Harvey for more than three years, and we also evaluated nitrogen cycling rates through laboratory incubation experiments. We have three major findings from this project: (1) the phytoplankton community in this estuary was minimally affected despite the strong winds and storm surge during the hurricane, and (2) the sediment grain size became significantly coarser post-Harvey, and (3) nitrogen cycling rates, including denitrification, dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) and anammox, all decreased significantly post-Harvey and had not recovered even one year post-hurricane. We also found that riverine water carries much more terrestrial organic matter to the estuary during high flow events than during base flow periods. This may be an important mechanism to supply materials and energy to the relatively oligotrophic coastal ecosystems in the arid south Texas region. All of the data, except some lipid data, have been uploaded to BCO-DOM (in final review now), and we will upload the remaining lipid data this summer when we expect to finish the lipid analyses. Three peer-reviewed papers have been published, 1 in press, and 4 manuscripts are in preparation at the moment. We have made 13 presentations in national and international conferences such as Ocean Science Meeting, Gordon Research Conference and Coastal & Estuarine Research Federation Conference, including organizing and chairing sessions focusing on hurricanes. We also gave a webinar invited by NOAA. This grant directly supported one Ph.D. candidate, and indirectly one postdoctoral research associate, and several undergraduate and graduate students at UTMSI and visiting graduate students from abroad through field work and laboratory analyses. We presented data of this project on a NOAA sponsored workshop in 2019: Teachers on the Estuary program, where about 10 teachers from all over Texas attended (see attached images). In addition, 100 students grades 5-8 participated in the University of Texas Marine Science Institute (UTMSI) Summer Science program in June 2019 in Port Aransas, where graduate students from the PIs' labs developed and led an activity focusing on watershed-estuary linkages.
Last Modified: 02/17/2021
Modified by: Zhanfei Liu
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