Enewsletter articles for Indian River Lagoon Report Card

Indian River Lagoon Report Card Workshop held in Palm Bay, Florida

On January 20-22, Caroline Donovan, Jane Thomas, Heath Kelsey and Bill Nuttle facilitated a workshop in Palm Bay, FL to develop the Indian River Lagoon Report Card. Partnering with the Marine Resources Council, about 50 scientists, conservationists, and managers attended the workshop to begin the report card process. Indian River Lagoon is 150 miles long, one of the most bio-diverse estuaries in North America, and spans the transition from tropical to temperate climate regions. But the estuary has had severe problems with harmful algal blooms, seagrass die-off, and dolphin and manatee mortality. Therefore, restoration and management activities are clearly necessary. The report card process begins to identify overall health, and tracks progress related to specific goals.

In March 2016, a deadly sequence of events results in a record fish kill in Indian River Lagoon

Indian River Lagoon experienced a fish kill due to strong spring storms, excess nutrients, and brown algae bloomDuring the project to create the first Indian River Lagoon (IRL) ecosystem health Report Card with the Marine Resource Council (MRC), a massive fish kill exploded in some of the central and northern IRL lagoons in March 2016. Jane Hawkey and Heath Kelsey created a one-page flyer that focused on the brown algae bloom that appears to have caused the death of large numbers of fish and other marine species. While there is more to be learned, a particular sequence of events appears to have led up to the deadly event and is represented in the three conceptual diagrams – one of which is shown here. The flyer was made available to the interested public at the recent MRC LagoonFest 2016 event held in Palm Bay, FL. The State of the Indian River Lagoon report card is projected to be distributed in 2017.

Assessing the health of the Indian River Lagoon

Assessing the health of the Indian River Lagoon framework documentIAN and the Marine Resources Council released the Indian River Assessment framework in November. IAN facilitated a workshop in January this year to develop this assessment framework. The workshop had about 60 participants, with stakeholders from around the region determining ways to measure the health of the Lagoon from water quality, habitat, fish and shellfish, and wildlife perspectives. The Lagoon was divided into 5 sub-regions in a roughly north to south orientation. Potential indicators for each of these sub-regions were discussed, and will be pursued in the development of the assessment report, which is the next step in the project. Immediately following the January workshop, Indian River Lagoon suffered tremendous algal blooms and subsequent fish kills, which highlight the importance of this assessment process. We hope to work further with our partners to develop the State of the Indian River Lagoon Report.