NCCOS Long-term Monitoring Project: Regional Ecological Assessments and National Benthic Inventory

NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) works in partnership with other federal agencies and coastal states to conduct assessments of ecological condition and potential stressor impacts throughout our Nation’s estuaries, coastal-ocean waters, and NOAA protected areas; carry out studies to determine environmental impacts of specific pollution events or natural disasters; and perform additional related research to develop new ecological indicators and improved diagnostic tools to assess, predict, and manage future conditions.

NCCOS has conducted a series of Regional Ecological Assessments (REA) aimed at evaluating condition of living resources and ecosystem stressors in estuarine and coastal areas including National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS), National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS), and continental shelf regions of the Mid-Atlantic Bight, South-Atlantic Bight, Florida Shelf, and Gulf of Mexico. Information from these studies provides a means to assess the current status of ecological condition and stressor impacts throughout these areas, and serves as a baseline for evaluating future changes due to natural or human-induced disturbances.

The NOAA National Benthic Inventory (NBI) is a quantitative database on benthic species distributions obtained from studies conducted by NOAA and partnering institutions in estuarine and other coastal-ocean areas around the country.

A corresponding taxonomic voucher collection of preserved benthic specimens collected in studies conducted between 1991 and 2007 was maintained at the NCCOS Charleston lab until April 2019. The voucher collection was transferred to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in May 2019 and will be incorporated into their Non-Molluscan Invertebrate research collections. More information can be found at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences website.

NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) conduct a wide variety of coastal environmental monitoring and research studies that generate data sets on the biodiversity and abundances of marine benthic species. This work provides information to improve our understanding of the importance of coastal ecosystems and to help support effective management plans and actions for ensuring their wise use and protection. Results of this project are made available to increase public awareness about the extent and nature of pollution impacts and to support more informed management decisions and actions aimed at sustaining the health of these resources and the important services they provide.

The goal of the Regional Ecological Assessment (REA) project is to produce baseline assessments of coastal ecosystem conditions for decision-makers to evaluate their coastal management efforts and policies. Key to accomplishing this objective is to obtain spatial and temporal data on ecologically important habitats, species, and processes in biologically important marine and coastal areas.

The goal of the National Benthic Inventory (NBI) is to capture information on the occurrence of benthic species and to make the data available as a readily accessible resource to support the needs of other related programs dealing with important coastal management, research, and educational initiatives. The quantitative database provides information on benthic species abundances by species and location, thus providing a basis for addressing important coastal and marine spatial planning management and research questions, such as "what are the incidence and patterns of occurrence of a particular species of interest," or "what are the overall composition and diversity of species assemblages within any particular region of interest.”

Partners:

• US DOC; NOAA; Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO)

• US DOC; NOAA; NESDIS; National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

• US DOC; NOAA; NOS; ONMS; Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary (GRNMS); Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS); Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (SBNMS)

• US DOC; NOAA; NOS; OCM; North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve (NCNERR);

Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve (SINERR); Guana-Tolomato-Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (GTMNERR)

• US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

• South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, Marine Resources Research Institute

• University of North Carolina - Charlotte; University of Maryland, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory; Texas A&M University, Geochemical and Environmental Research Group

• Barry A. Vittor and Associates, Inc., Mobile, AL; Alpha Scientific, Inc., Bedminster, NJ; Versar, Inc., Springfield, VA; Cove Corporation, Lusby, MD; Aquatic Research and Consulting, Duxbury, MA; Normandeau Associates, Inc., Bedford, NH; B&B Laboratories, College Station, TX; GPL Laboratories, Frederick, MD

• North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Non-Molluscan Invertebrate Collection

Funding:

• US DOC; NOAA; NOS; National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), NCCOS Project #139, “Coastal Ecological Assessments and Indicator Development”

• US EPA; ORD; Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program