The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is a private, non-profit research facility dedicated to the study of marine science and to the education of marine scientists. It is the largest independent oceanographic institution in the world. Researchers at WHOI are organized into five major departments – Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering; Biology, Geology, and Geophysics; Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry; and Physical Oceanography – as well as several smaller groups that include the Marine Policy Center, the Center for Oceans and Human Health, and the Coastal Ocean Institute.
In addition to world-class marine science and engineering capabilities, WHOI provides expertise in the application of oceanographic knowledge to the effective management of coastal and marine resources.
Illustrative water resource management global projects
Groundwater-Seawater Interactions.
Several WHOI research projects focus on understanding groundwater-seawater interactions, and the physical and geological controls on fresh and saline groundwater flow. Fresh groundwater flows into coastal waters while at the same time saline surface water can intrude into coastal aquifers. The interplay between these water types of different densities, along with forcing mechanisms such as on-land precipitation and tides, results in a complex flow system that is important to understand for water supply purposes. At the same time, chemical concentrations in groundwater (both fresh and saline) can be very high and the solute input to coastal water from the discharging groundwater can affect coastal ecosystems. Thus, understanding groundwater-seawater interactions at the coast is also important for determining chemical loads and associated impacts to coastal waters. This work has led to the development of optimization tools for use in water resource management, particularly with respect to groundwater resources. These tools couple groundwater flow and chemical transport models with decision-making models. The resulting combined optimization-simulation model can be used to optimize engineering or managerial decisions with respect to the groundwater resource. Examples of such decisions include maximizing water supply from an aquifer subject to various physical, social, and economic constraints, and minimizing the cost of remediating a groundwater contamination plume.
Managing Nutrient Loads in Coastal Waters.
Nutrient loading has become one of the most important agents of adverse ecological change in coastal ecosystems. Most efforts to address nutrient overenrichment problems have focused on source reduction of nutrient inputs. This tends to be difficult and expensive, as the main nutrient sources – human waste inputs to groundwater, atmospheric deposition, and fertilizers – often cannot be reduced without significant technological or behavioral change. In certain cases, it may be equally effective and less costly to mitigate the effects of nutrients after they have entered the water. One such approach involves removing nutrients and improving water quality in estuaries by using bivalve molluscs as natural biofilters. Several research projects at WHOI deal with the development of models to optimize the nutrient-removing capability of bivalve shellfish in aquaculture settings. The approach is ecologically sound and economically attractive, and is likely to be widely applicable. WHOI has carried out work on this issue in New England and also in East Africa (see below).
Developing Ecologically Sound Aquaculture (Tanzania). WHOI has been working for several years with the Institute of Marine Science (a branch of the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania ) to build a local capacity for ecologically sound fish and shellfish farming on the island of Zanzibar. Early work focused on the application of pond-based finfish farming techniques incorporating biofiltration (using shellfish and macroalgae to remove excess nutrients from fish pond water) to a low-tech setting in Zanzibar. More recently, WHOI has worked to demonstrate the biological and economic feasibility of coastal shellfish farming by women's groups in Zanzibar, building on the island's successful seaweed farming industry. The present project envisions training some 500 women from coastal villages in shellfish farming techniques to build a new source of protein and revenue, and to help rebuild overharvested shellfish stocks.
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