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Florida Bay hypersalinity #8

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kflahertywalia opened this issue Jan 23, 2024 · 0 comments
Closed

Florida Bay hypersalinity #8

kflahertywalia opened this issue Jan 23, 2024 · 0 comments

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@kflahertywalia
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The hypersaline conditions in Florida Bay are likely not due to just drought; evapotranspiration and wave-driven circulation are major drivers in the hydrologically distinct basins of FB, and lack of effective restoration of freshwater sheet flow (as of yet) into the north central region of the bay complicate the issue. Suggest deleting the first part of that sentence - the point is still made without mentioning drought. Hypersalinity may continue to be a chronic issue there regardless of rainfall/freshwater flow.

temp-manu/manu-draft.qmd

Line 231 in 2f8e57c

Lastly, our result showing that salinity has decreased in Tampa Bay is generally contrary to expectations for coastal systems consistent with sea-level rise projections [@alarcon2024]. Salinity changes with sea-level rise have caused numerous alterations of subtidal and nearshore habitats [@brinson1995; @white2017]. In southwest Florida, the most common ecological example is migration of mangroves upland as porewater salinity and water levels have gradually increased over the past few decades [@borchert2018]. Alteration of salinity regimes for surface and groundwater resources are also well documented. In Florida Bay, for example, widespread decline of *Thalassia testudinium* has been partially attributed to elevated salinity levels beyond the optimal range for the species [@hall2016]. Although drought has been implicated in the hypersaline conditions observed in Florida Bay, sea level rise is expected to further alter salinity dynamics in the region. @dessu2018 noted that sea level rise is expected to have the largest effect on salinity changes during periods of low freshwater outflow from the Florida Everglades, emphasizing that measured salinity represents the relative contributions of oceanic and freshwater surface waters. In Tampa Bay, the long-term trends of decreasing salinity suggest that the hydrologic load into the system has had a greater influence on salinity regimes than the effects of sea-level rise. This hypothesis is supported by our assessment of precipitation patterns over time, where the long-term increase is inversely correlated with the decrease in salinity.

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@fawda123 @kflahertywalia