News Update
FAU awarded $2.2 million to monitor HABs in Lake Okeechobee
Staff report
Enviro-Net
Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute received a $2.2 million grant to address the environmental and health concerns of harmful algal blooms in Lake Okeechobee from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Total Maximum Daily Loads Program.
Over the past decade, recurring harmful algal blooms have revolved around extreme blooms of cyanobacteria, Microcystis aeruginosa. This common freshwater species is quickly becoming a global health threat, with reported increases in both the frequency and intensity of blooms around the world.
The project, “Harmful Algal Bloom Assessment of Lake Okeechobee”, will help combat Florida freshwater eutrophication, harmful algae proliferation and ultimately protect human and ecosystem health.
The project team will develop a comprehensive sensing and information visualization package that will augment the state’s existing monitoring programs and expand water, sediment and biological measurements using innovative HAB detection and environmental characterization technologies. The system will allow pinpointing problem areas prior to or early on when harmful algal blooms are emerging in Lake Okeechobee.
HALO will include a public web-based platform for visualizing Lake Okeechobee freshwater harmful algal bloom intensities and extents as well as results of environmental characterization and modeling. The HALO system will provide a platform for not only tracking blooms, but will eventually provide the means to evaluate the progress of any future active bloom-mitigation efforts.
The HALO database is expected to become operational on the web on Jan. 1, 2021.