Grace Su ( license@seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov) (301) 286-9494
Applicant's Name: Stuart Banks Institution: Charles Darwin Research Station Address: Attn Stuart Banks BIOMAR PO Box 17-01-3891 Quito-Ecuador Puerto Ayora, Isla Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands Ecuador, South America Telephone: 593-5-526-146/7 Fax Number: 593-5-526-146 ext. 102 E-mail Address: sbanks@fcdarwin.org.ec Type of Temporary Agreement requested: An agreement that temporarily enables a non-real time SeaWiFS HRPT station to decrypt real-time data and release it to the Authorized Users list. Time period of temporary agreement: Dates (month/day/year): 01/08/2003 - 02/18/2003 SeaWiFS HRPT Station to provide data: HGAL List of Authorized Users to access real-time data. 1. Stuart Banks Project Title: Long-term SeaWiFS HRPT Monitoring of the Galapagos Marine Reserve Principal Investigator(s): Stuart Banks Funding Agency(s): NCSU Subcontract to Charles Darwin Foundation Description of the Research Project and Justification for Real-time SeaWiFS Data:HRPT ocean colour data is being introduced into a wide range of research projects at the CDRS - potential primary productivity variability and localisation, marine biological monitoring and zonation schemes, fisheries research, surface current dynamics, ecosystem simulations etc. With complementary SST data at a similar resolution there is tremendous potential to look far beyond the snap shot profiles of costly ship surveys. We would also like to integrate these measurements with existing environmental and biological survey data; for example understanding surface and below-surface temperature regimes as proxies for upwelling against the chlorophyll signal. The intention is to use this as a basis in a full ocean monitoring project spanning 3-5 years for which the CDRS is currently developing proposals with collaborators. With the next El Nino in a developing phase it is vitally important for our monitoring effort to capture the drastic changes expected in the marine coastal ecosystems in the coming year.
Although most of the obvious applications fall within marine research, with true colour imagery of each overpass, giving cloud coverage, volcanic emissions, vegetation cover, and mangrove phyto-detritus entrainment in coastal water, we hope to make the interdisciplinary data available to a range of terrestrial projects where applicable, particularly for the temporal coverage where costly LANDSAT and SPOT data can be used for spatial resolution on particularly cloud free days.
Areas of investigation that make use of SeaWiFS data now and are planned for the future are diverse (all refer to the Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR)). These include:
Evaluation of current zonation scheme by representation of high areas of production in protected
areas Larval dispersal dynamics for key sp. of the archipelago.
Variability in benthic vertical wall communities within and between upwelling sites in the GMR.
Understanding of how productivity influences community dynamics and diversity.
Fisheries monitoring.
Educational and visitor interest projects and local schools.
Cross ecosystem transfer studies.
Effect of small scale oceanographic structuring processes upon community biogeography and
productivity in the GMR.
Dynamic ecosystem modelling of Galapagos marine ecosystems. Numerical modelling of marine ecosystems from the
primary trophic level with implication for predictive modelling of community dynamics within detectable
environmental signals.
Determination of possible diagnostic indicator species associated with areas of low-high primary production.
For example phenotypic plasticity in sea urchin distribution as a key indicator of ecosystem state.
Marine bird monitoring.
Identification and characterisation of internal wave generation from localised upwelling.
Base-line current mapping and productivity information as part of the Plan Operativo management plan for
Galapagos.
Continued impact evaluation of the Jessica oil spill upon primary production.
Ground truthing productivity incubation studies through the water column.
Determination of community response time to variable upwelling features and recovery after large-scale
oceanographic perturbations such as baroclinic Kelvin wave propagations in El Nino years or biological
response to internal wave propagation.
Advection dynamics of phytoplankton blooms.
The relationship between limiting nutrients (e.g. Fe) and inferred phytoplankton distributions.
Characterisation of physical/climatic variability against iguana/penguin population dynamics.
Development of land cover data for vegetation cover estimates on a daily basis.
Evaluation of vegetative cover as an index of introduced goat activity with a view to population
management/erradication (Proyecto Isabela/PNG).