Harmful Algal Blooms: Monitoring, early warning and risk

The world’s oceans abound with microplankton. Vital to marine ecosystems, of the several thousand species extant, a few dozen produce toxins that if ingested can cause serious ill effects. Others, can cause loss of appetite... [ view full abstract ]

The world’s oceans abound with microplankton. Vital to marine ecosystems, of the several thousand species extant, a few dozen produce toxins that if ingested can cause serious ill effects. Others, can cause loss of appetite and death in farmed fish. Under optimum conditions these organisms can rapidly increase in numbers giving rise to harmful algal blooms (HABs). Coastal aquaculture relies on microplankton as a free and abundant food source. Unfortunately when toxin producing microplankton are present they may bio-accumulate in shellfish. When eaten by humans these toxins can cause serious health problems ranging from diarrhea to death. there is also a significant economic cost to the industry as farms may have to close when blooms occur. It is important  to monitor for the presence of potentially dangerous micro-plankton and if possible predict its occurrence giving the industry time to implement mitigation measures.

An early warning, weekly bulletin of HABs and biotoxins was developed. This interpreted regulatory monitoring data through a GIS and combined it with expert interpretation of the current and near future HAB situation in Scottish coastal waters.  In addition remote sensing algorithms have been developed that can identify HABs as they develop offshore and when combined with high resolution particle tracking models have the potential to predict the movement of algal blooms around the hydro-dynamically complex Scottish coastline. Recently we have moved the previously Email based bulletins to a web based system (www.habreports.org) that is capable of providing aquaculture information on current, historical and predicted future HAB conditions.