Assessing the utility of shellfish sanitation monitoring data for long-term estuarine water quality analysis.
Mar Pollut Bull
; 203: 116465, 2024 Jun.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38723549
ABSTRACT
Regular testing of coastal waters for fecal coliform bacteria by shellfish sanitation programs could provide data to fill large gaps in existing coastal water quality monitoring, but research is needed to understand the opportunities and limitations of using these data for inference of long-term trends. In this study, we analyzed spatiotemporal trends from multidecadal fecal coliform concentration observations collected by a shellfish sanitation program, and assessed the feasibility of using these monitoring data to infer long-term water quality dynamics. We evaluated trends in fecal coliform concentrations for a 20-year period (1999-2021) using data collected from spatially fixed sampling sites (n = 466) in North Carolina (USA). Findings indicated that shellfish sanitation data can be used for long-term water quality inference under relatively stationary management conditions, and that salinity trends can be used to investigate management-driven bias in fecal coliform observations collected in a particular area.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Shellfish
/
Water Quality
/
Environmental Monitoring
/
Estuaries
Limits:
Animals
Country/Region as subject:
America do norte
Language:
En
Journal:
Mar Pollut Bull
/
Mar. pollut. bull
/
Marine pollution bulletin
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Country of publication: