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Home > GCR > Vol. 37 > Iss. 1 (2026)

 

Alternate Title

Pollutant Load Reduction in Sarasota Bay, Florida (USA): Target Development, Implementation, and Outcomes

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Between 2006 and 2012, seagrass coverage across Sarasota Bay expanded by 1,108 ha, a 28% increase. During the subsequent years of 2012−2020, 830 ha of seagrass were lost, a 16% decline. In response to these findings, resource management efforts focused on determining the likely reason(s) why those 2 periods had such contrasting trends, to come up with strategies to reverse these losses. Based on results from the seagrass data, the 7—y period of 2006−2012 was designated a “reference period” and water quality data were compared against the subsequent 7—y designated “degraded period” of 2013−2019. Annual average chlorophyll-a (chl-a) values and macroalgae coverage on the bay bottom were significantly higher in 4 of 5 bay segments in the degraded period, suggesting that the bay was suffering from nutrient enrichment. In 2021, the difference in watershed—wide loads of dissolved inorganic nitrogen between the degraded and reference periods (20%) was set as the bay’s pollutant load reduction goal. Based on output from the bay’s pollutant loading model, it appeared that by 2022, the 20% load reduction target had been met through a series of management actions. During 2020−2024, double—digit percent declines in annual average total nitrogen and chl—a concentrations were documented in 4 of the bay’s 5 segments, along with reductions in the amount of drift macroalgae. Likely in response to these improvements, seagrass coverage in Sarasota Bay expanded by 774 ha between 2022 and 2024, a 19% increase.

First Page

48

Last Page

58

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use Statement

No artificial intelligence (AI) was used in the preparation of this manuscript

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