WATERSHEDS
A1    Watershed Assessments in the San Diego Region
A2    Evaluating Multiple Indicators in Freshwater Biomonitoring
A3     Development of Multimetric Periphyton Tools for Assessing Nutrient Conditions
A4     Nonperennial Stream Survey
A5     Statewide Watershed Reference Site Network
A6     Assessment and Management of Hydromodification Effects
A7     Application of Watershed Models
A8     Characteristics of Effluents from Large Municipal Wastewater Treatment Facilities
A9     Comparison of Mass Emissions Among Sources in the Southern California Bight

WETLANDS AND ESTUARIES
B1     Developing a Scientific Framework for Assessing Eutrophication in Coastal Estuaries and Lagoons
B2     Quantifying the Role of Sediments in Nutrient Cycling from Southern California Lagoons
B3     Mapping the Extent and Distribution of Southern California Wetland and Riparian Resources
B4     Effect of Global Climate Change on the Extent and Distribution of Southern California’s Coastal Wetlands
B5     Southern California Wetland Recovery Project Science Advisory Panel

COASTAL OCEAN
C1     Developing a Scientific Foundation for California’s Sediment Quality Objectives
C2     Development of Methods to Characterize Sediment Toxicity in the Southern California Bight
C3     In Situ Measurement of Toxic Organic Compounds in Sediment Porewater
C4     Estimating Pollutant Loadings and Fluxes in Impaired Coastal
C5     Brominated Flame Retardants in the Southern California Bight
C6     Endocrine Disruption in Coastal Fish
C7     Emerging Contaminants of Concern in Coastal Waters, Sediments, and Biota
C8     Evaluation of the Impact of Terrestrial Runoff on the Biological Response of the Coastal Ocean
C9     Southern California Working Group for Marine Ichthyologists

BEACHES AND SHORELINES
D1     Epidemiology Study of Nonpoint Source Contaminated Beaches
D2     Implementation of Rapid Indicator Technology for Measuring Fecal Indicator Bacteria
D3     Evaluating Bacterial Sources in Southern California Watersheds
D4     BeachWatch Database Maintenance
D5     MARINe: Multi Agency Rocky Intertidal Network

REGIONAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT
E1     Southern California Bight Regional Monitoring: 2008
E2     Assessment of Pseudonitzschia and Domoic Acid on the San Pedro Shelf
E3     California Integrated Water Quality System Review Panel
E4     Statewide Assessment of Wetland Status and Trends
E5     Monitoring Areas of Special Biological Significance
E6     Statewide Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program Data Management
E7     California Environmental Data Exchange Network (CEDEN)
E8     Web Based Data Discovery and Analysis Tool

MEMBER AGENCY TECHNICAL CONSULTING
F1     Member Agency Technical Consulting

Welcome to the SCCWRP 2007/08 Research Plan. Consistent with our recent move to a new facility, this year’s Research Plan links the old with the new. Our new building took the best attributes of our history and married it with our vision for the future. Like our previous facility, this Research Plan builds off the solid foundation that SCCWRP has built over the last 38 years and connects us to the new and challenging issues that face environmental managers today. To that end, there are 36 projects, laid out by habitat (watersheds, wetlands and estuaries, beaches and shorelines, coastal ocean, and integration and assessment), that define our research agenda for the year. The projects demonstrate the wide range of interdisciplinary science we conduct and illustrate both the process-oriented and applied types of studies we perform.

There are five groups of projects that are consistent with the traditional research that SCCWRP has been known for. Within each group, however, you will find a new twist that engages our scientists, provides essential new information to environmental managers, and addresses the emerging issues of our time. The first traditional research theme we explore is sources and loadings. Some of the projects investigate long-established constituents from well-known sources (Characteristics of Effluents from Large Municipal Wastewater Treatment Facilities; Comparison of Mass Emissions Among Sources in the Southern California Bight), but other projects focus on new contaminants (Brominated Flame Retardants in the Southern California Bight; Emerging Contaminants of Concern in Coastal Waters, Sediments, and Biota) from atypical sources (Estimating Pollutant Loadings and Fluxes in impaired Coastal Waterways, Quantifying the Role of Sediments in Nutrient Cycling from Southern California Lagoons).

The second traditional research theme on which we build to the future is developing assessment tools. In previous years, SCCWRP has made a dedicated effort to developing the scientific basis for water quality and marine benthic community assessment tools. This research has led to the scientific foundation for the State’s sediment quality criteria (Development of Sediment Quality Objectives for Bays and Estuaries; Development of Methods to Characterize Sediment Toxicity in the Southern California Bight). Now, SCCWRP turns to the challenges associated with the scientific foundation for nutrient criteria (Technical Support for Development of Nutrient Criteria for Coastal Estuaries and Lagoons). This research area requires understanding impacts (Evaluation of the Impact of Terrestrial Runoff on the Biological Response of the Coastal Ocean; Assessment of Pseudonitzschia and Domoic Acid on the San Pedro Shelf) as well as developing tools that help establish ecologically-relevant benchmarks (Development of Multimetric Tools for Setting Periphyton Numeric Targets). Similarly, SCCWRP is embarking on the challenges associated with assessing effects on freshwater biological ecosystems (Watershed Assessments in the San Diego Region; Nonperennial Stream Survey) and the tools needed to understand and predict human-induced impacts (Assessment and Management of Hydromodification Effects; Evaluating Multiple Indicators in Freshwater Biomonitoring).

A third traditional research theme is shoreline microbial monitoring and protection of public health at swimming beaches. SCCWRP’s past research has identified several research areas with which beach managers need assistance, including development of new methods for measuring contamination on the beach and methods for identifying fecal sources when problems on the beach are encountered. Projects in this year’s Research Plan include those that are nearing completion (Implementation of Rapid Indicator Technology for Measuring Fecal Indicator Bacteria), others that are serving to crystallize ongoing issues (Evaluating Bacterial Sources in Southern California Watersheds), and a new project that addresses fundamental issues in beach management decisionmaking (Epidemiology Study of Nonpoint Source Contaminated Beaches).

A fourth research theme that has both a past and a future at SCCWRP is integrating the research we do with others in order to gain a large-scale (i.e., regional, statewide, or national) perspective. Some of these projects are familiar to our project collaborators and research partners (Southern California Bight Regional Monitoring; Statewide Assessment of Wetland Status and Trends). However, the value of these relationships is immeasurable and SCCWRP continues to find avenues for partnership to effectively address important issues that cannot be resolved individually or at local scales (Endocrine Disruption in Coastal Fish; Monitoring Areas of Special Biological Significance).

The fifth research theme takes on new dimensions compared to previous years. In this era of technology, data sharing becomes crucial. Historically, SCCWRP has played a pivotal role helping multiple users of a single interest work together (MARINe: Multi Agency Rocky Intertidal Network; BeachWatch Database Maintenance). As the electronic data world expands exponentially, however, single centralized systems won’t suffice and SCCWRP is at the leading edge as multi-use distributed systems emerge (Statewide Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program Data Management; California Environmental Data Exchange Network). Finally, we see a crucial role for SCCWRP to move past just data management to actual information sharing (Web Based Data Discovery and Analysis Tool; California Integrated Water Quality System Review Panel).

As you can see, this years’ Research Plan pursues familiar research themes, but applies them to current topics in unique ways. We use time-honored techniques and approaches and apply them to the issues of greatest import to the management community today. By linking the past with the new, SCCWRP has taken what we know and used it to grow.

WATERSHEDS

Objectives: Urbanizing watersheds subject aquatic life to a multitude of potential stressors. Riparian vegetation removal and increases impervious area can modify flow and affect physical habitat for biota. Increases in population density typically lead to introduction of more anthropogenic chemicals and reductions in water quality. Instream biological communities such as benthic macroinvertebrates respond to these stressors in negative ways, such as reductions in biodiversity and abundance. These changes are potentially severe in southern California where urbanization has led to watersheds that are more than 80% developed.

There are several monitoring programs that have developed to quantify stream health in southern California watersheds, but these programs are not well integrated and don’t yield an overall condition assessment. For example, biological measurements in watersheds of the San Diego region have been monitored for at least five years. Other measures of stream health, such as physical habitat, aquatic toxicity, and water quality, are also collected. However, these monitoring data have been collected by multiple agencies, at an uncoordinated set of locations, and with varying levels of quality assurance.

The goal of this study is to integrate data from these various monitoring efforts to create an assessment of watershed condition throughout the San Diego region. We will compile data on stream health across 10 watersheds from San Juan Creek to the Otay River. Several data sets will be targeted including the Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP) and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit monitoring. We will evaluate condition based on the status of benthic macroinvertebrates, water quality, physical habitat, aquatic toxicity, and bioaccumulation. Finally, we will take the lessons learned from this exercise to make recommendations on the best way to integrate these programs into a comprehensive monitoring network.

Tasks: Collate Data. Staff will collate the available data collected as part of the SWAMP program in the San Diego region for the last five years (2001-2005). The data will include sample site information, sampling event information, and environmental quality indicators. Environmental water quality indicators will be comprised of: 1) water column chemistry for more than 180 constituents including physical measurements (pH, dissolved oxygen, etc.), inorganic constituents (major ions, trace metals), and organic constituents (pesticides, PAHs, etc.); 2) water column toxicity for three different species (Selenastrum, Ceriodaphnia, and Hyalella); 3) tissue chemistry for instream invertebrates (i.e., crawdads); 4) benthic macroinvertebrates (identified to species); and 5) physical habitat (EPA’s rapid physical habitat protocol). These data will be combined with similar types of data collected by the NPDES municipal stormwater permittees dating back to 1998. All of this information will be collated into a single relational database compatible with the existing SWAMP format.

Data Analysis. Data analysis will focus on assessing the extent and magnitude of impact in each of the 10 watersheds being evaluated for this study. The extent of impact will be evaluated by comparing indicator data to existing thresholds, where applicable. For example, water column chemistry values will be compared to the existing water quality criteria, bioassessment will be compared to biological thresholds calculated for the southern California index of biological integrity (IBI), or toxicity results can be assessed for significant toxicity relative to controls. Magnitude of impact will be evaluated by examining the number of sites with threshold exceedences within a watershed, frequency of threshold exceedences at a single site, or a combination of both.

Synthesis and Recommendations. After completing data analysis assessing all 10 watersheds, the data will be synthesized for two main purposes. The first purpose will be to provide an integrated assessment of overall watershed health throughout the region. These data can be used for several purposes including determining the greatest (or least) impacted watershed(s). The second purpose will be to identify potential causes of impairments by correlating the various stressor variables with response variables. Examples of stressor variables might include measured indicators such as water chemistry or physical habitat. Stressor variables might also include landscape scale factors such as urban development, road density, land use distribution, or several other potential factors derived through GIS applications. The synthesis will conclude with a series of recommendations for improving the future SWAMP monitoring design to increase the program’s effectiveness and efficiency.

Project Status: This is the second year of a two-year project. The first year focused on data compilation and information management. The second year will focus on data analysis and reporting.

Collaborators: This project is being conducted in collaboration with the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health, and other San Diego Municipal Stormwater NPDES Copermittees.

Objectives: Southern California’s streams are subjected to numerous stressors, including chemical pollution and habitat alteration. Inventories of existing watershed monitoring in southern California suggests up to $5M is spent annually to assess watershed ecosystem health. Much of this considerable effort is expended measuring multiple indicators, such as water chemistry monitoring, toxicity assays, and benthic macroinvertebrate communities. Municipal stormwater NPDES permittees conduct a large portion of this monitoring and are often asked to restore the beneficial uses if these waterbodies are deemed to be impaired.

Despite the large effort, there has been nominal data analysis of these multiple indicators in NPDES monitoring programs (See project Watershed Assessments in the San Diego Region). Because of this lack of in-depth data analysis, environmental managers are missing important pieces of information. One such missing piece is stressor identification. No one has scrutinized this monitoring data to assess if instream biological communities are most affected by concentrations of chemical pollutants, acute or chronic toxicity in surrogate species, or alterations in physical habitat. If the monitoring data could identify the stressors that most affect instream biological communities, then environmental managers could also use the data to determine what elements of environmental quality are most important for ensuring the integrity of beneficial uses.

The goal of this project is to provide a comprehensive analysis of multiple indicators and look at the relationships between benthic macroinvertebrate community structure and water chemistry, toxicity, and physical habitat. Five years of NPDES monitoring data from Orange County will be analyzed using both univariate and multivariate statistics to determine which class of stressors has the strongest impact on ecological health. These results may help design future monitoring programs by identifying the most useful variables for measurement. Furthermore, information gained from this research may help set restoration priorities at impaired sites by determining which stressors appear most important and identifying which remediation strategy(ies) will have the biggest positive impact.

Tasks: Collate Data. Staff will collate the available data collected as part of the NPDES monitoring program in the Orange County region for the last five years (2001-2005). The data will include sample site information, sampling event information, and environmental quality indicators such as water column chemistry (physical measurements, inorganic, and organic constituents), physical habitat, and benthic macroinvertebrates.

Data Analysis. This task involves data pre-processing (outlier analysis, calculation of summary statistics, transformations, etc.) in addition to performing statistical tests and procedures (canonical correspondence analysis, correlations, etc.). Some analyses will require GIS techniques to assess landscape scale stressors. Data analysis will examine all stressor measurements, but combinations of stressors will be a focal point of the analysis.

Predictions and Recommendations. Based on the results from the data analysis, the stressor(s) with the greatest predictive value will be identified. These stressors may vary by habitat type. Based on the predictive value of stressor data, individually or in combination, recommendations for monitoring programs will be made.

Project Status: This is the first year of a one-year project.

Collaborators: This project will be conducted in collaboration with the Orange County Resources and Management Development Department (OCRDMD).

Objectives: Nutrients are a common cause of stream impairment in southern California coastal watersheds. Nutrient impairment often results from a combination of excessive nutrient inputs from agriculture, residential development, and atmospheric deposition, along with reduced riparian vegetation and associated increases in light and temperature. Excessive nutrients often result in macroalgal blooms that can impair beneficial uses of streams by reducing their ability to support stream biota or causing unpleasant aesthetics or odors.

Although nutrients and excessive algae have the potential to impact many beneficial uses, establishing numeric targets for nutrients in streams in southern California is complicated by the complex chemical, physical, and biological interactions that can result in eutrophication. Currently, there are no verified tools to evaluate the overall effects of nutrients on stream health. Methods that examine only isolated indicators (e.g., nutrient concentrations or dissolved oxygen) are ineffective at measuring the net effect of nutrients on the ecological health of streams. Bioindicators such as algae have the potential to more effectively measure the net effect of nutrients on the ecological health of streams. As primary producers, algae are the biotic community most directly responsive to nutrients. As such, algal bioindicators have utility in helping to identify and assess impairment of southern California coastal streams. Indeed, algal communities have been successfully developed as water-quality indicators in other parts of the country and world. One important difference in southern California, however, is the relative importance of benthic soft algae as opposed to benthic or floating diatoms.

The goal of this project is to produce tools for assessing the condition of periphyton communities that will be useful for assessing nutrient impairment. This will be accomplished by: 1) compiling a reference data set of algal communities and nutrient levels for southern California coastal streams; and 2) using the reference dataset to develop a Periphyton Index of Biotic Integrity (PIBI).

Tasks: Review and select protocols for periphyton sampling and analysis. Several protocols exist that may have utility for sampling southern California streams. This task will review existing protocols to determine what methods, or modifications thereof, are most appropriate for data collection and sample analysis for this study. In particular, the multi-habitat protocol used by the USEPA Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (EMAP) and the targeted habitat approach used by the US Geological Survey National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program will be tested.

Collection of periphyton, water chemistry, and environmental indicator data. The goal of this task will be to generate a data set that can be used to develop a draft PIBI, and to conduct analyses in support of the development of nutrient targets for southern California streams. Periphyton, physical habitat, and water chemistry samples will be collected from stream reaches across a gradient of disturbance that are distributed throughout coastal watersheds within the southern California Bight.

Development of a periphyton index of biotic integrity. The project dataset will be used to develop a draft PIBI, or similar index of condition, based on periphyton community structure. The diatom component of the draft PIBI will be evaluated in conjunction with the Central Coast project team, in order to assess whether there is justification in developing a single PIBI for use in the combined southern California and Central Coast regions. Technical transfer of the PIBI to managers and practitioners will be facilitated through the development of taxonomic keys of diatoms and soft algae and corresponding photolibrary.

Project Status: This is the first year of a three-year project. The first two years will focus on developing protocols for periphyton collection, field sampling, and laboratory processing to create a robust nutrient/periphyton reference dataset. The third year will focus on developing metrics for the PIBI and transferring the PIBI to managers and practitioners.

Collaborators: This project is being conducted in collaboration with the California Academy of Sciences, California State Universities at San Marcos and Monterey Bay, and University of California Santa Cruz.

Objectives: Until recently, most freshwater water quality monitoring programs (including NPDES monitoring) in California have focused on indirect measures of ecological condition using conventional water quality measurements like chemical concentrations. Over the past 10 years, many environmental managers in the state have come to realize that information about the biological condition of streams provides a more complete understanding of stream health than chemical or physical parameters alone. Bioassessment, the science of describing the condition of waterbodies from the organisms that live in them, is well established as a valuable tool for water resource management. Because assemblages of aquatic organisms (e.g., fish, benthic macroinvertebrates (BMIs) and algae) are comprised of taxa that are differentially responsive to different environmental stressors, bioassessments provide a direct means of measuring compliance with the goal of biotic integrity stipulated in state and federal water codes. Further, because aquatic organisms typically live in a given habitat for months to years, the use of biological endpoints offers a means of estimating cumulative effect of all anthropogenic stressors acting within a watershed (including multiple chemical and physical habitat stressors). Ultimately, indicators such as BMIs represent the actual beneficial use (i.e., aquatic life) that state regulations are trying to protect.

A key requirement of using bioassessments to monitor stream health is the development of scoring tools that give managers a simple index for determining if the biology of a site is in “good” or “bad” condition. Two such tools, the index of biotic integrity (IBI) and predictive models (OE), are currently available for scoring biological condition in southern California streams. While the IBI and OE models provide reasonably accurate descriptions of stream health in perennial streams, there has been little to no calibration or validation of the IBI in nonperennial streams (which have no surface flow for a predictable length of time each year). However, nonperennial streams comprise as much as 65% of the total stream length in southern California.

The goal of this project is to adapt bioassessment techniques for nonperennial streams. This goal will require overcoming several barriers including identifying the locations of non-perennial streams, quantifying successional changes in the BMI fauna in nonperennial streams, documenting the performance of existing bioassessment tools (IBIs and OE models) in nonperennial streams, and determining whether there are anthropogenic stressors specific to intermittent streams over the yearly cycle of flooding and drying. Ultimately, an attempt will be made to identify the factors that most influence BMI communities in nonperennial streams, including critical flow conditions.

Tasks: Site selection. Site selection may be one of the most crucial tasks in this study. Although several types of nonperennial streams exist, this project will focus on a single type of nonperennial stream habitat (i.e., ephemeral) for characterization. At least 12 sites will be targeted that represent a range of potential impacts from reference to impaired. This will allow for an assessment of changes in flow as well as other confounding factors.

Sampling and Analysis. Temporally intensive sampling is planned for each site. Sampling will begin in early spring, when creeks are flowing and biological communities are maturing. Sampling will continue roughly every 3 to 4 weeks. As flows begin to recede, sampling frequency will increase at that site to every two weeks, at a minimum. The goal will be to increase the frequency when changes are happening most quickly. Samples will be analyzed for flow, physical and chemical water quality, and benthic macroinvertebrate communities. Initial surveys will include intensive physical habitat measurements and subsequent surveys will focus on changes in the physical habitat characteristics.

Data Analysis and Reporting. We will specifically look for changes in physical water quality, chemical water quality, and/or benthic community assemblages over time. Changes in these parameters will be correlated with alterations in flow. Specifically, we will be looking for a “critical flow” where dramatic or climactic changes in environmental parameters, such as decreases in community metrics like the index of biological integrity (IBI), occur.

Project Status: This is the first year of a three-year study. The first year will focus on identifying nonperennial stream reaches and initiating sampling activities.

Collaborators: This project will be conducted in collaboration with the California Department of Fish and Game. This project is partially funded by a Consolidated Grant (Prop 50) through the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Stormwater Monitoring Coalition.

A5     STATEWIDE WATERSHED REFERENCE SITE NETWORK
           Lead Investigator: K. Schiff

Objectives: Reference conditions are an important element of any environmental assessment program, helping set the expectations for what environmental conditions could be if anthropogenic stressors were not evident. Reference conditions can also be used to help set restoration goals. Finally, reference conditions provide context for regulatory programs such as water quality criteria, biocriteria, numeric targets for total maximum daily loads (TMDLs), or tiered aquatic life use (TALU).

Establishing reference conditions is a challenge, particularly in urbanized landscapes such as southern California or the agriculturally dominated Central Valley. Furthermore, defining reference conditions can be defined in many contexts, ranging from pre-human to more guarded conditions such as best attainable, least disturbed, unimpacted, etc. Furthermore, a reference condition is needed for each habitat of interest if comparisons to reference condition are to be used as a tool for large-scale assessment programs.

The State of California is faced with the challenge of establishing reference conditions for waterbodies statewide. The surface water ambient monitoring program (SWAMP) has a mission of monitoring and assessing waterbody types throughout California. SWAMP needs a plan for defining, designing, or maintaining a reference site network for the large variety of aquatic habitats statewide, particularly since they will be initiating a statewide monitoring survey of wadeable perennial streams starting in 2008.

The objective of this study is to help SWAMP create a reference site network that can be monitored into the future. The goal will be to design an integrated system of sites that helps to define reference conditions for comparison to potentially impacted sites, creating expectations for biological assessment tools including biocriteria, and tracking large-scale phenomenon such as global climate change or invasive species.

Tasks: Create an advisory committee. The first step in this study will be to establish an Advisory Group of experts in the field. This group will have familiarity with the project goals and desires, but then work independently, or through a team, to help develop criteria for establishing reference condition. A rigorous process to identify Committee members will be used so that a cross-section of scientists, watershed managers, and regulators can provide this important advice to SWAMP.

Create a monitoring design. Working with the Advisory Committee, the study team will define the specific criteria that should be used in establishing reference sites. The monitoring design will outline the monitoring plan design variables, examine both the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches, and create a synergy with existing assessment monitoring efforts.

Write the workplan. The study team will draft a workplan encompassing the recommendations and criteria provided by the Advisory Committee. The workplan will contain sufficient detail that state, regional, or local programs can implement site selection criteria and quickly delineate monitoring effort and quality assurance requirements. In order to facilitate implementation, the study team will pilot site selection in at least one hydrologic unit.

Collaborators: This project is being conducted in collaboration with the State Water Resources Control Board, California Department of Fish and Game, and US EPA Region IX.

Project Status: This is the first year of a one-year program.

Objectives: The process of urbanization has the potential to affect stream courses by altering watershed hydrology. Development and redevelopment can increase the amount of impervious surfaces on formerly undeveloped landscapes. This reduces the capacity of remaining pervious surfaces to capture and infiltrate rainfall and, as a result, a larger percentage of rainfall becomes runoff during any given storm. In addition, runoff reaches the stream channel much more efficiently, so peak discharge rates postdevelopment are higher compared to predevelopment for an equivalent rainfall event. This process has been termed hydromodification.

Hydromodification can result in adverse effects to stream habitat, surface water quality, and water supply. The stream erosion that results from the increased peak flow can threaten infrastructure, homes, and businesses. Intermittent and ephemeral streams that possess riparian and wetland habitat are at particular risk from effects of hydromodification. Past research has indicated that stream quality indicators will decline when watershed impervious cover exceeds 10% and that severe degradation will occur above 25% impervious cover. However, the relationship between impervious cover and stream channel response in southern California is not well understood. Streams in semi-arid regions are likely more vulnerable to urbanization due to a prevalence of sand bed channels, lack of vegetative reinforcement, and relatively large net changes in water and sediment supply associated with stormwater runoff. Recent studies in southern California indicated that intermittent and ephemeral streams detectably degrade at lower levels of watershed urbanization than streams in the eastern US.

In response to the effects of hydromodification, state and local agencies are developing standards and management approaches to control and/or mitigate the effects of hydromodification on natural and semi-natural stream courses. Successful implementation of these regulatory programs requires development of tools to better assess hydromodification effects and develop appropriate mitigation and management strategies.

The goal of this project is to develop a series of tools supporting implementation of hydromodification management measures that could be used to better protect the physical, chemical, and biological integrity of streams and their associated beneficial uses. This project will provide tools to answer the following questions: 1) Which streams are at the greatest risk from the effects of hydromodification? 2) What are the anticipated effects in terms of increased erosion, sedimentation, or habitat loss, associated with increases in impervious cover? 3) What are some potential management measures that could be implemented to offset hydromodification effects and how effective are they likely to be?

Tasks: Develop protocols for mapping and classification. This goal of this task is to develop a mapping and classification system for streams based on their susceptibility to the effects of hydromodification. Susceptibility will be evaluated based on both properties of the stream and future increases in impervious cover. The resultant system would be used to help managers prioritize streams for protection and management, and will serve to help identify priority systems for more detailed analysis under subsequent project tasks.

Develop protocols for regional hydromodification monitoring and assessment. This task will establish protocols for ongoing monitoring that are designed to assess the effects of hydromodification. Development of standard monitoring protocols for hydromodification effects would facilitate regional information sharing on project performance and would allow better discrimination between natural and anthropogenic changes. This would ultimately help establish regional reference conditions. Ultimately, these protocols would provide a consistent tool to better allow managers to evaluate potential effects of hydromodification and the efficacy of management actions, and would support adaptive management and education on emerging techniques and strategies.

Develop dynamic simulation model(s). This task will focus on development of dynamic models to assess the effects of hydromodification on stream condition. These models would likely couple hydrologic simulations, physical process models, and risk-based modeling. The result would be a tool that could be uses to assess the likelihood of stream channel response to expected changes in hydrology associated with changes in land use patterns. The model output could be used to help develop objective criteria that can be used to help protect streams from effects of hydromodification, develop practical tools for BMP design, and predict the performance of management measures.

Develop management tools. The goal of this task is to develop a series of tools that managers can easily apply to make recommendations or set requirements relative to hydromodification for new development and redevelopment. These tools would utilize the results of the classification system, monitoring, modeling, and assessment completed under previous projects to develop a series of plots, nomographs, checklists, or similar management tools.

Project Status: This is the first year of a three-year project. The first year will focus on development of protocols for mapping and classification and development of the screening tool to rank the relative susceptibility of streams to hydromodification effects.

Collaborators: This project is being conducted in collaboration with Colorado State University, Fort Collins and the Stormwater Monitoring Coalition (SMC), and is partially funded by a Consolidated Grant (Proposition 50) through the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB).

Objectives: Watershed models are important tools for effective watershed management. The benefits of models are that they: 1) facilitate our understanding of sources, transport, and fates of pollutants; 2) provide tools to evaluate potential management scenarios; and 3) help focus future research on areas of greatest uncertainty. Since the late 1990’s, SCCWRP has developed, validated, and evaluated watershed fate and transport models for many watersheds in Southern California including the Ballona Creek, Los Angeles River, Dominguez Channel, Santa Monica Bay, Chollas Creek, and San Gabriel River watersheds. Over that time period, and with so many watersheds, SCCWRP has been able to quantify the precision, accuracy, and bias of several hydrodynamic and water quality models.

The next phase in model development is application of watershed models to evaluate management scenarios. The most pressing need is to assess the expected performance of applying Best Management Practices (BMPs). In the past, BMP performance has been modeled using empirically derived values for removal or treatment efficiency. However, these values are influenced by design parameters, such as size, outlet type, and by site-specific conditions including initial pollutant load (i.e., antecedent dry period) and rainfall intensity. Estimates of BMP performance would be improved by direct simulation of the pollutant removal mechanisms used by the BMP. Such direct physical/chemical modeling would allow for a more thorough evaluation of performance over a range of conditions and implementation scenarios.

The goal of this project is to develop and validate modeling applications for direct assessment of BMP performance. The project will include: 1) investigation of key physical processes that affect BMP performance, such as behavior of storm water particulates; 2) validation of model performance with field data on actual BMPs; 3) application of the model to BMP scenarios developed by stormwater agencies; and 4) information transfer to the larger stormwater management community.

Tasks: Investigation of key physical processes. This task will focus on the investigation of physical processes that influence the fate of storm water pollutants and the ability for them to be removed by BMPs. Initial investigations will focus on the behavior and distribution of particles in runoff from land use sites and in-river mass emission sites. In addition, the effectiveness of BMPs at removing key particle sizes will be investigated through field measurements. The information collected during this task will be used to refine watershed model parameters.

Development and verification of BMP models. The goal of this task is to develop modeling applications to simulate major types of BMPs. A key element of this task will be collection of influent and effluent data from representative BMPs for use in model calibration and validation. To the extent possible, we will attempt to partner with local storm water agencies in the selection of BMPs for data collection.

Application of models to management scenarios. Working with regulators and storm water managers, we will identify a series of management scenarios that involve application of major BMP types in a variety of different ways. The models developed in the earlier task will be used to evaluate the relative effect of each scenario at achieving water quality goals and objectives. The emphasis will be in the mechanistic evaluation of BMP performance under a variety of climatic and application situations.

Outreach and Information Transfer. Effective communication between the modelers and decision makers is crucial to appropriate use and application of models. SCCWRP will facilitate communication and education of managers on modeling principles and will serve as an ongoing resource to our member agencies for model selection, use, and interpretation. Results of the modeling and empirical analysis will be communicated to the larger storm water community through a variety of mechanisms including the Stormwater Monitoring Coalition, California Association of Stormwater Quality Agencies, and other groups to disseminate the findings of this work.

Project Status: This is the first year of a three-year project and follows from a five year project that initially developed and parameterized the models. The first year will focus on wet weather measurements to assess key physical processes.

Collaborators: This project is being conducted in collaboration with the Los Angeles RWQCB, San Diego RWQCB, City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, the Stormwater Monitoring Coalition, and US EPA Region IX.

Objectives: Pollutant mass emissions from the four largest Publicly Owned Treatment Works have traditionally been the largest contaminant input to the SCB. However, contaminant loads from these sources have declined by more than 95% over the last 30 years as a result of increased effluent treatment, source control, industrial pretreatment, and reclamation. This project involves characterizing each agency’s effluent from their discharge monitoring reports and calculating mass emission estimates during 2005-2006 time period. These calculations will continue the time series of annual mass emission estimates dating back to 1972.

Tasks: Data acquisition. Data will be acquired directly from annual, semi-annual, quarterly, or monthly effluent summaries reported to Regional Water Quality Control Boards. The data acquired will include flow, laboratory methods, and constituent concentrations. These self-monitoring results will be checked for adherence to quality assurance and comparability, then entered into our mass emissions database.

Data analysis and report preparation. Data reduction will involve mass loading calculations based upon flow and concentration. The smallest time intervals available (i.e., monthly) for these parameters will be used and then summed for annual loads. Tables of mean annual concentration and total mass for 2005 and 2006 will be prepared. Report preparation will compare POTW discharges over time dating back to 1971.

Project Status: This is an ongoing project. This year, we will compile the most recent annual monitoring reports, update our existing database and investigate emerging and ongoing trends in POTW discharges.

Collaborators: This project is being conducted in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles (Environmental Monitoring Division), County Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, Orange County Sanitation District, and City of San Diego.

Objectives: One tool that managers use to evaluate potential risk in the Southern California Bight (SCB) is to estimate mass emissions for constituents of concern. Managers use this tool to compare mass emissions among sources. Managers also use this tool to compare mass emissions over time from the same source to assess if discharges are increasing or decreasing in magnitude relative to other sources. In addition, managers can use this data to assess cumulative impacts in the SCB. For example, estimates of historical mass emissions can be compared to estimates of contaminant mass presently residing in the SCB developed as part of the SCB regional monitoring program.

SCCWRP has conducted mass emissions from a variety of sources at periodic intervals dating back to 1970. Estimates of mass emissions from large publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) have been conducted annually for the last 30 years. Estimates from other sources, such as small POTWs, industrial dischargers, dredged material disposal, urban runoff, oil platforms, vessel discharges, and aerial deposition have been conducted at a lesser frequency, but approximately every five years. SCCWRP’s last effort to characterize all sources occurred in 2000. The goal of this project is to once again estimate mass emissions from all sources for the 2005-2006 time period to: 1) assess the total mass emissions to the Southern California Bight; 2) determine the relative contribution of each source; and 3) evaluate trends in mass emissions from each source over the last 30 years.

Tasks: Data acquisition. Data will be acquired directly from annual, semi-annual, quarterly, or monthly effluent summaries reported to Regional Water Quality Control Boards. The data acquired will include flow, laboratory methods, and constituent concentrations. These self-monitoring results will be checked for adherence to quality assurance and comparability, then entered into our mass emissions database. Some sources are not monitored under an NPDES permit. These sources will be evaluated independently.

Data reduction and report preparation. Data reduction will involve mass loading calculations including estimates of uncertainty. These estimates will be prepared for each of the targeted sources. For the monitored point sources, we will calculate these estimates based upon flow and concentration. The smallest time intervals available (i.e., monthly) will be used and then summed for annual loads. Tables of mean annual concentration and total mass for the 2005-06 time period will be prepared. Report preparation will compare mass emissions among sources and assess changes in emissions over time from 1971 to 2006.

Project Status: This is an ongoing project. This year will focus on compilation of discharge data from small POTWs, industrial dischargers, and power generating stations for the time period 2005-06.

Collaborators: There currently are no collaborators for this project.

WETLANDS AND ESTUARIES

COASTAL OCEAN

Objectives: Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are a class of industrial chemical mixtures used extensively in the manufacture of clothing, furniture, and electronics. Over the past decade, there has been increasing evidence of the bioaccumulation and biomagnification potential of this persistent class of synthetic organic contaminant. Recent findings by the NOAA National Status and Trends Program suggest that marine bivalves from the Southern California coast have among the highest levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), the most widely used BFR constituent. Compared with other parts of the nation, however, very little data is available on the magnitude, extent, and temporal trends in BFR contamination within the Southern California Bight (SCB) ecosystem.

The introduction of BFRs during the 1970s was followed by its mass production and widespread application throughout the next two decades. BFR chemical structure, environmental fate, and behavior is similar in many respects to other, more intensely studied, persistent organic contaminants such as PCBs. As such, widespread residues of BFRs (including PBDEs), like PCBs, could be expected in the environment and accumulated in biota. However, only during the past decade have environmental chemists developed and optimized the analytical tools/protocols to accurately and reliably determine concentrations at parts per billion (or lower) in a variety of environmental media.

The goal of this project is to begin assessing the magnitude, extent, and historical input of PBDE contamination in the Southern California Bight. This project will develop/employ research grade techniques to identify and quantify levels of PBDEs in: 1) dated nearshore sediment cores; 2) current and historical invertebrate (“Mussel Watch”) samples; and 3) extracts of marine mammals biopsied and/or stranded along the Southern California coast.

Tasks: Development of standardized analytical protocols. Procedures to generate research grade PBDE concentrations in sediment and biological tissue will be developed with project collaborators. A performance-based QA/QC program will be instituted to ensure data of the highest quality.

Sedimentary history near a wastewater outfall. Pre-sectioned core horizons corresponding to the time period 1970-2001 will be extracted and analyzed by congener-specific PBDE analysis. A concentration-depth profile will be constructed for three core sampling sites near the Los Angeles County Sanitation District outfall on the Palos Verdes shelf.

Accumulation by sentinel invertebrate species. Marine/estuarine bivalves (e.g. Mytilus spp.) will be collected and analyzed for PBDEs to compare levels between matched open coastal and embayment environments. Where available, archived invertebrate tissues and/or well-preserved extracts (e.g., historic ‘Mussel Watch” samples) from previous decades will be analyzed to generate a temporal perspective of PBDE contamination in the Southern California Bight.

Biomagnification by marine mammals. PBDEs will be quantified in extracts of marine mammal tissue (blubber and liver) obtained from stranded animals frequenting the Southern California coast. This component will include participation in the NIST/NOAA sponsored 2007 Marine Mammal Intercalibration Exercise to ensure data of the highest possible quality.

Project Status: This is the first year of a three-year study. The first year will focus on method development.

Collaborators: This project is being conducted in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Sanitation District, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), and California State University Long Beach.

Objectives: Many anthropogenic contaminants have been shown to cause endocrine disruption after being released to the environment. Most endocrine disruption research has focused upon compounds that either mimic or interfere with the action of reproductive hormones such as estrogen and testosterone. A variety of estrogen mimics (EMs) are present in aquatic environments, which may contribute to the endocrine disrupting effects observed in fish and other vertebrates. EMs includes common chemicals such as contraceptives (e.g., ethynylestradiol, diethylstilbestrol, 4-hydroxytamoxifen, etc), detergents (e.g., nonylphenol), and pesticides (e.g., DDT), which are able to bind to sex steroid receptors sites in organisms. Atrazine, the most common herbicide in the United States, is found in virtually all of the nation’s waterways and has been shown to inhibit the sexual development of male amphibians at water concentrations below 1 ppb. Fish from waterbodies receiving municipal wastewater or urban runoff discharges worldwide have been found to show evidence of endocrine disruption.

Recent data indicates that endocrine disruption may be occurring in southern California marine fish living near municipal wastewater outfalls. Research by the University of California at Riverside in collaboration with Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD) has detected evidence of endocrine disruption in flatfish living near the OCSD municipal wastewater outfall. Preliminary studies by SCCWRP have detected evidence of endocrine disruption in hornyhead turbot from the Palos Verdes shelf and Santa Monica Bay. In these studies, male hornyhead turbot showed elevated levels of the protein vitellogenin in the blood. Vitellogenin (VTG) is an egg yolk precursor protein that is normally produced only by females; the presence of VTG in males is an established indicator of endocrine disruption in fish and other vertebrates.

More research is needed before the extent and significance of endocrine disruption in coastal fish can be described. Hormones regulate many different biological processes in fish and the disruption of hormone action may therefore be expressed in different ways. The analysis of an array of markers sensitive to the action of different hormone systems is needed in order to determine whether endocrine disruption is occurring. The preliminary data on VTG in flatfish needs verification through the application of more quantitative assay methods and the analysis of additional samples and response markers. In addition, little is known about the occurrence of endocrine disruption in other species of fish inhabiting the coastal waters of southern California.

The goals of this project are to: 1) Measure EDC impacts in marine fish from various locations in the southern California; 2) Determine if EDC exposure is resulting in population-level impacts; and 3) identify the chemicals responsible for these impacts. These goals will be achieved by developing and applying rapid methods for the detection of endocrine disruption in coastal fish. In addition, a microarray to screen for the regulation of genes associated with endocrine activity will be used.

Tasks: Identification of target fish species. Review of the literature and evaluation of size, distribution, and laboratory culture potential will be used to select target fish species for study. The selected species will be common in southern California and will have other desirable characteristics such as commercial importance, occurrence in areas of interest, and use in prior research. Candidate species include hornyhead turbot, white croaker, California halibut, Pacific sanddab, and topsmelt.

Development of a quantitative VTG assay method. Vitellogenin from the target fish species will be purified and used for the development of a quantitative assay method. The development of an antibody-based ELISA method for VTG measurement will be attempted. The ELISA method, once developed, requires little specialized equipment and can produce results for multiple samples in one day.

Development of a gene microarray for coastal fish. A gene microarray to screen for responses in fish associated with exposure to organic contaminants and endocrine disruption will be developed. Genes identified from the prior work of our collaborators and from published genome information from marine and freshwater fish will be used to clone several genes identified with the activity of estrogen and androgen receptors, exposure to organic contaminants, fish growth, and stress. The complexity of the microarray will build over time with additions of new genes and refinements based upon initial applications to samples from local fish. The microarrays will be printed and analyzed by the UCSD BioMedical Genomics Microarray Facility. The microarray will detect the presence of RNA from the target genes in the fish tissue sample, indicating whether transcription of genes involved in the endocrine response are stimulated or repressed by xenobiotics. Experiments will be conducted to optimize the assay conditions and determine whether the microarray will have sufficient sensitivity for use with local species of fish. Fish will be exposed to known endocrine disrupting chemicals and possibly to dilutions of POTW effluent and urban runoff for a period of 1-4 weeks. The responses from the microarray will be compared to changes in plasma levels of hormones and other factors.

Measurements of endocrine response in coastal fish. Plasma and other tissue samples from approximately 50 hornyhead turbot will be obtained from specimens collected at several locations throughout southern California. The study sites will include both reference and POTW discharge areas. Fish will be sampled in collaboration with monitoring activities by SCCWRP’s member agencies, where feasible. The samples will be analyzed for VTG, protein, reproductive hormones (estradiol, testosterone), growth endocrine factors (IGF-I, IGFBP-1), cortisol, and trace organic contaminants (e.g., DDTs, PCBs). The results from this characterize the nature of endocrine disruption and other responses in fish associated with gradients of contamination, select target species for more extensive field studies, and identify candidate genes for use in building a microarray.

Assessment of impacts on fish reproduction. Hornyhead turbot will be collected on a quarterly basis from POTW discharge locations in Los Angeles and Orange Counties and from a reference site off Dana Point. Plasma and gonad samples will be collected for analysis of hormones, other proteins, gonad maturity, and pathology. The data will be analyzed to determine in changes in biological indicators (e.g., hormones) among the sites correspond to changes in fish condition, reproductive cycle, or gonad pathology.

Investigation of the endocrine disruption potential of coastal discharges. Laboratory exposure experiments and targeted field sampling of fish, sediment, and discharges will be conducted to evaluate the potential of municipal wastewater effluent to cause endocrine disruption in coastal marine fish. Fish will be exposed in the laboratory to wastewater concentrations comparable to those in the discharge zone. Tissue samples will be analyzed for changes in gene regulation and biochemical markers of endocrine disruption. Samples of effluent, receiving water, sediment, and tissue (from field-exposed fish) will be analyzed for legacy compounds and contaminants of emerging concern. The results will be compared to the data from analyses of field-exposed fish obtained from the Bight’03 regional survey and the studies described in previous tasks.

Project Status: This is the third year of a five-year study. In the first year, the species target list was created and progress was made towards developing the VTG and microarray methods. In the second year, preliminary experiments were conducted to validate the gene microarray and two field studies were initiated to study the presence and effects of endocrine response in flatfish living near municipal wastewater outfalls. Research activities in the third year will include completion of the field studies and conducting laboratory exposures of fish to model endocrine disruptors.

Collaborators: This research is being conducted in collaboration with the University of California San Diego (Dr. Michael Baker), University of California Riverside (Dr. Daniel Schlenk), California State University Long Beach (Dr. Kevin Kelley), and the Ocean Institute. Additional collaboration and partial funding for this project will be provided by the Orange County Sanitation District, City of San Diego, City of Los Angeles, and Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts.

Objectives: Recent studies have suggested endocrine disruption in flatfish occurs in the Los Angeles Margin and may be enhanced near large publicly owned treatment works (POTW) outfalls (see Endocrine Disruption In Coastal Fish). Initial efforts to determine likely causative chemical agents, however, have been largely inconclusive. One reason is because the list of potential endocrine disrupting chemicals is large and increasing daily.

Although single chemical assays are easiest and most widely used, the myriad of environmental contaminants that are potential endocrine modulators suggests that mixtures may be the most likely cause of any observed effects. This mixture may contain natural and synthetic hormones, industrial and commercial chemicals (e.g., alkylphenols, polybrominated diphenyl ethers), legacy compounds (e.g., DDT) and a new breed of current use pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products. Sampling and analysis of these multiple chemical classes currently requires substantial expertise, effort, and cost. As a result, little to no effort has been taken to measure these constituents in ambient receiving waters, particularly where they are matched with biological effects data.

The goal of this project is to determine which classes of emerging contaminants are present in water, sediment, and fish tissues from areas receiving POTW discharge and where biological effects of endocrine disruption are being observed. The initial focus of this study will be on the more hydrophobic contaminant classes (i.e., those that accumulate in sediment and/or tissues) and synthetic pyrethroids, a class of insecticide that is becoming more widely used throughout Southern California. Our recently proven in situ sampling technology based on solid phase microextraction (SPME) may prove sensitive for at least some of these emerging chemicals of concern. For compounds that are less hydrophobic or occur at ultra low levels, alternative coatings and/or SPME samplers will be evaluated. Ultimately, these data may prove useful in identifying chemicals associated with observed biological effects.

Tasks: Development of matrix-specific analytical methods for EDCs. Analytical protocols for EDC analyte-matrix combinations will be developed for GC- and LC-MS in collaboration with leading research analytical labs. These protocols will include the evaluation of commercially available vs. disposable SPME fibers and post-exposure recovery of sorbed contaminants. SPME fibers will be calibrated for target EDCs using laboratory equilibrium experiments.

Deployment of SPME samplers in the coastal ocean. In conjunction with Project C6 (Endocrine Disruption In Coastal Fish), SPME samplers will used to compare EDC concentrations in treated effluent and ambient receiving waters near major POTW coastal ocean outfall sites. SPME measurements will be compared with water samples analyzed by conventional techniques (remote extraction; GC- or LC/MS).

Lab and data analysis. Loaded SPME fibers will be analyzed by thermal desorption GC/MS and/or GC-ECD. Compound-specific effluent and water column concentrations determined by SPME fibers will be used to determine sediment-water partition ratios and the relative bioavailability of sediment or waterborne EDCs to indicator fish species.

Project Status: This is the second year of a three-year study. Method development and initial deployments were completed in the first year. The second year will focus on finishing field deployments and completing laboratory and data analysis.

Collaborators: This research is being conducted in collaboration with the University of California San Diego (Dr. Michael Baker), University of California Riverside (Drs. Daniel Schlenk and Jay Gan), California State University Long Beach (Dr. Kevin Kelley), the Southern Nevada Water Authority (Dr. Shane Snyder), the Mississippi State Chemistry Lab (Dr. Kang Xia), Orange County Sanitation District, and the Los Angeles County Sanitation District.

Objectives: Episodic winter storm events in southern California result in the transfer of freshwater and (in)organic materials from coastal watersheds into adjacent nearshore waters via river runoff. Runoff flux and its associated constituent loadings, particularly for nutrients, are driven in part by anthropogenic forcing associated with urbanization (e.g., increased impervious surfaces), as well as by climatic variations including El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. These combined anthropogenic and climatic factors will dictate the character of riverine plumes, which in turn affect physical (e.g., buoyancy & mixing), biogeochemical (e.g., nutrient flux), biological (e.g., primary productivity), and ecological (e.g., harmful algal blooms) conditions off southern California. Management of coastal stormwater quality requires tools to help predict the effect of climatic and anthropogenic events on periodic phytoplankton blooms that contribute to variability in primary productivity within the coastal zone. The complexity of interactions between physical, chemical, and biological processes can be assessed through a combination of observational (i.e., remote sensing) and predictive (i.e., modeling) tools. These tools can then be used to relate terrestrial nutrient fluxes to biological response in the coastal ocean.

Using an integrated approach of coastal watershed and ocean analyses that utilizes multi-sensor satellite data and modeling activities, the objectives of this project are to: 1) quantify nutrient loadings during stormwater runoff events from several southern California watersheds into adjacent coastal waters relative to watershed properties and climate variability; and 2) quantify the coastal ocean biological response (i.e., planktonic blooms) to the loadings, considered in the context of event-scale, seasonal, and interannual processes. The results of this project will help improve the understanding of the relationship between terrestrial nutrient input and planktonic response in coastal regions. It is anticipated that this work will support improved predictive capabilities of urbanization and climate variability impacts on coastal ocean biology.

Tasks: Characterizing runoff and loadings relative to land use and climate variability. Analysis of the relationship between watershed land use properties and nutrient runoff/loading will rely on a combination of empirical data and modeling. This phase of the overall project will consist of three steps; watershed characterization, development of predictive models, and model application. Hydrodynamic and nutrient models will be developed for the Ballona Creek, Los Angeles River, and San Gabriel River watersheds. We will also develop and couple estuarine components for all of these models to enable a better understanding of particulate/solute loadings to the ocean. Once developed, the models will be used to characterize flux to the coast and to evaluate changes that may be expected under future land use (increasing urbanization) and climate change scenarios. We will also evaluate how the presence or absence of a spatially extensive estuary affects loadings to the ocean and runoff plume properties, as well as how the use of different stormwater control structures might affect these loadings. The results of these various model runs will be compared with the results of the satellite image and ocean model analyses in the following tasks to determine the relative effect of watershed land use and climate variability on runoff and the coastal ocean response.

Characterizing physical and biogeochemical response to episodic stormwater runoff. This task will focus on determination of the spatial (vertical and lateral) and temporal distribution of stormwater runoff and its particulate and dissolved constituents once it enters the coastal ocean. Evaluation of the physical response of the runoff plumes will have two dimensions. First, we will evaluate the actual spatial and temporal distributions of plume parameters, primarily temperature, salinity, suspended solids (and associated sorbed constituents), and dissolved substances (nutrients, CDOM, etc.). Second, we will determine at each spatial and temporal scale (e.g. near the point of discharge at early times compared to regionally at later times) the dominant processes controlling the dispersion of the plume and its constituents. We will pay particular attention to the relative role of discharge properties such as velocity (momentum) and density (buoyancy) in comparison to natural dispersive processes such as tidal, wind-driven, mesoscale eddy, and coastal current water movements, stratification, internal waves, and upwelling. To accomplish this task we will use satellite and in-situobservations and modeling.

Characterizing biological and ecological responses to episodic stormwater runoff. Variability in winter and spring phytoplankton biomass (e.g., blooms) in the Santa Monica and San Pedro Bay/Basin regions will be quantified using remotely sensed chlorophyll for synoptic, time-varying distributions, with in situ measures used to assess vertical chlorophyll structure (e.g., sub-surface maxima) as well as assess robustness of the satellite-derived chlorophyll values. Response to the plume loadings by phytoplankton will be quantified only after significant settling of particulates has occurred (based on satellite and in situ assessments) to avoid potential aliasing of the ocean color derived chlorophyll estimation. Variability in the chlorophyll time-series will be analyzed relative to: 1) nutrient flux (see above); 2) light attenuation (both in situ and remotely derived) that is initially controlled by water column turbidity; and 3) physical forcing mechanisms over a range of time and space scales.

Project Status: This is the second year of a three-year project. The first year focused on determining the spatial (vertical and lateral) and temporal distribution of stormwater runoff and its particulate and dissolved constituents once it enters the coastal ocean. The second year will focus on the relationship between watershed land use properties and nutrient runoff/loading utilizing a combination of empirical data and modeling.

Collaborators: This project is being conducted in collaboration with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, University of California Los Angeles, University of Southern California, and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Objectives: Marine fishes are abundant and diverse in the Southern California Bight (SCB). Many fish species are commercially, recreationally, and ecologically important to the Southern California coastal community. Demersal fishes living on or near the bottom are particularly abundant and diverse in trawl catches. Many species have shown various responses to environmental pollution including changes in assemblage parameters, bioaccumulation of contaminants, and the presence of external and internal anomalies and diseases. As a result, demersal fishes have been an important component of environmental monitoring programs in southern California for more than 35 years.

In general, fishes in trawl surveys are identified in the field and returned to the sea, with few specimens being returned to lab for identification. Consequently, the ability to identify juveniles and adults of 200 or more species in the field is essential to the success of trawl surveys. This highlights a significant need for an on-going quality assurance program to standardize taxonomic identifications among programs and persons with varying expertise. The problem of ensuring comparability and quality control is exacerbated as veteran biologists with decades of expertise approach retirement.

The goal of this project is to create a working group of fish biologists that will ensure the integrity of fish identification and associated biological data collected throughout all of southern California’s marine research and monitoring surveys. The program will be modeled, in part, on the Southern California Association of Marine Invertebrate Taxonomists (SCAMIT) whose mission is similar in concept, but focused on invertebrates. The working group will focus on education, training, and documentation, and will facilitate transfer of taxonomic expertise among ichthyologists throughout the region.

Tasks: Initiate formation of southern California marine ichthyologist working group. The first task will be the initiation and formation of the working group, including delineation of the structure of the group, extent of membership, frequency of me