11/20/2023 0 Comments Holland sentinel best of 2016 winners![]() IFOP's red-tide and environmental monitoring is done on a monthly-basis in more than 200 stations across the entire Patagonian region, which, despite the large sampling and processing effort involved, is not always sufficient to provide an early warning of HABs events. The “Programa de Manejo y Monitoreo de las Mareas Rojas” conducted by the Fisheries Development Institute (IFOP), which has been in operation since 1994, is probably the oldest and more consistent monitoring programme in the country as well as one of the most ambitious in the world. ![]() Some background information summarizing the history of red tide monitoring programmes and Institutions involved in Chile is described thereafter. During the last decades, the Government of Chile, as well as multiple public and private institutions, carried out intensive efforts to improve the sampling strategy and to coordinate the information collected at field ( Sandoval et al., 2018). For this reason, the programmes, in general, monitor a limited number of stations at strategic locations. However, monitoring large areas using standard in situ techniques, as in the case of Chile, requires a large budget due to the costs of oceanographic logistic, equipment and sampling analysis in laboratories. In situ sampling is essential for this task. Therefore, a more efficient technique of dealing with this threat is through an effective early warning system ( Klemas, 2012 Sandoval et al., 2018).Ī) General location of the study area in the coast of the Pacific Ocean, b) location of the aquaculture sites in this region of Chile.ĭetermining the species that form these blooms is key to assess their toxicity and damaging levels. With such diverse causes, prevention of HABs is difficult. The triggers for bloom conditions are not fully understood, but nutrient enrichment of waters, especially by nitrogen and/or phosphates, as well as unusually warm conditions are recognized as precursors ( Glibert and Burkholder, 2006 Klemas, 2012 León-Muñoz et al., 2018). This has also been the situation in Chile, where highly toxic HABs have become a serious problem for human health and the local economy ( Lembeye, 2008). An increase of the frequency and extension of algal blooms in the world's oceans has been confirmed by many authors ( Anderson et al., 2012 Glibert et al., 2014 Gobler, 2020). ), with around 953.296 tons/year at the end of the year 2019 ( Subpesca, 2019). This is the case for the south of Chile, as this country occupies the second place in the worldwide production of several species of salmonfish ( Fig. ![]() For these reasons, harmful algal blooms (HABs) have become a major health and environmental concern worldwide ( Anderson, 1995 He et al., 2020 Roselli et al., 2020 Zhang et al., 2020), especially for regions with aquaculture activities, where there is a direct impact in the economies and citizens. Blooms can also deplete oxygen from water, block light to organisms or even clog or harm fish gills ( Pitcher and Jacinto, 2019). A bloom does not have to produce toxins to be harmful. For microalgae producers of potent biotoxins, harmful events are not necessarily blooms, with high phytoplankton abundance or water discolouration. Some phytoplankton blooms are perceived as harmful, if the species presented causes massive fish kills, contaminate seafood with toxins and alter the ecosystems ( Cullen, 2008). Proliferations of phytoplankton blooms are common events in coastal environments. These novel tools, which can foster optimal decision-making, are available for delivering early alerts in situations of natural catastrophes and blockages, such as those occurred during the global COVID-19 lockdown. This study shows the benefits of both Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-2 satellites in terms of their spectral, spatial and temporal capabilities for improved algal bloom monitoring. However, imagery from the Copernicus programme allowed operational monitoring. These blooms coincided with the government-managed emergency lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The bloom included other phytoplankton species, as Lepidodinium chlorophorum, which persistently changed the colour of the ocean to green. Some harvesting sites recorded massive fish mortalities, which were associated with the presence of the dinoflagellate species Cochlodinium sp. During the southern summer of 2020, large phytoplankton blooms were detected using satellite technology in Chile (western Patagonia), where intensive salmonid aquaculture is carried out. ![]()
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