Seagrasses: The Heart of a Healthy Estuary | Daniel Kolodny | TEDxCapeCanaveral

moving out so I'd like to tell you all a story about a water body and our theme today is possibilities so it's going to start in one possible future so what I'd like you all to do is close your eyes and imagine you're about to board a time machine is everybody ready all right we charge our time flux device to 1.21 gigawatts and Flash we've arrived at our destination and the year is 2035. now keep your eyes closed but imagine as the first thing you would see to the bright light is Crystal Clear Water abundant seagrass and fish swimming everywhere you can see crabs you can see stingrays oh did I mention our time machine was a boat oh it's a boat and you're on a shallow Estuary called a lagoon as you're taking more of your surroundings you can hear a symphony of call from birds flying overhead and waiting along the mangrove shorelines you can smell the salt on the gentle sea breeze that lightly rustles your hair and your clothing you hear a puff of air behind you you turn see a manatee has come up behind you to take a breath of air behind that Manatee you can see dolphins breaching chasing fish out of the corner of your eye you catch us something that looks prehistoric like a shark with a two-sided saw on its nose and you're questioning am I actually in the past but it's a small too sawfish endangered species back in 2023. the giant fish swims up to our boat passes underneath and disappears into the Lusty grass expands for acres in all directions snap time machine takes us back to the president you're on the same Lagoon but things are very different and you can open your eyes if you haven't already so what you're going to hear today is not a unique problem to this Lagoon what I think you will find unique and interesting is the approach to accelerates recovery and that means bringing something from a degraded or poor State back to a better condition that existed in the past Lagoon I'm talking to you about today is the Indian River Lagoon which is designated as an estuary of national significance by the United States Environmental Protection Agency let me tell you a little bit about this Lagoon what makes it interesting and unique to this region imagine that thriving Estuary that we visited where small tributaries mixed with the ocean to create a unique and fragile ecosystem that makes up 40 of Florida's East Coast because of this vast distance we're 156 miles Lagoon spans two climate tones making it rich in biodiversity with over 4 000 species of plants and animals sounds like a pretty nice place to live or visit right well a lot of people would agree with you and this Lagoon creates an enormous economic impact for this region so in 2016 a study was done to try to capture and evaluate this economic output it was estimated over 7.6 billion dollars are generated annually with a significant portion 5.1 coming from Aerospace and defense look at some of these other numbers 1.5 billion from tourism and Recreation 767 million the Marine industry 101 million resource management and living resources like Fisheries 48 million now granted these values are 78 years old now before the pandemic before inflation can you imagine what they might look like today I know what your first thought is higher right well you may be right but look at this 72 reduction in shellfish harvested in a 54 reduction in fish harvested and this was on between 1990 and 2015 before some catastrophic events occurred in the national news you may have heard of like harmful algae blooms fish kills and manatees dying from starvation so what happened well all those events can be attributed back to what's called eutrophication or nutrient pollution essentially legume came unhealthy but instead of poor eating habits like too much sugar it had too much nitrogen and too much phosphorus this Lagoon became degraded through in the following Steps step one as Florida rapidly developed over several decades it created new Pathways for new and more sources of nutrients to enter the Lagoon and then step two a series of events tip the system from a stable resilient macrophyte or seagrass dominated system to an unstable vulnerable micro fight or microalgae dominated system an extremely cold winter December 2010 which saw 10 days below 40 degrees and seven of them below freezing stunned and killed a lot of the tropical species and Lagoon those plants and animals sunk to the bottom or they started to decompose and all those nutrients were released up into the water column or step three and microalgae was able to easily gobbled up a lot faster than the seagrass if our legume is a patient the heart disease if you will was harmful algae blooms and these harmful algae blooms can cause fish kills create public health issues and shade seagrass for such a long duration that it begins to die off because like most plants they need light to survive and that's important because seagrass is the heart of a healthy Estuary and the keystone species and Estuary ecosystems seagrasses create resiliency by creating shelter and stabilizing sediments resulting in lower water turbidity or cloudiness some other benefits of seagrass first noted by Jones that's all 1994 include erosion control carbon sequestration for climate mitigation High biodiversity like iconic and highly endangered species like that sawfish we saw seagrass loss is not unique to the Indian River Lagoon it's actually happening worldwide and it's accelerating a study by Walcott noted in 2009 that the rate of seagrass loss was increasing from 0.7 percent before 1940 to over seven percent after 1990. eutrophication from a variety of sources impacting not only the nation's waterways but the world's estuaries and so here's a diagram showing the seagrass extent in the Indian River Lagoon over the past 30 years as our system was slowly degrading it finally culminated in that first major algae bloom or heart attack if Will in 2011 and you can see the loss of seagrass there but then things seem to kind of stabilize maybe that was a fluke a one-time event and I want you to remember that rate of recovery from 2012 to 2016 because it's important later but the system was still unhealthy taking in too many nutrients and we had another bloom in late 2015 or cigarette sauce another bloom in 2018 more serious loss and then the largest Bloom seen yet in 2020 further decimated seagrass lost almost 90 percent loss of biomass let me show this to you in a different way to visualize this loss here's a portion of the Indian River Lagoon in 2009 right before that first algae bloom in 2011. seagrass is shown in green here's what it looked like a decade later shocking right so besides all those other benefits I mentioned earlier about seagrass you may be thinking why should I care what's this what's the point of this well let me ask you would you rather live or visit a thriving estuary teaming with life or one that's discolored and devoid of life maybe you're watching from a landlocked state or country and you think ashtrays don't impact me well let me ask you this do you value your quality of life do you like nature and Recreation do you like going to a fancy restaurant having a fresh seafood dinner if you said yes to even one of those things then you need to care because your quality of life is directly tied to the productivity of estuaries it's usually that seafood dinner as an example almost all the seafood we eat is tied directly to an estuary by spending a portion of its life there or indirectly by eating something that came from an estuary so how do we turn this around how do we bring this patient back to being healthy and make that vision of the future a reality well like a patient you have to go to the doctor get diagnosed put on a diet take medicine and so the Florida Department Environmental Protection did just that by deeming the water body impaired so step one they have the regulatory authority to make all the stakeholders within the Lagoon region reduce their nutrient input through what's called A Basin management action plan to reach a Target level called a total maximum daily load essentially how many cookies can the system have but still stay healthy but then 2016 happened at big fish kill that sense of urgency for our patient just went way up imagine being a multi-generational person that grew up along the Lagoon or someone like me that moved down here for school and immediately fell in love with the nature and beauty of this Lagoon how would that make you feel to see all those drastic changes in death I want to do something right anything you could do and so Brevard County had the insight to use that 2016 Fishkill as a rallying point to step two come up with a plan to raise the funds to step three repair and replace all that inadequate infrastructure that gotten us into this mess in the first place it was called to save our Indian River Lagoon plan it was put on about as a 10-year half cent discretionary sales tax or 100 of the funds raised would go to projects benefiting the Lagoon 62 percent of the vote this is historic this level of voluntary effort by taxpayers for environment restoration of this magnitude is unheard of was initially estimated over 300 million for 10 years but more recent estimates put it close to 550 million this should serve as the model for ecosystem restoration by Grassroots efforts about the same time the save our Indian River Lagoon plan was being put together the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary program was being reorganized to better serve all the stakeholders within the seven County watershed and to convene them and address all the problems and come up with the solutions it can be done we can do this the plans are in action we can have references from other parts of the country we can look forward to Tampa Bay Chesapeake Bay are both examples of estuaries that have had significant loss of seagrass and have through infrastructure upgrades were able to see some recovery for Tampa Bay it was upgrading their Wastewater treatments to Advanced treatment standards and for Chesapeake Bay is a multitude of different types of projects but mostly focused on Industrial and agricultural sources we can do this but it won't be easy and we need to manage expectations how many people make New Year's resolutions to lose weight buy a gym membership they're all gung-ho to lose it but then by April they slid back into their old habits or stopped going altogether this will not happen overnight in a straight line like this diagram on the left it took Tampa Bay and Chesapeake Bay over 30 years to see significant progress it will most definitely happen like this mess of spaghetti on the right there will be some setbacks like hurricanes and other phenomena and with close to 90 percent loss of biomass there are certain parts of the Lagoon that don't have any seagrass to expand from like we saw in that initial Rebound in 2012. bottlenecking is a serious concern and then as we emerge from the pandemic something that was occurring in our normal lives had implications here so you might have any guesses supply chain and that is where this idea was born things have looked pretty good over the last two and a half years no major algae blooms relatively clear water maybe that diet exercise are starting to work evidence from earlier surveys are actually showing some seagrass regrowth and expansion but if we go back to that graph that I showed you how do you remember that little increase it would take over 30 years to get where we are now where we've ordered before and that's assuming all conditions are perfect so how do we accelerate recovery faster than what Mother Nature can do we come seagrass farmers and so the idea is to create a seagrass nursery Network that would not only tackle this issue lagoon-wide but be that Supply to overcome bottlenecking and supply chain issues networks Justin's infancy and there are currently five members who comprise this network and their locations are shown here on the map this network is going to work together collaboratively to share best practices science and Lessons Learned to create the best possible outcome you know crisis can really rally people but human attention's short we're impatient and we lose faith and results don't happen quickly what an opportunity this is to renew the Public's faith that people are actually doing something this effort also gives the public something tangible to see and care about you know a septic to sewer conversion projects an important part of that nutrient diet it does not elicit the same kind of emotion that seagrass does seagrass is sexy but it's more than that it's a sign of Hope the more you see seagrass and the Lagoon the more you're going to have faith that all that money go into those projects is actually making a difference you know I want to share a personal experience with you I had just last week I was out in Lagoon planting seagrass with Brevard Zoo who's one of these Nursery network members and it felt wonderful to be waiting out into this area pretty much bare sandy soil and putting some seagrass in the ground you know for me imagining this area becoming a lush seagrass bed teeming with life like I remember in the early 2000s had me excited and hopeful I can almost see myself make a perfect cast to this big sea trout that was patrolling that seagrass looking for some prey that's straight too far from safety felt the line thumb here in the drag screams he took my bait and ran off it's exhilarating and in that moment I felt this protective Instinct for these little sprigs of seagrass they were part of my garden I want to do everything I could to make sure they had the best chance of survival kind of like parenting in a sense this type of community engagement through volunteering is such a powerful tool to promote stewardship by creating meaningful and impactful experiences when you do the work like I did last week it fills you with a sense of Pride and ownership promoting this sense of stewardship through engagement is just as powerful as crisis events if not more so what can you do well you can make a few changes in your life at home called living Lagoon friendly here's just a few examples you can use less fertilizer use on your lawn you can plant native plants that require less water and you can pick up after your pet's waste and dispose of it properly two continue to learn about an estuary or Lagoon in your backyard or one that you like to go use and enjoy share what you learn with your friends and Neighbors what you do at home may seem meaningless and insignificant but if you share that knowledge with your friends and neighbors and they share with their friends and neighbors and this goes viral and everybody starts to make these changes that was once was meaningless now has become great and powerful and three get out there on the water volunteer if you can feel that sense of Pride and ownership promise you it will change you these things will make us better storage for our environment and lead to a true and Lasting change for the better and so as Teddy Roosevelt once said it's not what we have that will make us a great nation it's the way in which we use it thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 431

Keywords: Agriculture, English, Environment, Innovation, Oceans, Social Sciences, Sustainability, TEDxTalks, [TEDxEID:53205]

Id: PWIrgwNxMw8

Length: 16min 45sec (1005 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023