| A major bloom of algae occurred in the Indian River lagoon in 2013 that coincided with a die-off of much of the seagrass in the lagoon. The cause or causes of these events are unknown or even if the two events are linked. One possible cause may be changes in nutrient delivery to the lagoon, including sources of water and dissolved components from the submarine discharge of water from coastal aquifers to the lagoon. Earlier work has demonstrated that fresh water seeps into the lagoon in one location at distances up to about 30 m from the shoreline. This project is designed to extend that work to assess whether this seepage is ubiquitous around the lagoon shoreline, and if not, to determine the variability of seepage. Once the distribution is determined, fluxes of nutrients and metals, predominately Fe as a micronutrient, will be estimated based on flow rates of seepage and the concentrations of the nutrients in the seepage water. |
