MSI Public Lecture Series

Marc Russell

Thursday, March 24^th, 2005 at 7:00 PM
The University of Texas Marine Science Institute, Visitor Center Auditorium

"Freshwater is Critical to Estuaries, Especially in South Texas"

The shallow waters of our estuaries require fresh water input to maintain "healthy" and productive ecosystems.  Freshwater inflow rates, through rivers and groundwater, are changing due to changing land use patterns, water diversions for human consumption, and climate change, but there are no standards for setting inflow levels that will maintain a "healthy" estuary. We need an indicator of estuarine function to predict how changing patterns of freshwater inflow might affect estuaries.  We devised one such indicator, daily net ecosystem metabolism, which shows us that estuarine function is dependent on the volume of freshwater inflow.  We conclude that net ecosystem metabolism is a very useful indicator for estimating the effects of changes in freshwater inflow on the "health" of estuarine ecosystems.