16 Brian Howes
Kevin Stokesbury
Mark Altabet
Sustainability issues at the heart of work done by scientists at SMAST
T
he educator scientists at the School for Marine Science and Technology daily confront core issues of sustainability as they conduct their research. Their work involving estuaries, fisheries, and the challenges to aquatic systems frequently raises basic questions on the continuing balancing act between the preservation of the natural world and human needs. Three of those scientists speak about their fields of expertise, and the sustainability aspect thereof, in the following pieces.
Preserving the coastline “All around the world,” Brian Howes said, “we are seeing significant declines in coastal systems. Our job is to figure out how people can continue to live there and still maintain the quality of environment that drew them to the coast in the first place.” The SMAST professor has been studying estuaries long enough to remember a different time. “When I entered this field, we spent our time trying to determine which estuaries had to be protected and which had to be restored, and if there was a problem, what was causing it. “Now nearly all our estuaries are beyond simply needing protection; they all are in various stages of decline and require remediation.” Howes is director of the Coastal Systems Program, the scientific arm of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project, which is assessing the nitrogen status of 89 Massachusetts estuaries, coastal basins
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where salt and fresh water mix. Nitrogen is the prime culprit in estuarine degradation. It is a crucial nutrient, but an excess sparks a cascade of negative effects, ultimately threatening everything we value in the system. And most Massachusetts estuaries have been absorbing excess nitrogen for a long time. “Without restoration,” said Howes, “we face wholesale loss of these critical resources, and of the fish, shellfish, and bird life that depend on them. On the other hand, the up side is that once we restore them, we know how to maintain them in perpetuity. “And there are a number of options available to us in our search for the cheapest route to restoration—not just building treatment plants and sewers, but opening channels, managing stormwater…. Even restoring freshwater ponds and wetlands can reduce the nitrogen load that reaches the estuary. Several of our more innovative restoration technologies —‘green solutions’ that don’t require sewering or treatment plants —are now in their first implementation so that we can refine them for regional use. “Our group is providing quantitative restoration targets with a high degree of accuracy. And we are moving forward with solutions, right now. A number of communities are already working on restoration. For several estuaries, the fixes are in place, or being put in place, that will restore them over the next several years.”
Balancing the economic and environmental challenges of commercial fishing For Dr. Kevin Stokesbury, a string of “fundamental questions” comprises the focus of his work. “How many sea scallops are out there? How fast do they grow? How many young are produced per year? How fast do they die? How many can you harvest? How many can you harvest sustainably? “We try to use new scientific methods and techniques to better estimate those numbers,” he said. “Without that information, you’ll never get at sustainability.” Stokesbury grew up in rural Nova Scotia, where he learned early lessons about sustainability on his grandfather’s farm. “Farmers practice their own version of rotational management, leaving a field fallow every few years so that it can rejuvenate.” He arrived at UMass Dartmouth in 1998 with an impressive range of experience, having worked with scallops, sea urchins, lobsters, seaweeds, and several finfish species. But among Massachusetts fisheries, scalloping is king, and scalloping was in trouble here. Stokesbury was soon leading the SMAST surveys that have played such a significant role in the rebounding of the sea scallop fishery. Not satisfied with the uncertainties of traditional trawl sampling, he and colleague Prof. Brian Rothschild, collaborating with industry, devised an innovative video survey system that is