Sewage effluent, storm runoff, discharge from polluted rivers, and inputs of groundwater have all been suggested as potential sources of land derived nutrients into Hanalei Bay, Kauai. We determined the nitrogen isotopic signatures (delta(15)N) of different nitrate sources to Hanalei Bay along with the isotopic signature recorded by 11 species of macroalgal collected in the Bay. The macroalgae ...

Ocean acidification (OA) results in reduced seawater pH and aragonite saturation state (Ωarag), but also reduced seawater buffer capacity. As buffer capacity decreases, diel variation in seawater chemistry increases. However, a variety of ecosystem feedbacks can modulate changes in both average seawater chemistry and diel seawater chemistry variation. Here we model these effects for a coastal, ...

Discussions of the coastal environment and its health can be improved by more precise use of terms and clarification of the relationship, if any, between the health of ecosystems and the risks to human health. Ecosystem health is seldom defined and, in any case, has to be regarded in different terms than human health. Ecosystem health should embody both the structure and function of the ecosyst...

Coastal environment is controlled by a complex interaction of physical, chemical, biological, and geological processes. Physical processes are responsible for controlling the transport and distribution of all dissolved and suspended matters in coastal waters. A comprehensive understanding of these processes is crucial to the design and implementation of management strategies that track ecosyste...

Lagoons are habitat islands in the coastal landscapes characterised by both among ecosystems 1 heterogeneity, due to different terrestrial-freshwater, freshwater-marine interfaces, and within ecosystem heterogeneity, due patchy spatial and temporal distribution of biotic and abiotic

[1] The Coastal Ocean Advances in Shelf Transport (COAST) program conducted an interdisciplinary study of coastal upwelling off central Oregon during summer 2001. Two intensive field efforts during May–June and August 2001 were coordinated with ocean circulation, ecosystem, and atmospheric modeling of the region. A primary goal was to contrast the coastal ocean response to wind forcing in a reg...

Considering the strategic importance of coastal areas from various aspects, their protection against waves is a coast management necessity. Since long ago, strong coastal structures have protected coasts, but since they disturb the coastal ecosystem balance, effort has been made to use them less or make them more compatible with the coast. This research is specifically aimed to estimate the eff...

Stresses impacting the coastal zone in the Asia-Pacific region are briefly reviewed under the headings of sustainable coastal activities, coastal ecosystem management, community/resource interactions, coastal resource economics and sustainability, coastal area planning, and integrated coastal policies. Recent contributions on mitigation of these stresses are introduced, with emphasis on the Coa...

This research is concerned with the following environmental research questions: socio-ecological system complexity, especially when valuing ecosystem services; ecosystems stock and services flow sustainability and valuation; the incorporation of scale issues when valuing ecosystem services; and the integration of knowledge from diverse disciplines for governance and decision making. In this cas...