Ocean Acidification Buoy - Harbor Monitoring Project
GHYCF partnered to fund the Harbor Monitoring Project. This project is a collaboration led by the Maria Mitchell Association. We partnered with MMA, Remain Nantucket Fund at the Community Foundation for Nantucket, the Osceola Foundation, Sociable Weaver Foundation, and the Town of Nantucket's Harbormaster.
A YSI EMM700 oceanographic buoy was deployed from Great Harbor Yacht Club’s docks out into Nantucket Harbor in August, to begin a continuous data collection project, the first of its kind on Nantucket Island.
The MMA has begun to collect and publish a continuous data stream on seawater acidity (pH), dissolved oxygen, temperature, total algae, dissolved nitrates, and salinity (conductivity). This data provides us with essential, real-time information for more effective conservation, mitigation, restoration, and management of critical habitats and the valuable commercial and recreational fisheries that depend on them.
As global ocean acidification and its impacts are affecting the entire world's oceans, including coastal waterways like Nantucket Harbor, we may become a sanctuary with healthy water quality in the future, benefiting a wide range of ocean life.
The shape of Nantucket Harbor forces incoming sea water to pass over eelgrass beds, which sequester the water’s carbon dioxide. Seagrasses can consume more carbon dioxide per acre than rainforests, and noticeably lower the acidity of the water around them. The MMA believes the confluence of these factors also make it one of the best locations to investigate the impacts of healthy eelgrass on the commercially valuable Nantucket bay scallop.
Our collected data will create the "Mitchell Curve," a long-term, permanent data record of water quality in Nantucket Harbor. The MMA began collecting dissolved nitrate data since day one of the buoy deployment and has since deployed the second multiparameter sonde that is successfully recording data for dissolved oxygen, total algae, temperature, conductivity, and pH as well.