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Going with the Flow: Exploring Loblolly Woods Nature Park

Alec Kissoondyal
News Feed
Monday, July 12, 2021

...more pollutants seep into the water as it travels further into the city, and Loblolly Park is a perfect example. Oil from cars, discarded trash, and animal waste from the roads, businesses, and apartments surrounding the park are swept up in the surface runoff. The runoff flows into the creek and contaminates the water.

The natural beauty of Loblolly Woods Nature Park provides a welcome reprieve from the city traffic. In the park, visitors can find a variety of wildlife, including woodpeckers, turtles, and even the occasional hawk among many others.

The park is located at the confluence of Possum Creek and Hogtown Creek. As the Gainesville Clean Water Partnership official website states, the meeting of these two creeks is significant since, "Possum Creek is the largest tributary to Hogtown Creek, which discharges to the Floridan Aquifer via Haile Sink."

The main trail, which stretches from one end of the park to the other, branches off into several smaller trails that allow visitors to explore the area and get closer to the combined waters of the two creeks which cut through the woods and continue to flow southwest.

The clear, fast-flowing creek may appear inviting (especially on a hot Florida afternoon), and many visitors may even be tempted to wade in its waters, but looks can be deceiving.

Laminated signs posted along the trail warn visitors not to enter the creek due to the high concentration of fecal bacteria in the water. The QR codes on the signs provide links to the Alachua County website. However, the page containing specific information about the levels of bacteria in the creek is nowhere to be found.

Regardless, more pollutants seep into the water as it travels further into the city, and Loblolly Park is a perfect example. Oil from cars, discarded trash, and animal waste from the roads, businesses, and apartments surrounding the park are swept up in the surface runoff. The runoff flows into the creek and contaminates the water.

The contrast between the poor water quality of the creek and Loblolly Park's natural beauty serves as a direct reminder of the potential negative impact that water pollution can have on the city if it is left unchecked. The wildlife that calls the park home would not be the only ones affected, however. The creek will continue to flow into the Floridan Aquifer, which Gainesville relies on for its drinking water, and it will bring the fecal bacteria and other contaminants along with it.

For more information about how to keep Gainesville's waterways clean, visit the Gainesville Clean Water Partnership website to find ways to get involved.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of
Alec Kissoondyal
Alec Kissoondyal

Alec Kissoondyal is an intern at Cinema Verde and a student at the University of Florida currently pursuing a degree in English. He is also a writer for Narrow Magazine and an ambassador for the Florida Hemingway Society. His poetry and fiction have been published in Zephyr literary journal. In his spare time, Alec enjoys reading, creative writing, exploring nature parks, and listening to anything released by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

Fishing for data: commercial fishers help monitor rising temperatures in coastal seas

We know the oceans are warming, but we have fewer measurements in coastal waters where most fisheries and aquaculture operate. Now the fishing industry is helping scientists to track the changes.

Moana project, CC BY-NDThe world’s oceans are buffering us from the worst climate impacts by taking up more than 90% of the excess heat generated by greenhouse gas emissions. This has warmed them by 0.88℃ (on average globally), according to the latest climate report released this week. The warming of the ocean affects marine ecosystems, drives changes in ocean circulation and heat distribution, and strongly influences atmospheric weather systems. All these processes are critically important to the health of our planet. Read more: Ocean heat is at record levels, with major consequences Scientists measure subsurface ocean temperature around the world, but there is a coastal gap in those measurements. This is where fishing, aquaculture, recreation and ocean managers need good data the most. MetService’s Moana Project is changing that. We have joined forces with the commercial fishing sector to deploy sensors on vessels nationwide to gain insights into how ocean temperatures are changing near the coast. A temperature sensor is attached to fishing gear to track temperature data in coastal waters. John Radford/ZebraTech, CC BY-SA Monitoring coastal changes Ocean temperature measurements are critical for understanding and accurately predicting extreme events, including severe storms and unusually warm coastal waters, which have serious economic and societal impacts. During the past few years, Aotearoa New Zealand has been plagued by extreme rainfall and persistent marine heatwaves. This has severely affected marine life, fisheries and aquaculture. Increased ocean temperatures can exacerbate severe weather events like Cyclone Gabrielle, contributing to the conditions for intense rainfall and potential devastation. Read more: Floods, cyclones, thunderstorms: is climate change to blame for New Zealand's summer of extreme weather? To prepare for a changing climate and provide early alerts for extreme events, we need to monitor temperature changes below the ocean’s surface. These measurements are usually expensive, often requiring oceanographic research vessels to deploy instruments. Pioneering international programmes like Argo (autonomous floats that move with the world’s ocean currents collecting measurements) provide unprecedented world coverage of deeper waters. But they are not primarily designed to measure coastal and shelf seas. The lack of coastal observations is recognised in New Zealand and globally, and is a priority for the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science 2021-2030. This graph shows the average number of Argo profiles per month around Aotearoa New Zealand (left, blue colours) and the average number of sensor deployments (right, red colours) from June 2020 to February 2023, highlighting the coverage obtained by these complementary programmes. Moana project, CC BY-ND Crowd-sourcing ocean observations As part of the Moana Project, MetService and the commercial fishing industry partnered with Nelson-based company ZebraTech to develop the Mangōpare sensor, a small, lightweight, robust and accurate temperature sensor that attaches to commercial fishing gear. The Mangōpare sensor, named by Moana Project partner Whakatōhea iwi, fits into the palm of a hand. Moana project, CC BY-ND The sensor was distributed to volunteer inshore and deep-water fishing vessels and citizen scientists. Thanks to more than 200 skippers and crew, there are now 300 sensors on commercial fishing vessels, providing more than one million subsurface observations a month from across Aotearoa New Zealand. The sensor attaches to any type of fishing gear and automatically collects ocean temperature and depth measurements through the water column. This information is automatically sent to the cloud, quality checked, returned to the fisher collecting it and incorporated into MetService ocean forecasts. Vital temperature record to improve forecasts Temperature observations are used to improve ocean forecasting models and verify the depth of marine heatwaves around Aotearoa New Zealand. Similar to a weather station on land collecting real-time data that improves weather forecasts, sensor data helps improve three-dimensional predictions of ocean temperature, currents and sea level. These forecasts are used to prepare coastal communities for approaching storms, optimise fishing and alert aquaculture to extreme ocean temperatures. Read more: Māori hold a third of NZ’s fishing interests, but as the ocean warms and fish migrate, these rights don't move with them Scientists use the sensor data to understand how ocean temperature affects our marine ecosystems. Recently, severe marine heatwaves have affected coastal and offshore areas leading to changes in fish distribution and impacts on sensitive species. The sensor provides measurements exactly where fishing occurs, helping fishers make sense of changes in their catch. Like weather stations on land, sensors attached to fishing gear help collect data to improve three-dimensional predictions of ocean temperature. William Maclardy, CC BY-SA Temperature measurements are an invaluable record of subsurface ocean structure, allowing scientists to determine impacts of marine heatwaves, such as the bleaching of Fjordland sponges. Increased understanding is essential to a climate-resilient future for our oceans and marine species over the coming decades. Partnering with technology innovators, the commercial fishing sector, citizen scientists and researchers from across New Zealand, this project breaks down traditional barriers. This approach demonstrates how we can solve critical environmental issues and provide important insight into our changing oceans. The continuation of this system will lead the way toward informing a climate-resilient blue economy and understanding the coastal ocean, providing measurements that will only become more critical in the coming years. Julie Jakoboski works for the Meteorological Service of New Zealand - Te Ratonga Tirorangi. The Moana Project is funded by New Zealand's Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment - Hīkina Whakatutuki. João Marcos Azevedo Correia de Souza works for the Meteorological Service of New Zealand - Te Ratonga Tirorangi. The Moana Project is funded by New Zealand's Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment - Hīkina Whakatutuki.Malene Felsing works for the Meteorological Service of New Zealand - Te Ratonga Tirorangi. The Moana Project is funded by New Zealand's Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment - Hīkina Whakatutuki.

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