Water quality monitoring

We have been conducting weekly water quality monitoring in the nearshore ocean at Crystal Cove State Park for the past several months. A couple of weeks ago, we decided to assess variability in nutrients, chlorophyll a (a proxy for phytoplankton biomass), pH, and dissolved oxygen over a shorter time-scale. Researchers from the Bracken and Sorte labs collected hourly data, staying overnight in the research cottage in order to collect for a full 24 hours. Preliminary data look very interesting, particularly with respect to variation in chlorophyll a that tracks tidal cycles. Our overnight sampling was featured in the most recent issue of the Crystal Cove Alliance Wave newsletter.