Galveston Bay
Texas Based Research Programs
Houston is the largest city in the state of Texas and the fourth-largest in the United
States. The cities metropolitan area is home to 5.4 million people. Internationally
known for its energy and aeronautics industries, and for its ship channel, the area is
also the world's leading center for building oilfield equipment. The Port of Houston
ranks first in the country in international commerce and is the sixth-largest port
in the world. Second only to New York City in Fortune 500 headquarters, Houston contains
the world's largest concentration of research and healthcare institutions. The city has
an active visual and performing arts scene as Houston with year-round resident companies
in all major performing arts.
Galveston Bay is a large estuary located along Texas's upper coast fed by the Trinity
and San Jacinto Rivers, numerous local bayous and incoming tides from the Gulf of Mexico.
The bay covers 1,500 kmē, is about 50 km long and 27 km wide, and only 3 m deep in most
locations. In 1987, the U.S. Congress established the National Estuary Program to promote
long-term planning and management of nationally significant estuaries: Galveston Bay is
protected by one of only 28 such programs in the U.S.
The Galveston Bay Estuary Program (GBEP)'s comprehensive conservation management plan, the Galveston Bay Plan, was approved
by the Governor of Texas and the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(USEPA) in Spring1995.
It is a guiding document for research and other activities in Galveston
Bay. Given the bay provides nursery and spawning grounds for large amounts of marine life, is
important for both commercial and recreational fishing and oyster harvests, as well as
important recreational location for Houstonians, many projects in the laboratory are driven
towards understanding this system and its bayous.
Current and Recent Projects
The impact of changing freshwater inflows on the health of Galveston bay.
(Funding source: Cycle 10)
The Galveston Bay Estuary Program identified an "examination of the impacts of
freshwater inflow and bay circulation" as a priority area in its comprehensive
conservation management action plan for 2001-2005 (GBEP, 2001). The major gap in the
knowledge base to address present and future concerns is a clear understanding of the
downstream ecological impacts of changes to freshwater inflows and modes of nutrient
loading on estuaries. We are monitoring changes in primary productivity, phytoplankton
community structure and water quality in response to freshwater inflows (pulsed versus
continuous, frequency versus magnitude) and bay circulation in Galveston Bay. We hope
to develop a process based understanding of the linkages between the magnitude of
freshwater inflows and nutrient loading on phytoplankton community structure and
productivity for the Galveston Bay ecosystem. Our findings in Galveston Bay will
then be used to model the impacts of freshwater diversions and mitigation process
in other estuaries and water bodies along the Texas coast.
To learn more about the collaborators on this project: Back to top
Phytoplankton responses to nutrient loading in Galveston Bay.
(Funding source: TX Sea Grant)
Galveston Bay is a watershed of national importance. It is highly urbanized and acts as
a drainage basin for 60% of the major industrial facilities in Texas. Demands for
freshwater supplies before they enter Galveston Bay and other estuarine systems along
the Texas coast are set to rise exponential in the next few decades given predictions
of a 50% population increase. With this will come mitigation strategies which will
control freshwater inflows, and with them, the major source of nutrient loading into
Galveston Bay. Nutrient loading events, primarily due to fresh water inflows, play an
important role in defining the structure and magnitude of phytoplankton communities in
Galveston Bay. In order to define phytoplankton responses to nutrient loading in Galveston
Bay, we will perform a series of nutrient addition bioassays using water collected from
throughout the system (Fig. 1) to examine the response to N, P, Si and various combinations
of these nutrients. These assays will reveal the potential effect of nutrient loading on
phytoplankton abundance and community composition.
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Systems within Galveston Bay that are also being examined in greater detail:
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