JOINT STUDY OF YANGTZE PLANNED
In April MSRC Director J. R. Schubel, Associate Director for Research D. W. Pritchard, and Professor H. H. Carter spent two weeks in China planning joint studies of the Yangtze River and estuary with their colleagues at the Shanghai Normal University’s Coastal and Estuarine Studies Institute, the Shanghai Waterways Bureau and the Second Institute of Oceanography in Hangzhou. The three MSRC scientists also presented a series of lectures and gave the keynote addresses at the first annual national Estuarine and Coastal Symposium of the Chinese National Limnology and Oceanography Society.
The Yangtze is the largest and longest river in China and the third largest river in the World. It traverses central China, running roughly east to west for more than 5,500 kilometers before discharging into the East China Sea near Shanghai. The Yangtze and its tributaries form one of the world’s most important commercial waterway networks, with nearly 40,000 kilometers of rivers and streams navigable by native junks and rafts during the summer months of high riverflow.
At its mouth the Yangtze has an average water discharge of 28,300 cubic meters per second with peak flows of 90,000 cubic meters per second during floods. Its average sediment discharge is more than half a billion tons per year. For comparison, the Hudson River discharges water at an average of 510 cubic meters per second and sediment at one to two million tons per year. The Yangtze discharges more sediment in an average day than the Hudson River does in an entire year. About 30 percent of the Yangtze’s sediment discharge is deposited within the estuary; the remaining 70 percent on the Yangtze delta in the adjacent East China Sea. Shipping channels through both areas require frequent dredging with total volumes of dredged material amounting to nearly 20 million cubic meters per year.
The Yangtze is characterized not only by high riverflow, but also by high tidal flow with maximum tidal currents of 4 to 6 knots (200-300 cm/sec) . The tidal rise and fall of the river surface extends for more than 600 kilometers upstream from the river’s mouth, and reversing tidal currents are observed for 270 kilometers. Because of its high riverflow, the head of the estuary–marked by the landward limit of sea salt–extends inland for only a few tens of kilometers. Because of the large influx of sediments, the Yangtze estuary basin is being rapidly filled, forcing the sea to retreat an average of nearly 40 meters per year. During the summer period of high runoff the estuary is completely displaced seaward from its basin and out into the East China Sea. The estuary is not only being forced seaward but is being constricted at its mouth and is migrating to the south. Two thousand years ago the mouth of the estuary was nearly 180 kilometers wide. Today it is only 90 kilometers across.
MSRC personnel expect to begin collaborative studies of the Yangtze with Chinese oceanographers late in 1980. The emphasis of these studies will be on circulation and sedimentation.
MONTAUK MARINE BASIN RESEARCH SCHOLARSHIP
September 1980 will mark the beginning of a scholarship fund established by Carl Darenberg, Jr., owner of the Montauk Marine Basin. The Şl,000 Montauk Marine Basin Research Scholarship will be awarded annually to an MSRC student to help cover the cost of research on a problem important to Long Island’s coastal waters. According to Dr. Schubel, Director of MSRC, the scholarship will be used to encourage innovative research that may have large scientific and societal benefits.
AWARDS
Prof. Mary Scranton received funding from the State University of New York University Awards Program for her research on the use of silicones as environmental tracers.
MSRC student Monica Bricelj was awarded an international fellowship from the Educational Foundation of the American Association of University Women for the 1980-8l academic year. Ms. Bricelj will use the award to conduct research on the growth of juvenile hard clams, as part of a proposal submitted to the New York Sea Grant Institute by Prof. Robert Malouf.
Profs. D. W. Pritchard and J. R. Schubel were granted support from NOAA’s Marine Ecosystem. Analysis Project to help design a research program that will improve the match between management expectations and scientific achievements in the Hudson-Raritan Estuary Project.
MSRC student Lisa Campbell received the Quarterly Review of Biology Graduate Editorial Fellowship. During the 1980-81 academic year she will work with each editor on all aspects of editing and publishing the journal.
MSRC ASSOCIATES
We welcome Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Cawley as new MSRC Associates and as continuing members:
- Alice Dunn
- Kate Lefferts
- Irving Like
- Marine environmental Council of Long Island
- Thomas Roberts
- Mr. Mrs. Ted Schubel
- Stony Brook Harbor Association
- William Swan
- Paul Windels
RECENT MSRC GRADUATES
Two students completed requirements for the M. S. degree in May :
ANDREW C. F. MIRCHEL, Enforcement of hard clam laws on Great South Bay, New York (Professor J. L. McHugh).
KEVIN D. WYMAN, PCB uptake, depuration, and toxicity among estuarine copepods (Genus acartia)(Professor H. B. O’Connors).
PEOPLE AND MEETINGS
Prof. MARY SCRANTON participated in Career Awareness Day at Stagecoach Elementary School in Centereach.
Prof. HENRY BOKUNIEWICZ presented a paper at the Geological Society of America’s March meeting in Philadelphia; the paper was titled “The Seaward Extension of the Connecticut Valley.” Prof. Bokuniewicz also presented papers at the NOAA Ocean Dumping Symposium in Woods Hole, and at the international meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Coulter Instruments flew MSRC student JENNIFER JESTY to the cell sorting lab at the University of Rochester to explore the use of a cell sorter for plankton research.
Prcf. DCUG CAPONE visited the Fairleighー Dickinson Marine Laboratory in St. Croix and conducted a study of coral metabolism With Dr. Howard Lasker of SUNY Buffalo.
MSRC Student DOMINICK NINIVAGGI measured settling rates of euphausiid arctic krill on a seven-week cruise in the Bering Sea. The cruise was part of a multi-institutional project called PROBES (Processes and Resources in the Bering Sea Shelf). Mr. Ninivaggi’s work was part of his Ph.D. thesis research.
Prof. EDWARD CARPENTER traveled to TexaS as part of a National Science Foundation sponsored research project on the bluegreen alga Trichodesmium.
On 27 March Prof. J. L. McHUGH chaired a panel on the harvest of the striped bass at the Fifth Annual Marine Recreational Fisheries Symposium in Boston. He also presented an invited lecture on “Whales and Man,” in the series provided by the Gateway National Recreation Area and the New York Sea Grant in April.
MSRC student LISA CAMPBELL was accepted in the Microbial Ecology summer course at the Marine Biological Laboratories in Woods Hole.
Profs. J. R. SCHUBEL and D. W. PRITCHARD participated in a workshop on the coastal transport of pollutants in the western Pacific (WESTPAC). Prof. Schubel was selected chairman of the workshop, which was sponsored by the United Nations and held in Tokyo from 26-31 March 1980. Prof. Pritchard was named chairman of the sub-group on in-shore waters.
From 21 – 23 March 1980 Prof. PETER WEYL attended a workshop, held at Stone Mountain, Georgia, which was sponsored by the Dept. of Energy. The topic discussed was the possible dissolution of magnesian carbonates in the ocean as a result of the elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels that are due to fossil fuel burning.
Dr . ROBERT MALOUF, researcher PAUL FLAGG, and MSRC graduate students MONICA BRICELJ and MARY GIBBONS attended the 72nd annual meeting of the National Shellfisheries Association 9-12 June in Hyannis, Mass. Ms. Bricelj presented a paper entitled “Aspects of reproduction of hard clams, Mercenaria mercenaria Great South Bay, New York.” The meeting was attended by leading shellfish researchers from federal, state, and university laboratories in the U.S. and Canada as well as by representatives from major commercial shellfish companies.
Dr. ROBERT WILSON hosted a Geophysics Study Committee meeting on Estuarine Research Perspectives 29-30 May at the Marine Sciences Research Center. The committee, a sub-panel of the National Academy of Sciences, was charged with writing a draft report on important research problems in the physical oceanography of estuaries.
SOME RECENT PUBLICATIONS
BOKUNIEWICZ, H. J. and R. B. GORDON. 1980. Deposition of dredged sediment at open water sites. Est. and Coast . Mar. Sci . 10(3): 289-303.
DAYAL. R. A. OKUBO, I. W. DUEDALL and A. RAMAMOORTHY, l979. Radionuclide redistribution mechanisms at the 2,800 In Atlantic nuclear waste disposal Site. Deep-Sea Research 26:1329-l345.
HAMILTON, A. D. and R. E. WILSON. 1980. Nontidal circulation and mixing processes in the lower Potomac Estuary. Estuaries 3(1): ll-l9.
MCHUGH, J. L. 1979. Review of : International Management of Tuna, Porpoise, and Billfish, Biological, Legal, and Political Aspects. By James Joseph and Joseph W. Greenough. Univ. of Washington Press, Seattle. Quarterly Review of Biology 54(4) : 473.
OKUBO, A. 1979. Mathematical ecology and the theory of diffusion: models for animal dispersal. Mathematical Sci. 198:13-18 (in Japanese).
OKUBO, A. 1980. Diffusion and Ecological Problems. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg New York. 254 pp.
SCHUBEL, J. R., H. H. CARTER, D. W. PRITCHARD, P. K. WEYL and W. M. WISE. l979. A conceptual framework for assessing dredging/disposal options in Chesapeake Bay. MSRC Special Report 23.
SMITH, C. F. , J. R. SCHUBEL , M. P. GREGES , N. ITZKOWITZ – S – J – DiPIERO J . LONGO, and M. A. MORGAN. 1979. Thermal resistance characteristics of early life history stages of finfish from Long Island waters. MSRC Special Report 26.
1980 YEAR OF THE COAST
President Carter stated in his August 1979 “Message on the Environment”
The coastal zone is subject to unusual pressures, both from natural causes and human activities. The land and water resources which support the environments and economies of coastal communities are in đanger of depletion. The opportunity for our citizens to enjoy beaches, bays, and marshes is often threateneá. I support efforts to improve our understanding of these coastal issues, and I heartily endorse the designation of the year 1980 as the ‘Year of the coast.’
Society makes varied and often conflicting demands on our coastal waters. We use them for cooling the condensers of steam electric stations; we use them for shipping and transportation; we use them as receivers for some of our waste products; we use them for commercial and recreational fishing; and we use them for recreation– for reーcreation. We place a high value on conserving the aesthetic qualities of these environments: qualities that make living in the coastal zone unlike living anywhere else on Earth. The great value of the se areas lies in the multiplicity of uses they serve but herein also lies their vulnerability. If ever there were a place in the World where people will have to use their heads to learn to live in harmony with their environment, it’s in our coastal areas. People concentrate in the coastal zone. For example 20.5 percent of all the people (37 million) in the co-terminous United States live in the strip of the Atlantic coastal zone between Portland, Maine and Norfolk, Virginia; 20.5 percent of the population in 1.8 percent of the area–an average population density of 688 inhabitants per square mile.
While studying the coastal environment is not a new task for us, we are “rallying to the cause” and seek to raise and endowment fund of $500,000 over the next twelve months to assure a permanent position for a Coastal Marine Scholar. This scholar would devote himself or herself entirely and without distraction to the study of coastal problems. The position would be permanent, holders of it transient. By limiting appointments to this prestigious position to three years we can ensure maximum effectiveness and can guarantee the persistent focus of the position on important coastal problems. Holders of the position would be recruited through national searches. The individual selected might come from academia, industry or government.
If you share our concern for conserving those qualities of the coastal environment that we cherish, please join us in this important effort.
