Four federal agencies joined together in transforming satellite data designed to probe ocean biology into information that will help protect the American public from harmful freshwater algal blooms.

The US$3.6 million research project is a collaborative effort among NOAA, NASA, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Geological Survey. It's designed with the intent to use methods and technology to analyze ocean color satellite data, develop an early-warning indicator for toxic and nuisance algal blooms in freshwater systems and build an information distribution system to expedite public health advisories.

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The project plans to share information with local authorities and make it available to the public from websites and mobile devices.

"Observing harmful algae is critical to understanding, managing, and forecasting these blooms. This collaboration will assure that NOAA's efforts will assist the coastal and inland public health officials and managers across the country to distribute this information to the community in an easily understandable fashion, making them more resilient to environmental events," said Holly Bamford, Ph.D., acting assistant secretary of commerce for conservation and management, and deputy NOAA administrator.

The new network will assemble previous NASA ocean satellite sensor technologies created to study the global ocean's microscopic algal communities that play a major role in ocean ecology, the movement of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and ocean, and climate change.

These sensors identify the color of the sunlit upper layer of the ocean and are used to create indicators that can help identify harmful algal blooms.

Ocean color satellite data is currently accessible to scientists, but is not routinely processed and produced in formats that can meet the needs of state and local environmental and water quality managers. This project will convert the satellite data on cyanobacteria blooms developed by the four partner agencies to a format the public can use through a mobile devices and web portals.

The project also includes a research component to improve understanding of the environmental causes and health impacts of cyanobacteria and phytoplankton blooms across the United States.

The project's mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources.

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