Water Quality & Resilience - FY 2021-22 SCCF Annual Report

Post-Ian Water Quality Monitoring

Two days after Hurricane Ian slammed into the Southwest Florida coast, SCCF Marine Lab Director Eric Milbrandt, Ph.D., began mobilizing a coordinated effort to assess water quality impacts.

With a team of researchers and equipment from University of Florida’s Center for Coastal Solutions, SCCF scientists collected water samples to evaluate a suite of water quality metrics relevant to both environmental and human health.

The following week, Milbrandt took part in a collaborative research cruise organized by the Florida Institute of Oceanography to evaluate water quality conditions in the wake of Hurricane Ian. On the 7-day cruise, scientists saw offshore reef destruction and sampled about 50 offshore sites from St. Pete to Naples prior to the development of a red tide bloom.

“There has been a pattern over the last 20 years that long and intense red tide blooms can occur after the landfall of major hurricanes. It happened the year after Charley and Irma. We were able to characterize nearshore ocean conditions before the bloom and after Hurricane Ian, which will help us better understand this pattern.”

SCCF Marine Lab Director Eric Milbrandt, Ph.D.

Lighthouse Beach Park on Oct. 28, 2022

Lighthouse Beach Park on Sept. 26, 2022

Signposts of Resilience

Our resilience to the effects of climate change and extreme events relies on our ability to band together as a community, and we certainly have seen strong examples of this both within the SCCF family and our community at large. After Hurricane Ian, leadership on our islands and beyond quickly started working on disaster recovery efforts, which SCCF helped supplement with equipment and resources whenever possible. We’ve also seen incredible instances of people heavily impacted by the storm taking time to help their neighbors. Continuing the collaboration we’ve seen across Sanibel, Captiva, and surrounding communities will be key to our journey of rebuilding.