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A. Primary Goals
The five initial goals for SIMoN are to:
(1) Integrate existing monitoring
conducted in the MBNMS - The first goal is
to coordinate and synthesize historic data sets
with information from the various research and
monitoring efforts currently underway within the
MBNMS. A large portion of this process has
already been completed as part of SIMoN's
development but integration efforts will
continue throughout the life of this program.
(2) Initiate basic surveys or
characterizations of all habitats and regions of
the MBNMS - This second major goal is based
on the undisputed conclusions of the advisory
committee and workshop participants that a
better understanding of the Sanctuary, its
natural processes and the distributions of its
resources is needed before most monitoring
efforts can be truly effective. These groups
concluded that in most cases not enough
information is available about the Sanctuary and
the resources it protects to identify and
monitor important changes.
(3) Initiate specific, question driven
monitoring efforts with fixed durations -
This third goal is in response to the need for
identifying and quantifying the impact of
particular natural processes or human activities
on specific resources. Efforts in these areas
will be hypothesis driven and can be terminated
once the specific questions are answered. For
example, the advisory committee and workshop
participants concluded that a better
understanding of impacts from fishing activities
(particularly bottom trawling) on non-target
species and the environment is critical.
(4) Establish a series of essential
long-term monitoring efforts that will continue
into the future - This fourth goal is based
on the findings of the workshop and numerous
reviews that long-term approaches to monitoring
are required for temporal and spatial trends to
be resolved. For example, simple seawater
temperature data taken daily from a fixed
location off of the Hopkins Marine Station
(Pacific Grove, California) for nearly a century
have been correlated with local changes in
intertidal species distributions
[6].
(5) Provide timely and pertinent
information to appropriate parties -
Monitoring data are only truly of value if they
are readily available and provide timely and
pertinent information to managers and decision
makers, the research community and/or the
general public. SIMoN will therefore not only be
a center for initiating and integrating data
collecting efforts but also for disseminating
information.
B. Priority Areas of Need
Two separate steps were taken to identify specific areas of need
for the initial phase of the SIMoN program. First, a two-day workshop
with over 80 regional academic scientists and resource managers
produced a series of priority questions to be addressed for seven
different components of the Sanctuary (dunes and bluffs; bays,
estuaries and riparian habitats; rocky intertidal and nearshore
habitats; sandy beaches and nearshore soft bottom habitats; deep
seafloor; open ocean; pelagic megafauna). The workshop priority
questions are summarized in Table 1 with
full details available in Appendix 2. Sanctuary staff and the
advisory committee then evaluated the priority questions for common
themes and compared them with the summary table of ongoing monitoring
and historic data sets to identify gaps. This analysis ultimately
led to the following list of Sanctuary-wide areas of need that
synthesize all questions generated at the workshop into cross
cutting themes.
It is the ultimate goal of the SIMoN program to
directly address the priority questions developed
at the monitoring workshop by continuing or
enhancing existing efforts and initiating new
programs in the context of the areas of need.
1. Overarching
Programs - Two areas of need correspond to
all regions of, or important issues for, the
MBNMS.
a. Basic surveys
and long-term monitoring - The advisory
committee and each workshop breakout group
agreed overwhelmingly that there is a need
for more comprehensive physical, geological,
chemical and biological mapping or
characterization of the MBNMS. It is
therefore recommended that surveys of
communities, habitats and processes should be
conducted for all regions of the Sanctuary.
These initial surveys should be broad
characterizations, cover the entire MBNMS,
and start with those habitats or regions with
the least amount of existing information
(e.g., deep-sea, midwater and soft bottom
habitats).
In addition to characterizing communities
and habitats as they exist today, it is
recommended that paleo-ecological and
archeological studies be employed to
determine historic conditions. Data collected
from core samples and fossil records can
provide valuable insight to environmental
changes over hundreds to thousands of years,
as well as long-term human impacts.
From these broad surveys and existing
data, selected/target species or resources,
key processes, and physical parameters will
then be identified as emphases for core
long-term monitoring program that will
continue into the future. The following
criteria will be used to select long-term
monitoring emphases:
- Critical role in a particular
community or habitat
- Indicator of environmental change
- Threatened or vulnerable resource
- Commercially exploited resource
- Exotic or introduced species
After monitoring emphases are selected, it
is recommended that new long-term programs
address one or more of the following
questions:
- What are the past and present patterns
of distribution and abundance for selected
species or resources?
- Can distribution and abundance
patterns of selected species or resources
be predicted into the future?
- What are the major natural influences
on the patterns with respect to
biological/trophic interactions (e.g.,
predation and competition)?
- What are the major natural influences
on the patterns with respect to physical
and chemical processes, and climate and
environmental variability?
Several past and current programs have
surveyed or monitored parts the MBNMS marine
ecosystem. For example, the U.S. Geologic
Survey and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research
Institute have been collecting high
resolution side-scan bathymetric data for
precise seafloor mapping, most of which falls
within the Sanctuary's boundaries
[7]. In the past, the California
Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations
(CalCOFI) have also collected important
physical and biological oceanographic data
with a series of station/grid shipboard
surveys within the MBNMS [8].
However, during the past 20 years CalCOFI has
focused solely on waters off of Southern
California. Recently the Partnership for the
Interdisciplinary Study of Coastal Oceans
(PISCO) program has begun a new
geographically broad effort (Oregon to
Southern California) to examine rocky shore
communities and how nearshore coastal
processes affect them [9]. Finally,
sea otter populations have been tracked along
the central California coast since 1983 in a
cooperative effort between the U.S.
Geological Survey, California Department of
Fish and Game, and Monterey Bay Aquarium
[10].
Although these and many other programs
have collected valuable data for describing
and understanding the Sanctuary (and will be
incorporated into SIMoN), additional work is
clearly needed. New efforts that expand the
frequency, number of parameters and locations
monitored by existing programs, and that
initiate new surveys addressing
insufficiently studied regions (such as the
soft bottom habitats), must be started.
However, it is important that any new
monitoring efforts consider existing and
historic programs so, when possible, they can
be designed to produce comparable data. All
programs will also be encouraged to present
results in similar formats so trends across
systems and over time can be identified.
Finally, new technologies must be explored to
increase the amount and ease of information
collected for community, habitat or process
surveys. In particular, remote sensing
techniques such as autonomous underwater
vehicles, satellite imagery and aerial
hyperspectral surveys are showing promise for
being very effective and efficient monitoring
tools.
b. Historic data -
Detecting important ecosystem trends or
changes is dependent on a long-term
perspective. It is therefore critical to
identify, locate, analyze, archive and, when
possible, build upon historic data sets. The
great majority of past and ongoing monitoring
programs in the Sanctuary have published
their results in technical reports or peer
review journals, almost all of which have
been listed in the summary table (App. 1).
However, data in technical reports often have
limited distributions and are forgotten over
time. For example, Kinnetic Laboratories Inc.
has been collecting regional city and county
outfall and wastewater discharge impact data
for over ten years [11]. Extremely
valuable time series information on physical,
chemical and biological characteristics of
habitats and organisms around outfalls and at
control sites are presented in annual reports
to specific governing bodies; however, they
are not widely circulated and are not part of
any library or archival system. It is
therefore recommended that the SIMoN program
work with regional libraries to obtain and
house copies of all relevant monitoring
publications at one central location and
assure that new publications (in particular
technical reports) are continuously added to
the archive to reduce the potential for
losing valuable information.
It is further recommended that historic
data sets that have not been published are
recovered and analyzed before being forgotten
or lost. Several agencies and organizations
have traditionally collected data on various
issues but for a variety of reasons
(typically the lack of funds) have not
analyzed or published this information. For
example, the California Department of Fish
and Game requires all commercial fisherman to
submit logbooks and landing receipts from
their fishing activities (date, location,
equipment used, target species, weight of
catch, etc.). However, only when specific
information is required (and funding is
available) are subsets of the logbooks and
receipts analyzed. Thus, very little of this
valuable information is ever examined.
Another recent example is the entire original
punch card set of the key EASTROPAC (Eastern
Tropical Pacific Research Program, 1967-1968)
oceanographic data [12] was discarded
because no one from the original program
remained active in research. Although much of
the EASTROPAC results have been published, it
is now impossible to re-examine or re-analyze
the original data sets. SIMoN will therefore
fund programs to locate copies of all
pertinent data sets before they are lost, and
when appropriate, to analyze them for a
greater historic understanding of the MBNMS
and its resources.
2. Specific Focus
Programs - Beyond the basic surveys and new
long-term monitoring efforts, six specific areas
were singled out by the workshop participants
and advisory committee as requiring particular
attention, with anthropogenic inputs and fishing
being the two most important.
a. Anthropogenic
inputs - Because of their potential to
harm marine resources, manmade inputs to the
environment have traditionally received the
most attention in monitoring programs. Of
these efforts, water quality monitoring and
determining ecological and human health
impacts of pollutants, contaminants and
pathogens have been emphasized. In the MBNMS
region there are several very effective
national, state, private and public water
quality programs and both the MBNMS (through
its Water Quality Protection Program
[13]) and the California State
Regional Water Quality Control Board (through
its Central Coast Ambient Monitoring Program
[14]) have developed specific
monitoring and management strategies. As an
example of a promising new regional water
quality effort, the Monterey Bay Area
Dischargers (MBAD) monitoring program plans
to establish extensive water, sediment and
tissue sampling efforts at effluent sources,
streams, rivers and in nearshore marine
habitats from Santa Cruz through Carmel,
California [15]. While the many
ongoing water quality programs in the MBNMS
will be incorporated into the SIMoN program,
clearly these efforts would also benefit
greatly by expanding spatially (in particular
offshore and outside of the Monterey Bay),
temporally in terms of sampling frequency,
and in the number of parameters examined.
Other anthropogenic inputs to the
Sanctuary, such as dredge disposal, road
slides into the sea, seawalls, jetties,
harbors, seafloor cables and coastal
development, have traditionally received much
less attention. For example, ABA Consulting
has conducted preliminary surveys of benthic
fauna that might be affected by the
installation of a seafloor cable
[16], Minerals Management Service
surveys rocky shore communities so damage can
be quantified if an oil spill ever occurs
[17], and various investigators have
examined the impacts of coastal armoring on
sediment transport [18]. However, no
program is currently tracking the long-term
impacts of these types of manmade inputs in
the MBNMS.
Given the ongoing work in the area of
water quality, it is proposed that new
programs initiated under SIMoN focus on
identifying other detrimental forms of
manmade inputs and to determine their impacts
over time on the MBNMS and its resources.
Specifically, it is recommended that new
efforts address components of the following
questions:
- What are the types, sources,
distributions, variability, and magnitude
of human inputs?
- What are the ecological and human
health impacts of these inputs?
b. Fishing and other
consumptive activities - Fishing is part
of the rich cultural history of central
California but regional and worldwide fishery
collapses have led to concern over the health
of target species in the Sanctuary
[3]. While the MBNMS does not
regulate fishing and harvesting activities,
the Sanctuary has the responsibility and
mandate to monitor biological resources,
particularly those at risk (including
non-target resources incidentally harmed by
fishing or harvesting activities).
There are several programs designed to
evaluate the status of targeted species in
the region. For example, the National Marine
Fisheries Service conducts triennial
groundfish surveys and stock assessments
[19], and the California Department
of Fish and Game and the MBNMS have a joint
study of kelp canopy dynamics and impacts of
kelp harvesting [20]. However, like
other programs, these efforts that were
established to determine sustainability or
impacts of a fishery would profit by
expanding spatially, temporally (sampling
frequency) and taxonomically (with additional
species examined).
It has also long been known that the
impacts of fishing, collecting, and
harvesting can go far beyond the target
resource. By-catch (mortality of non-target
species) and physical habitat damage through
various collecting methods (e.g., bottom
trawling) must be determined and followed
over time so significant impacts can be
brought to the attention of managers before
catastrophic or irreversible changes occur.
There have been some successful efforts to
monitor these impacts, such as the National
Marine Fisheries Service observer programs to
document by-catch [21] and individual
studies of bottom trawling effects on benthic
communities [22], but much more
information is needed for effective resource
management.
It is therefore recommended that new
efforts should be established that address
components of the following questions, with
emphasis on question 2:
- What are the impacts of select fishing
practices (both commercial and
recreational) on target species?
- What are the impacts of select fishing
practices on by-catch species (all caught)
and habitats?
c. Effectiveness of
protected areas - While the entire
Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary is a
"protected area", this term is also used for
smaller focused regions that have been
specially designated to protect some aspect
of their flora or fauna. Often
rare/endangered species or sensitive habitats
are sheltered with this type of designation
by legislation and management plans. It has
also been proposed that organisms in focused
marine protected areas can serve as important
sources of propagules and larvae to
supplement communities in non-protected areas
of the region, thus a safeguard against local
extinctions [23].
Within the MBNMS there are several types
of marine zones with over 20 sites that have
some form of restrictions on various human
activities (see App. 3):
- Golden Gate National Recreation
Area
- James V. Fitzgerald Marine
Reserve
- Año Nuevo State Reserve
- Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine
Research Reserve
- Moss Landing Wildlife Area
- Hopkins Marine Life Refuge
- Pacific Grove Marine Refuge
- Pacific Grove Marine Gardens Fish
Reserve
- Carmel Bay Ecological Reserve
- Point Lobos Ecological Reserve / State
Reserve
- California Sea Otter Game Refuge
- Big Creek Marine Ecological
Reserve
- Julia Pfeiffer Burns State /
Underwater Park and
- all State Beaches
While these areas have been established to
preserve particular habitats and/or species,
in very few cases have monitoring efforts
been established to determine their
effectiveness. In one protected area where a
monitoring program was designed to examine
the effects of human exclusion from specific
regions of the James V. Fitzgerald Marine
Reserve, it appears that limiting access to
visitors can enhance the abundance and
biodiversity of intertidal organisms
[24]. The PISCO program has also
recently initiated similar efforts to compare
the abundance and biodiversity of nearshore
subtidal organisms within and outside of
protected areas in the MBNMS (Hopkins Marine
Life Refuge and Point Lobos Ecological
Reserve) [9].
However, like most management strategies,
the great majority of protected areas are not
evaluated for their success in preserving
habitats or species, or for their impacts on
non-protected areas. It is therefore
recommended that new programs be established
to answers the following questions:
- In what ways are marine protected
areas effective in protecting or enhancing
target resources or habitats?
- What are the impacts of marine
protected areas within and beyond their
boundaries?
d. Coastal erosion
- Land sea interfaces are dynamic
environments because of both natural
processes and human activities. In
particular, beaches and dunes can be
considered "rivers of sand" because sands
naturally drift and move along the coast. Yet
human activities such as damming streams and
rivers, armoring coastlines and mining are
altering the natural supply and transport of
sand to ecologically and commercially
important beaches and dunes of the MBNMS
[25]. Similarly, seacliffs and bluffs
are important wildlife habitats (and sources
of sand) which are being altered by growing
pressures of coastal development and
armoring. It is therefore critical to
understand the natural process regulating
shoreline erosion and retreat and to
determine and monitor the impacts of human
activities. Areas of particular concern
within the Sanctuary are Año Nuevo
Island, the bluffs of Capitola, the beaches
and dunes of Monterey Bay, and Hwy 1 along
the Big Sur coast.
Several programs have examined coastal
geology, sediment budgets and erosion within
the Sanctuary. For example, the U.S.
Geological Survey has recently begun to use
scanning airborne laser altimetry to study
California coastline dynamics [26],
and the MBNMS is working closely with the
California Department of Transportation
(Caltrans) to better understand the active
Big Sur slides and their impacts on marine
systems. However, much more work is
needed.
It is recommended that programs be
established that address the following
questions:
- How has the distribution and structure
of beaches, dunes, cliffs and bluffs
changed on long-term time scales?
- What are the rates and causes of
shoreline change over time?
- What are the impacts of human
activities on the structure of
shorelines?
- What regions are most susceptible to
erosion, retreat, landslides and
slumping?
e. Estuary and wetland
modification - Estuaries and coastal
wetlands are unique and productive areas that
function as wildlife habitats, fish
nurseries, flood and erosion controls,
natural pollution filters, and education and
tourist centers. However, of all the coastal
systems, estuaries and wetlands are perhaps
the most affected by human activities. Nearly
half of all coastal wetlands in the U.S. have
been destroyed since pre-Columbian times
[27]. Threats include draining and
filling for agriculture, road construction
and urban development, degradation through
non-point source pollution and, in the
future, reduction in size through global sea
level rise.
Although legislation exists to prevent
further losses through development, an
inadequate number of programs exist to
monitor changes or degradations to these
important environments, and they typically
focus only on selected sites. For example,
the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine
Research Reserve (in collaboration with the
Elkhorn Slough Foundation) has promoted
scientific research on topics such as
erosion, marine mammals and introduced
invertebrate species, and has the longest
running water quality monitoring program of
any National Estuarine Research Reserve
(NERR) site [28]. However, much more
work is required to assure the health and
stability of the Elkhorn Slough, while new
efforts are greatly needed to characterize
and monitor other estuaries and wetlands in
the Sanctuary.
It is therefore recommended that new
programs be established to answers the
following questions:
- What are the past and present physical
characteristics of estuaries and wetlands
in or adjacent to the MBNMS?
- What are the past and present
distributions of species and communities
in estuaries and wetlands of the MBNMS,
with particular emphasis on rare,
threatened and introduced species?
- What are the major human influences on
estuaries and wetlands?
- What are the major natural influences
on estuaries and wetlands with respect to
physical and chemical processes, and
climate and environmental
variability?
The MBNMS will work closely with the
Elkhorn Slough NERR to integrate their
existing efforts into SIMoN and to establish
new core estuary and wetland monitoring
efforts both in the Slough and throughout the
Sanctuary.
f. Non-consumptive
physical human disturbances - Of all the
potential anthropogenic impacts to marine
environments, perhaps the most overlooked are
non-consumptive physical disturbances such as
noise, ecotourism, trampling, and other
by-products of human presence. Simply passing
through or visiting the MBNMS can have
impacts on various marine organisms. Ship
noise may hinder the communication of whales
and dolphins [29], aircraft
overflights can flush nesting seabird off the
shoreline [30], while visitor
approaches on foot or in watercraft can
dramatically alter the behaviors of seals and
sea otters [31]. Yet very little
direct work has been done on these types of
issues. Some of the best examples of work on
non-consumptive physical disturbances are the
separate studies of visitor impacts on
intertidal organisms at Natural Bridges State
Park [32] and James V. Fitzgerald
Marine Reserve [24]. Although results
varied, it can be concluded that simply
walking on and picking up intertidal
organisms can cause significant mortality and
in some cases alter community structure. It
is therefore critical to determine the
effects of these and other similar activities
on the MBNMS and its resources so guidelines
can be established to assure human access
while minimizing impacts. It is recommended
that programs be established that address
components of the following questions:
- What are the various non-consumptive
human disturbances in the Sanctuary?
- What are the impacts of these
disturbances on Sanctuary resources and
how can the significant disturbances be
reduced or eliminated?
3. Rapid responses - In
addition to establishing efforts described
above, it was concluded by the workshop
participants and advisory committee that the
SIMoN program must have the ability to respond
rapidly to unforeseen events.
a. Unforeseen
extraordinary changes - Occasionally
unforeseen events or phenomena occur that can
dramatically alter habitats, communities,
populations or human health. For example, oil
spills, mass marine mammal strandings, and
harmful algal blooms take place sporadically
and are almost always unexpected. While their
influence on the MBNMS can be quite large, it
is often difficult to differentiate their
impacts against background variability. The
ephemeral nature of these events also makes
extraordinary changes difficult to study and
the few programs that do examine these
organisms or processes directly are often
unable to respond to major unforeseen events
because funding is not available for
comprehensive investigations on short
notice.
It is therefore recommended that an avenue
be established to quickly determine causes
and quantify impacts of unusual or dramatic
changes to resources of the Sanctuary. As
part of the SIMoN program, sufficient funds
will be set aside by the MBNMS to allow the
rapid establishment of investigations by
researchers or any of the network monitoring
programs that identify extraordinary events
or trends to their systems.
C. Data Management and
Information Dissemination
Monitoring data is useful only if it is readily
available and provides timely and pertinent
information to managers and decision makers, the
research community and the general public. SIMoN
will therefore not only be a center for initiating
and integrating data collecting efforts but also
for disseminating information. Although various
issues or geographically related subsets of
monitoring efforts have been consolidated, very few
comprehensive and readily accessible
multi-disciplinary directories of monitoring data
currently exist, and none on the scale of the MBNMS
or with the scope of the proposed SIMoN
program.
SIMoN information dissemination efforts will
rely on individual investigators to analyze and
summarize their own data. On a regular basis
(quarterly to yearly), SIMoN will ask investigators
to provide summary data in a standard format that
provides critical management information by addressing
the following questions:
- What are the general trends found?
- What are the causes of these trends?
- Are there any unexpected results?
- Are there any causes for concern?
- What needs to be done next and why?
Moreover, SIMoN staff will meet periodically
with individual research groups to enhance each
program's ability to inform resource managers.
Once this information is received, SIMoN will
rely on six basic approaches to disseminate
information to researchers, managers, educators and
the public:
- Map based web page with links to all
relevant programs, researcher's contact
information, data summaries and, when possible,
full data sets.
- Annual "State of the Sanctuary" reports with
a grading system for how resources of the MBNMS
are changing over time.
- Annual monitoring symposia and workshops for
all the researchers and managers to share
information and needs.
- Electronic list server bulletins for timely
information to be shared with researchers and
managers.
- Periodic technical reports presenting
results of individual programs or significant
multidisciplinary findings.
- Annual graduate level seminar course on
Ecosystem Monitoring and Resource
Management.
The web page describing SIMoN and containing a
GIS (Geographic Information System) map of the
Sanctuary with links to monitoring locations and
topics will be the foundation for day-to-day
information dissemination. The MBNMS has begun a
pilot study with the NOAA Special Projects Office,
Marine Sanctuaries Division headquarters and
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) to
develop this monitoring information hub using
ArcIMS (Internet Mapping System) and the
Sanctuary's beach cast monitoring program (Beach
COMBERS). The ArcIMS architecture has been
specifically engineered to serve GIS data and
services on the Internet. Distributing
geographically referenced monitoring information
through a web site allows for real-time integration
of spatial and temporal data from various programs
and provides a common platform for the query,
display, exchange and analysis of information at
the local site and throughout the Internet.
Precisely how the web page and other approaches
are designed and run will be determined during the
first year of SIMoN with the help of public
relations and Internet/GIS personnel, and through a
series of separate workshops that ask researchers,
managers and educators what information they
require and what format would be most useful.
Feedback from all parties on information needs and
format will also be sought throughout the life of
the project.
D. Administration and Program
Management
Personnel - SIMoN will be a major component of the research program
at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. It will be directed
by an oversight board and Sanctuary management, and will include
technical assistance from a science committee (Fig.
3). The oversight board will be established to periodically
review the network and to assure that the principal goals are being
achieved. The day-to-day operations of SIMoN will require supervision
by a program manager with support from new staff with expertise
in resource and program management, geographic information systems
(GIS), data management, and information dissemination. MBNMS is
pursuing additional funding or staff to provide these important
personnel resources. All advisors and regional scientist have expressed
the perspective that these core staff are a critical component to
the success of SIMoN and an obvious obligation of NOAA, as administering
agency for the Sanctuary.
A science committee of regional academic
researchers and resource managers (the core of
which will come from the current monitoring
advisory committee; see App. 2) will be created to
guide the specific monitoring focuses and to
evaluate the scientific and management merit of
proposed and ongoing programs. Finally, because of
its close relationship with the MBNMS and
experience in managing the finances of large
programs, the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Foundation (a
nonprofit corporation whose goal is to promote
protection and public understanding of the MBNMS)
will administer budget and accounting matters for
the network.
The Process - The first year of this effort will be spent
organizing the network administration, further integrating existing
monitoring programs, refining specific strategies for disseminating
information, and developing priorities and criteria of proposal
requests and evaluation. Beginning in year two, the focus will be
on establishing new monitoring efforts. New SIMoN sponsored programs
will be initiated through a four-step process (Fig.
4). Each year, the science committee will decide on requests
for proposals (RFP's) topics that address one or more of the Sanctuary's
areas of need. Specific RFP topics will be selected based on a set
of criteria to be established by the science committee but will
include factors such as urgency and significant threat to ecosystem
or human health. There will also be constant feedback from project
scientists, resource managers and SIMoN staff to aid the science
committee in selecting RFP topics. Although proposals related to
any area of need will be accepted for review, preference will be
given to work that directly addresses topics selected for that particular
funding cycle. Emphasis will also be given to programs that can
demonstrate a commitment to continuous, long-term monitoring of
the MBNMS.
Proposals submitted to the SIMoN program will
then be sent out for thorough and objective review
by selected national experts in the appropriate
fields and graded on scientific merit and
feasibility. Proposals (with reviewer comments)
will then be evaluated by the science committee and
SIMoN staff for their ability to provide the
information needed by the Sanctuary and other
management agencies, with final approval granted by
the program manager and MBNMS superintendent.
Scientifically sound programs that do not properly
address specific monitoring needs will be
encouraged to resubmit proposals after management
or conservation concerns are addressed.
Question driven monitoring programs will be
funded for one or more years, depending on the
nature of the effort. Long-term programs will be
supported in five-year blocks, with reviews for
continued funding by the science committee and
SIMoN staff after each cycle. When appropriate,
funding through SIMoN will also be used as matching
money for efforts with partial support and to
expand the scope of currently funded programs
temporally, spatially or in the number of
parameters examined.
Schedule and Review - While SIMoN has
been designed to serve as a comprehensive
monitoring network long into the future, it will
have a phased approach. Phase 1 of the SIMoN
program will include a preliminary year of setup
and organization (proposed for 2001), a second year
for the initiation of urgent programs, and four
following years to install full scale monitoring
efforts throughout the Sanctuary. After this
initial six-year phase, SIMoN and its individual
programs will be reevaluated for their
effectiveness and to determine future direction. A
visiting committee of nationally respected
scientist and program managers will be invited to
work with the SIMoN oversight board, science
committee, and staff to conduct a general review of
the overall program direction and to update
specific areas of need. Similar reviews of the
SIMoN program will then be conducted on a five-year
basis
E. Funding Strategy
There are four basic components that will be
brought together to support SIMoN. First, NOAA will
need to provide salary support for the new MBNMS
staff needed to manage all aspects of the SIMoN
program. Second, the many ongoing private and
government funded efforts, monitoring various
aspects of the MBNMS, will be included into the
network. These programs will make up a large
portion of SIMoN and range from small individual
investigator studies to large multi-institutional
programs (see App. 1). Ongoing monitoring efforts
in the Sanctuary have a presently combined annual
budget of approximately $9 million. However, these
existing programs address only a portion of the
Sanctuary's monitoring needs and the great majority
have funding for fixed durations (i.e., not
guaranteed into the future). Therefore, as the
third strategy, the numerous researchers in the
region will be encouraged to pursue grants and
institutional funding to extend existing programs
and to initiate new monitoring efforts that address
priority questions in Table 1. Finally, the MBNMS
will secure external support to ensure that
critical monitoring efforts continue, to initiate
new efforts is the areas of need, to disseminate
monitoring information, and to sustain the
day-to-day operations of SIMoN.
For this fourth component, the MBNMS proposes an
annual science budget for SIMoN of $4 - $5 million,
which will be granted to researchers and
institutions to conduct specific monitoring
projects. This budget figure was determined through
an analysis of costs for various research efforts
and budgets of similar programs. For example,
comprehensive surveys of only a specific element of
the Sanctuary such as seabirds and marine mammals
would cost approximately $400,000 per year (monthly
shipboard meso-scale surveys in Monterey Bay, plus
quarterly aerial surveys and yearly shipboard
surveys of the entire MBNMS), while PISCO has an
annual budget of approximately $1 million for
investigations of kelp and rocky shore community
dynamics within the Sanctuary.
In the scope of effort, SIMoN can be compared to
the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network
established in 1980 by the National Science
Foundation. This national network is made up of 24
focused aquatic and terrestrial sites, such as the
Santa Barbara Coastal LTER which is working towards
an understanding of coastal runoff patterns and
their impacts on the long-term population dynamics
and survival of kelp forest communities. The LTER
network provides each of the 24 sites an annual
budget of $700,000, totaling nearly $17 million.
Clearly the geographic scale of the MBNMS (at least
5x the size of Santa Barbara's coastal area) and
the diverse range of important monitoring issues
(see Table 1) requires a significant financial
commitment to assure the effective and continuous
evaluation of the Sanctuary and its resources.
F. Conclusions
SIMoN will be a comprehensive, long-term program
that takes an ecosystem approach at identifying and
understanding changes to a large marine protected
area. Through the integration of high quality
scientific research and long-term monitoring data
sets, SIMoN will empower decision-makers with the
information needed for effective management and
provide an unparalleled basic understanding of a
complex and ecologically, economically, and
aesthetically important marine environment.
Specifically, SIMoN will provide a much more
complete characterization of the MBNMS while
determining and quantifying impacts of natural
processes or human activities on Sanctuary
resources. SIMoN will also facilitate the critical
but often overlooked communication between
researchers, resource managers, educators and the
public through data synthesis and several targeted
information dissemination programs.
Finally, the development of SIMoN has been
conducted in collaborations with both the regional
science and management communities, and NOAA. The
National Marine Sanctuary Program is using SIMoN as
a model for monitoring efforts at all national
marine sanctuaries and plans to develop similar
programs at other sites over the next five years.
MBNMS has also been in communication with National
Estuarine Research Reserve System sites (Elkhorn
Slough and North Inlet-Winyah Bay) and the
Australia Great Barrier Reef Park Authority on
building similar monitoring networks. While other
locations may not have access to the extensive
marine science and management resources available
along the central California coast, the basic
integrative approach to building and running a
comprehensive, ecosystem-based monitoring network
can be utilized worldwide.
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