Jersey Coast Research Articles

Coastal Observation: How a Sighting of the Federally Threatened Seabeach Amaranth Has Resulted in Increased Erosion Protection Along the New Jersey Coast

How a Sighting of the Federally Threatened Seabeach Amaranth Has Resulted in Increased Erosion Protection Along the New Jersey Coast

Interspecific allometric scaling in eDNA production among northwestern Atlantic bony fishes reflects physiological allometric scaling

AbstractRelating environmental DNA (eDNA) signal strength to organism abundance requires a fundamental understanding of eDNA production. A number of studies have demonstrated that eDNA production may scale allometrically—that is, larger organisms tend to exhibit lower mass‐specific eDNA production rates, likely due to allometric scaling in key processes related to eDNA production (e.g., surface area, excretion/egestion). While most previous studies have examined intraspecific allometry, physiological rates and organism surface area also scale allometrically across species. We therefore hypothesize that eDNA production will similarly exhibit interspecific allometric scaling. To evaluate this hypothesis, we reanalyzed previously published eDNA data from Stoeckle et al. (ICES Journal of Marine Science, 78(1), 293–304, 2021) which compared metabarcoding read count to organism count and biomass data obtained from trawl surveys off the New Jersey coast. Using a Bayesian model, we empirically estimated the value of the allometric scaling coefficient (“b”) for Northwestern Atlantic bony fishes to be 0.77 (credible interval = 0.64–0.92), although our model failed to converge for Chondrichthyan species. We found that integrating allometry significantly improved correlations between organism abundance and metabarcoding read count relative to traditional metrics of abundance (density and biomass) for bony fishes. Although substantial unexplained variation remains in the relationship between read count and organism abundance, our study provides evidence that eDNA production may scale allometrically across species in some contexts. Future studies investigating the relationship between eDNA signal strength and metrics of fish abundance could potentially be improved by accounting for allometry; to this end, we developed an online tool that can facilitate the integration of allometry in eDNA/abundance relationships.

Policy action needed to unlock eDNA potential

Policy action needed to unlock <scp>eDNA</scp> potential

The Role of Information in the Market Response to Flood Risk: Hurricane Katrina and the New Jersey Coast

The Role of Information in the Market Response to Flood Risk: Hurricane Katrina and the New Jersey Coast

The influence of sea breeze on mold spore dispersion.

Background: Many allergists consider the ocean breeze to be free of allergens and recommend visits to the coast for relief; however, the coast may perpetuate an allergenic environment. Objective: This study investigated the sea breeze's impact on spore dispersion between coastal and inland sites, and the potential implications of sea breeze on human health and coastal resources. Methods: Spore sampling occurred during 2006 by using pollen samplers. Samplers were located at the Rutgers University Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences Marine Field Station and the Rutgers University Pinelands Field Station. Statistical analysis was performed on the spore data to compare concentrations from the various locations. The effect of sea breeze circulation on particulate matter was analyzed from meteorological data collected in 2006. Sea breeze data were collected from simulations, Doppler radar, and meteorological towers at varying heights. Results: There was no significant difference between the total spore concentration at the New Jersey coast and the New Jersey Pinelands canopy. Conclusion: Sea breeze has been shown to favor aerobiologic transfers from coastal seawater to land, but the immediate environment (floor) still remains a primary determinant of affecting an individual's allergic airway disease. Results of some studies have shown that coastal environments may favor the onset allergic airway, but in our study this seemed to be equivalent to the floor (or immediate locale) of an individual affected with allergy. However, the sea breeze effect seemed to have the ability to impact allergic airway disease (AAD) populations not only living along the coasts but of those living up to 130 km inland and potentially those living in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.

Support and barriers in long-term recovery after Hurricane Sandy: improvisation as a communicative process of resilience

ABSTRACT This study examines the long-term recovery and resilience processes of households on the New Jersey coast after Hurricane Sandy. Based on theoretical frameworks of community ecology, communication ecology, and the Communication Theory of Resilience, we analyzed focus group interviews and timeline data to examine the sources and forms of support and barrier and provide a detailed account of the ways in which individuals engaged with support and barrier sources. Results show that resilience was enacted through the process of mobilizing and improvising networks of informal and institutional ties, sometimes joining them, to access resources. Communicative processes were central to improvisation, and ineffective communication and coordination constituted a majority of barriers in accessing social support for recovery. Results also detail how processes varied temporally. This study contributes to the literature on resilience as a communicative process, with improvisation at its core, that is enacted through interacting informal, institutional, and physical systems in communities.

Mapping sea level rise impacts to identify climate change adaptation opportunities in the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, USA

Salt marshes are at risk globally if they cannot keep pace with sea level rise. Along the United States Mid-Atlantic coast, high marsh has already declined, and is particularly vulnerable to future loss due to greater regional rates of relative sea level rise and limited capacity for both vertical accretion and landward migration. To support climate adaptation efforts in the region, we conducted a spatial overlay analysis to (1) assess interior ponding in the high tidal marsh zone caused by waterlogging, and (2) identify restoration opportunities where poor drainage is limiting natural recovery. Surface inundation has increased across over 14,000 ha of high marsh in the region, mostly along the eastern Chesapeake Bay and New Jersey coast. Within this waterlogged area, we identified 239 potential restoration sites (275 ha). Validation data indicate our analysis had relatively high accuracy in identifying potential restoration sites, with a true positive rate of 76% and a true negative rate of 96%. Widespread waterlogging emphasizes the need for climate adaptation efforts to restore and protect high marsh in the face of future change. Our recommended restoration strategy of connecting waterlogged sites to tidal creeks aligns with best practices by enabling drainage of high marsh to halt or even reverse ponding, improve recovery from future flooding events, and ultimately facilitate marsh migration with sea level rise.

Evaluation of storms through the lens of erosion potential along the New Jersey, USA coast

Coastal erosion is driven by both a storm's erosion potential and by an area's vulnerability. Therefore, the problem of estimating impacts can be approached in two-step. The first includes an assessment of erosion potential based on readily available storm parameters, while the second combines this information with highly localized parameters, describing vulnerability, to more directly predict local impacts. The work presented in this paper focuses on this first step, where a storm erosion potential climatology is developed by analyzing historical storms and is then utilized to identify historic patterns. Specifically, storms which have impacted the New Jersey coast over the past several decades are reevaluated using the Storm Erosion Index (SEI), developed by Miller and Livermont (2008), which considers the three primary storm-related drivers of coastal erosion (wave height, water level, and storm duration). These storms are assessed at thirteen shoreline segments defined along New Jersey's Atlantic coast from a 34 year-period (1980–2013) when concurrent wave and water level data is available. Approximately 130 unique storms are identified with the top three being the December 1992 nor'easter, the November 2009 Veteran's Day Storm, and Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, each having an estimated return period of greater than 15 years. The resulting climatology is found to exhibit several interesting spatial and temporal trends. Both portions of the state as well as months of the year that have historically experienced more storms and/or higher cumulative SEI (over the 34 years) are identified. While analysis of the climatology has also identified periods of reduced storm activity and those of intensified conditions, future monitoring is suggested to assess whether these patterns are persistent or related to climatic variations with cycles longer than can be captured by the thirty years included in this study.

Performance Measures for Characterizing Regional Congestion using Aggregated Multi-Year Probe Vehicle Data

Probe vehicle speed data has become an important data source for evaluating the congestion performance of highways and arterial roads. Pre-defined spatially located segments known as traffic message channels (TMCs) are linked to commercially available, temporal anonymous probe vehicle speed data. These data have been used to develop agency-wide performance measures to better plan and manage infrastructure assets. Recent research has analyzed individual as well as aggregated TMC links on roadway systems to identify congested areas along spatially defined routes. By understanding the typical congestion of all TMCs in a region as indicated by increased travel times, a broader perspective of the congestion characteristics can be gained. This is especially important when determining the impact of such occurrences in the region as a major crash event, special events, or during extreme conditions such as a natural or human-made disaster. This paper demonstrates how aggregated probe speed data can be used to characterize regional congestion. To demonstrate the methodology, an analysis of vehicle speed data during Hurricane Sandy, the second costliest hurricane in the United States, is used to show the regional impact in 2012. Further, the analysis results are compared and contrasted with comparable periods of increased congestion in 2013, 2014, and 2016. The analysis encompasses 614 TMCs, within 10 miles of the New Jersey coast. Approximately 90 million speed records covering five counties are analyzed in the study.

Integrated optimization of offshore wind farm layout design and turbine opportunistic condition-based maintenance

Abstract A two-stage optimization model has been developed for an offshore wind farm that integrates layout design and turbine maintenance policy-making. In Stage 1, first, the optimal development of the offshore wind resource aims to maximize the wind energy production by seeking the optimal turbine layout under uncertainty of wind conditions, in which the optimal number of turbines N and their productive placement are determined. Then, the locations of N turbines are further optimized for maximal energy production. Due to the unique maintenance challenges for offshore wind farm, in Stage 2, we develop computational tools for a novel opportunistic condition-based maintenance policy, in which the periodic inspection intervals are chosen to ensure the reliable energy production with limited maintenance costs. In this study, probabilistic models are built for stochastic wind speeds and directions. We apply Monte Carlo simulation for sampling wind data from the wind probabilistic models considering multiple seasonal scenarios. The algorithm efficiency of the two-stage optimization framework is demonstrated based on the results of a case of wind farm development along the New Jersey coast.

Assessment of Plant Community Characteristics in Natural and Human-Altered Coastal Marsh Ecosystems

Salt marsh ecosystems provide many critical ecological functions, yet they are subject to considerable disturbance ranging from direct human alteration to increased inundation due to climate change. We assessed emergent salt marsh plant characteristics in the Tuckerton Peninsula, a large expanse (~ 2000 ha) of highly inundated habitat along the southern New Jersey coast, USA. Key salt marsh plant parameters were monitored in the heavily grid-ditched northern segment, Open Marsh Water Management (OMWM) altered central segment, and the shoreline altered southern segment of the peninsula in the summer months of 2011 and 2013. Plant species composition and three metrics of abundance and structure (maximum canopy height, percent areal cover, and shoot density) were examined among marsh segments, along transects within segments, seasonally by month and between years. Despite seasonal or annual variability, the northern segment of the marsh differed in plant species composition from the central and southern segments. This difference was partly due to greater percent areal cover in the northern segment of upper marsh species such as Spartina patens and Distichlis spicata. S. patens also exhibited higher shoot densities in the northern segment than the central segment. Despite the higher abundance of upper marsh species, marsh surface elevations were lower in the northern segment than in the central or southern segments, suggesting the influence of altered hydrology due to human activities. Understanding current variation in the emergent salt marsh vegetation along the peninsula will help inform future habitat change in other coastal wetlands of New Jersey and the mid-Atlantic region subject to natural and anthropogenic drivers.

Assessment of hydrodynamic competence in extreme marine events through application of Boussinesq–Green–Naghdi models

Here in present work, rotational Boussinesq–Green–Naghdi models were applied to assess the hydrodynamic intensity through the study of the boulder transport in east coast of Philippines during typhoon Haiyan and damage to coastal residences in New Jersey coast due to hurricane Sandy. The hydrodynamic forces were quantitatively analyzed and correlated to both boulder transport distance and the structural damage state in the two cases. The boulder transport was found initiated at vicinity of infragravity swash bores. Inertial force generated by the acceleration in front of the bore was found increasingly large as boulder sizes increased therefore far from negligible as in some other literatures. Besides, transport distances were highly sensitive to wave-heights and boulder sizes, so that onshore positions might be a viable approach of identifying rough magnitudes of paleostorm before other information is available. Fragility functions to predict the damage state of coastal residences due to runups was derived and preliminary validated. Water velocity and the shielding parameter were identified as major predictors of damage while free board and water depth are relatively insignificant. Due to the relative lack of wind damage observed, nearshore hydrodynamics featuring instantaneous nonhydrostatic impact might be the persistent cause of massive littoral processes and low-level structural failure in coastal regions during extreme marine events. Nonhydrostatic phase-resolving models such as Boussinesq-type models would be necessary complements for the intermediate-scale assessment of marine hazards in coastal ocean.

Benefits and ancillary costs of natural infrastructure: Evidence from the New Jersey coast

This paper empirically estimates the economic impacts of a large-scale public investment in natural infrastructure aimed at adapting to climate change and increasing coastal resilience. I utilize temporal and spatial variation in investment in dunes to provide a hedonic property value estimate of the economic benefits. I identify the net effect of treatment utilizing the doubly robust Oaxaca-Blinder estimator and show that coastal housing price increases attributable to constructed dunes are approximately 3.6%. A decomposition of the average impact suggests that the policy intervention generates ancillary costs related to impaired ocean views and privacy concerns that partially offset large protection benefits.

Inner-shelf ocean dynamics and seafloor morphologic changes during Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy was one of the most destructive hurricanes in US history, making landfall on the New Jersey coast on October 30, 2012. Storm impacts included several barrier island breaches, massive coastal erosion, and flooding. While changes to the subaerial landscape are relatively easily observed, storm-induced changes to the adjacent shoreface and inner continental shelf are more difficult to evaluate. These regions provide a framework for the coastal zone, are important for navigation, aggregate resources, marine ecosystems, and coastal evolution. Here we provide unprecedented perspective regarding regional inner continental shelf sediment dynamics based on both observations and numerical modeling over time scales associated with these types of large storm events. Oceanographic conditions and seafloor morphologic changes are evaluated using both a coupled atmospheric-ocean-wave-sediment numerical modeling system that covered spatial scales ranging from the entire US east coast (1000s of km) to local domains (10s of km). Additionally, the modeled response for the region offshore of Fire Island, NY was compared to observational analysis from a series of geologic surveys from that location. The geologic investigations conducted in 2011 and 2014 revealed lateral movement of sedimentary structures of distances up to 450m and in water depths up to 30m, and vertical changes in sediment thickness greater than 1m in some locations. The modeling investigations utilize a system with grid refinement designed to simulate oceanographic conditions with progressively increasing resolutions for the entire US East Coast (5-km grid), the New York Bight (700-m grid), and offshore of Fire Island, NY (100-m grid), allowing larger scale dynamics to drive smaller scale coastal changes. Model results in the New York Bight identify maximum storm surge of up to 3m, surface currents on the order of 2ms−1 along the New Jersey coast, waves up to 8m in height, and bottom stresses exceeding 10Pa. Flow down the Hudson Shelf Valley is shown to result in convergent sediment transport and deposition along its axis. Modeled sediment redistribution along Fire Island showed erosion across the crests of inner shelf sand ridges and sedimentation in adjacent troughs, consistent with the geologic observations.

Influence of Size, Age, and Spawning Season on Sex Change in Black Sea Bass

AbstractA tagging study was conducted off the New Jersey coast to study sex change in Black Sea Bass Centropristis striata as a function of size, age, and spawning season. Throughout 2011–2013, 3,670 fish were measured and 1,498 were tagged from research, charter, and commercial fishing vessels. Of the tagged fish, 437 were recaptured. Size at 50% probability of sex change was 355 mm TL; the proportion of female fish in sexual transition increased with body size from 0.5% at 175–225 mm to 15.7% at 375–425 mm and increased with age from 0.6% at 3 years old to 18.2% at 6 years old. Relatively few females (8 of 107) changed sex during the spawning season, but a larger proportion (8 of 22 females) transitioned between spawning seasons. The proportion of females with transitional gonads was lowest at the start of the spawning season in June (0.2%), slowly increased over the summer, and sharply peaked just after the spawning season in October (9.5%). In addition, a high proportion of young mature fish were male (40% at age 2), which may indicate the presence of primary males. This is the first tagging study to estimate sex change as a function of size, age, and season in a protogynous hermaphroditic fish species. Use of tagging avoids potential problems that are associated with inferring sex change rates from sex ratios based on catch data.

Partnership behavior in disaster relief operations: a case study comparison of the responses to the tornado in Joplin, Missouri and Hurricane Sandy along the Jersey Coast

Information about how agencies behaved in previous disasters could allow us to predict agency behavior and network structure in response to future events. In this paper, we review studies of two different disasters that occurred in the USA to provide insight into some of the common characteristics of disaster relief efforts. Specifically, the studies discussed explore how agencies involved in disaster relief operations formed and maintained partnerships by comparing survey results from Joplin, Missouri (EF-5 Tornado in 2011) and the New Jersey Coast (Hurricane Sandy in 2012). The objective of this paper is to analyze partnership creation, length, and conclusion in networks of agencies responding to disasters. 80 agencies were interviewed and over 500 partnerships were analyzed. The analysis of the data provides a building block to guide the development of inputs for future models of agency behavior and interaction. One key result was that the survey data indicated only a third of the strategic and tactical partnerships that were leveraged to support the relief effort were formalized prior to the disaster event. Additionally, it was found that partnerships between Non-Governmental Organizations were the most stable relationship. This paper provides insight into how agencies involved in disaster relief could manage their partnerships to achieve their goals.

Flood and Storm Hazard Adaptation in New Jersey’s Coastal Zone: Barriers and Opportunities

New Jersey’s coastal zone has a long history of storm and flood hazard vulnerability, as documented by copious technical reports, historical maps and surveys, storm damage assessments and flood insurance claims. In the context of geologic time, this vulnerability can be attributed, in part, to increasing sea level rise resulting from melting of Pleistocene glaciers. In the context of human time, extensive development, redevelopment and urbanization of the New Jersey coast has contributed significantly to this vulnerability. At the same time, financial constraints at the state and federal level and increasing taxpayer liability for damage recovery costs will create challenges in long-term adaptation. A number of New Jersey academics have identified the magnitude of natural hazard vulnerabilities and the importance of mitigation to promote public safety, with James K. Mitchell of Rutgers University being one of the notable contributors to that effort. Current mitigation measures may be partially effective in protecting people and property in the short term. However, barriers to effective hazard area management and adaptation planning, including physical, financial, social, demographic and political constraints, need to be addressed. Understanding the scope and impact of these barriers is critical to developing the necessary long-term adaptation plans that will promote a safe and sustainable future for New Jersey.

The Air-Coastal Sea Chemical Exchange: A Case Study on the New Jersey Coast

The coastal marine atmosphere adjacent to large urban and industrial centers is in general strongly impacted by pollution emissions, resulting in high loading of pollutants in the ambient air. Among the airborne substances are certain trace elements from a variety of emission sources that can serve as micronutrients to marine organisms in coastal waters. High concentrations of such elements in coastal air can result in enhanced air-to-sea deposition fluxes to coastal waters. They could also be transported over the open ocean, affecting the composition of the remote marine atmosphere and then ocean ecosystems. To provide better understanding of the extent of air-to-sea deposition processes on the New Jersey coast, a heavily polluted coastal region on the US East Coast, a synthesis of observation data was carried out for selected trace elements, including Fe, Cd, Cr and Cu, derived from measurements of both size-segregated and bulk aerosol particles, as well as precipitation around the New Jersey coast. The atmospheric input of Hg was also estimated based on measurement data. Results indicated that the total deposition fluxes of most trace elements were higher in Northern coastal NJ compared to Southern coastal NJ, reflecting the differences in the source strengths of these element emissions between the two coastal regions. Dry deposition processes were more significant for common dust-derived elements, particularly Fe and Al, compared with their wet deposition fluxes. However, the processes of precipitation scavenging appeared to be more important for the elements that were often enriched in fine particles including Zn, Cu, Pb and Ni. The removal of Hg from the ambient air was overwhelmingly dominated by atmospheric wet deposition. In the future, atmospheric measurements at more sites on the NJ coast should be performed simultaneously to reduce the spatial and temporal uncertainties associated with atmospheric deposition fluxes estimated in this study.

The Art of Theodore F. Rose: Nineteenth Century Lithographer and Painter

The Art of Theodore F. Rose: Nineteenth Century Lithographer and Painter Dr. Joseph H. Hall, IV Abstract Theodore F. Rose is a late-nineteenth century lithographer and painter, who is littleknown, as an artist, among both the general public and among professional art historians in even the Philadelphia-New Jersey area. He was a competent commercial lithographer being most well-known for his black and white illustrations of the beautiful homes and street scenes of the resort towns of the New Jersey Coast in the 1870’s. However, Rose was also an accomplished painter in oils, using a very dark palette, in almost exclusively outdoor settings, with the exception being at least one charming trompe l’oeil still life. I have been unable to link him to any of the early art training centers in Philadelphia in the nineteenth century. It is much more likely that he became apprenticed, or indentured, to a lithographer, working for one of the many printers or publishers in the city, where drawing and painting skills would have been developed as well. Rose had a very rough early life, losing family to disease, and serving in the United States Civil War. It is hypothesized that his melancholy background contributed to the somber, or threatening, atmosphere of his paintings. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/ijaah.v4n2a2

Europeans shine in weather forecasting

The US global model lags the performance of two European competitors in predicting weather up to two weeks ahead.