Panama City Beach Research Articles

Application of Coastal Resilience Metrics at Panama City Beach, Florida

Application of Coastal Resilience Metrics at Panama City Beach, Florida

Chronic interaction between humans and free-ranging bottlenose dolphins near Panama City Beach, Florida, USA

‘Swim-with’ activities, in which humans enter the water to interact with free-ranging cetaceans, are a popular form of nature tourism; however, there is considerable disagreement as to whether these encounters constitute a threat to the animals. At the request of the US Marine Mammal Commission, a systematic study was designed to quantify effects of swim-with activities on the behaviour of bottlenose dolphins in waters near Panama City Beach, Florida. Certain dolphin behaviours were identified as indicative of chronic interaction with humans, and based on presence of these behaviours, at least seven dolphins were identified that permitted people to swim nearby. Because these dolphins accepted food handouts from people, they were considered to be conditioned to human interaction through food reinforecement. Specific human-dolphin interactions that posed a risk for dolphins or humans were identified, and it was calculated that human interaction put a specific juvenile dolphin at risk once every 12 min, including being fed by humans once every 39-59 min. Humans interacting with that dolphin were estimated to be at risk once every 29 min. Although the study was of limited duration, the observations were so clear-cut and the nature of interactions so potentially hazardous it was concluded that food provisioning was the probable basis for swimming with free-ranging dolphins near Panama City Beach, Florida, and therefore, human interaction at this location was likely to be harmful to the dolphins and in clear violation of the US Marine Mammal Protection Act. Of equal importance to the findings of this study is the methodology. A systematic behavioural methodology was designed that can be adapted to study potential impacts of nature tourism on coastal communities of cetaceans in which individuals are readily distinguished. The focus was on the behaviour of individual animals in order to describe and quantify in-water interactions between dolphins and humans, to make behavioural comparisons for the same individual dolphins in the presence and absence of swimmers, and to make behavioural comparisons for individual dolphins in the same region that do and do not interact with swimmers. Coupled with standard photo-identification techniques, these methods can be used to identify the class of animals, or proportion of a local community, that is more likely to interact with, be detrimentally affected by, and/or avoid human interaction. Sequential observations of the same individuals taken over time can be used to document habituation or sensitisation to human interaction.

West Nile Virus Surveillance in Sentinel Chickens and Mosquitoes in Panama City Beach, Florida, from 2014 To 2020.

Over 20 years since its introduction, the West Nile virus (WNV) continues to be the leading cause of arboviral disease in the USA. In Panama City Beach (Bay County, FL), WNV transmission is monitored using sentinel chickens and testing mosquito pools for presence of viral RNA. In the current work, we monitored WNV transmission from 2014 to 2020 through weekly serology sampling of sentinel chickens; mosquito populations through biweekly mosquito collections by suction traps (1 m and 9 m) and weekly gravid trap collections; and mosquito infection rates using a reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay. Samples were sent to the Bureau of Public Health Laboratories (Tampa, FL) for testing presence/absence of WNV via RT-PCR assay. Our results indicated that canopy surveillance could augment ground collections, providing greater proportions of Culex mosquitoes with less bycatch compared with ground collections. Serology indicated 94 seroconversions to WNV in the study area from 2014 to 2020. The most active year was 2016, which accounted for 32% (n = 30) of all seroconversions reported during the study period. We detected 20 WNV-positive mosquito pools from Culex quinquefasciatus during 2014-17; mosquito infection rates ranged from 2.02 to 23.81 per thousand (95% CI). Climate data indicated anomalously high precipitation in 2014-19 preceding WNV transmission. Data analyzed herein indicate utility in year-round continuous and diversified surveillance methodologies. This information is needed to properly calibrate future models that could assist with predicting transmission events of WNV in Panama City Beach, FL.

Observations and Modeling of Wave‐Induced Burial and Sediment Entrainment: Likely Importance of Degree of Liquefaction

AbstractWave‐seabed interaction is known to be a fundamental cause of sediment instability and entrainment. Observations of burial for surrogate munitions were made with a high frequency, sector scanning sonar acquiring acoustic images of the seabed every 12 min during a storm event in May 2013 in the northern Gulf of Mexico offshore of Panama City Beach, FL. Surrogate munitions burial depth was verified by divers. Driven by time series of pressure observed near the seabed, an existing poro‐elastic wave‐sediment interaction model in combination with a sediment failure criterion due to liquefaction (loss of vertical effective stress) was used to correctly estimate depth and timing of burial. We introduce the concept of liquefaction degree, which is defined as the portion of vertical effective stress at the sediment surface that is, counteracted by wave‐induced pore pressures. The relationship between wave‐induced pressure at the seabed and liquefaction degree is expressed by a complex transfer function, indicating the importance of the swell band with respect to infra‐gravity and short‐wave components. The liquefaction degree was used to construct and calibrate a dynamical relationship between wave action and acoustic backscatter observations near the seabed, taken as a surrogate for suspended sediment concentration. Predictions of backscatter based on liquefaction degree were accurate at time scales of 15 s–30 min during most of the time span analyzed and superior to predictions of backscatter based on shear stress. The observations and analysis provide evidence for the importance of wave‐induced seepage forces in describing sediment liquefaction and entrainment processes.

CONSIDERATIONS OF MORPHOLOGIC OBSERVATIONS OF MOSQUITO SPECIES FROM IDENTIFYING COMPLETE SAMPLES IN PANAMA CITY BEACH, FLORIDA

In Panama City Beach, Florida, thirteen mosquito species have been recently registered into public health data banks over the span of 7 years [2014-2020], ten species within their published geographic range and three species outside of their noted geographic range. The underreporting is likely due to past identification practices of sub-sampling and aliquoting surveillance collections while only recording the top-most three abundant species for control application thresholds. However, these thirteen species have not been recorded in this area by public health operations up until their respective record timelines. Timelines of identification, species specific character states, the dynamic of identifying similar species and alternate identification methods are discussed. As of 2020, 10 genera and 50 species within Diptera: Culicidae are recorded in Panama City Beach, FL, U.S.A.

Impacts of range-dependent bottom type on mid-frequency propagation

The Target and Reverberation Experiment in 2013 (TREX13) focused on mid-frequency propagation and reverberation in shallow water off the coast of Panama City Beach, FL. The seafloor at the site primarily consisted of long-wavelength (150–200 m), small-amplitude (∼1 m) sand ridges with narrow (20–30 m wide) regions of mud in the swales. Backscatter measurements using a multibeam sonar indicated that roughly 10%–20% of the seafloor was covered in mud. During the experiment, a source transmitting tones from 1.5 to 4.0 kHz was towed past two stationary vertical line arrays to measure the transmission loss (TL) along the track. The measured TL was found to be midway between the predictions for pure sand and puremud sediments, despite the limited amount of mud at the site. Range-dependent propagation models which incorporate this variation in sediment type, indicate that the mud regions act as sinks of acoustic energy producing a significant increase in loss. Also, the spatial distribution is such that the mud regions cannot be discerned in the TL range-dependence. The implications of this range-dependence on both inversion and reverberation will be discussed. [Work supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research.]

Application of Storm Erosion Index (SEI) to parameterize spatial storm intensity and impacts from Hurricane Michael

Hurricane Michael made landfall as a Category 5 Hurricane on 10 October 2018 between Mexico Beach, Florida and Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City Beach, Florida causing damages totaling $25 billion (Beven et al. 2019). While damages were caused by both wind and surge, this paper is solely concerned with the surge induced damages which were observed predominantly within 50 km (27 nmi) of the hurricane’s path. Generally, regions to the east of Hurricane Michael’s landfall sustained the most severe damages and appear consistent with the spatial gradient in peak water levels. This gradient was marked; with surge induced damage concentrated in the immediate vicinity of Mexico Beach and attenuating significantly over distances as little as 37 km (20 nmi) to the west in Panama City Beach and east in Port Saint Joe (Kennedy, in review). The gradient in erosion was also pronounced, with Panama City Beach experiencing an average erosion rate of 0.4 m3/m (3.9 cy/ft) while Mexico Beach and Cape San Blas experienced rates approximately three (1.1 m3/m or 11.5 cy/ft) and five (1.7 m3/m or 18.5 cy/ft) times that. For inherent reasons, the pronounced gradient in surge damages and erosion values are of primary interest to coastal researchers and managers. Storm Erosion Index (SEI), developed by Miller and Livermont (2008) combines the three primary drivers of coastal erosion (wave height, total water level, and storm duration) into a physically meaningful form to evaluate storms based on their erosion potential. Here, SEI is applied to explore these spatial variations at seven distinct regions within the Florida Panhandle and are compared to the observed impacts for both erosion and structural damages. These regions include: (west to east) Panama City Beach, Tyndall Air Force Base (AFB), Mexico Beach, Cape San Blas, Port St. Joe, St. Vincent Island, and St. George Island. Empirically, the cumulative SEI relates well with the observed beach erosion; while the Peak Erosion Intensity (PEI) was found to better capture the trends in structural damages. By capturing the spatial variation of the storm intensity, SEI and PEI are therefore proposed as a viable engineering demand parameter with potential applications in community scale fragility curves.

PA/LTC Goes Around the World in Online Communities

PA/LTC Goes Around the World in Online Communities

Population Genomic Analysis of the Blue CrabCallinectes sapidusUsing Genotyping-By-Sequencing

Previous genetic studies of the blue crab Callinectes sapidus along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts have reported weak or temporally variable spatial structure, suggesting high gene flow among distant populations possibly facilitated by long-distance larval dispersal or other features of blue crab life history. The use of relatively few genetic markers, however, may have limited power to detect subtle but significant structure that could inform fisheries management. In this study, the potential for genome-scale datasets to uncover subtle patterns of population structure in the blue crab was examined using a high-throughput genotyping approach (genotyping-by-sequencing) that generated data for more than 9,600 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in crabs from three populations: Panama City Beach, FL, Agawam River, MA, and Porto Alegre, Brazil. Principle components analyses among the three populations revealed very distinct clustering of the Brazilian samples from U.S. populations, likely reflecting restricted gene flow across the equator. Detailed analysis of population structure between the two U.S. populations revealed low but significant genetic differentiation (FST = 0.0103), with FST values ranging from -0.05 to 0.48. Previous studies have failed to detect significant genetic structure on a similar geographic scale. FST outlier analysis identified 242 loci (2.45% of total) with statistically extreme values at the false discovery rate α = 0.05 level, only 16 of which showed significant sequence homology to annotated proteins via BLASTx alignment. Top BLASTx hits were to crustacean or arthropod sequences and 8 of the 16 had high sequence similarity to transposable elements or related machinery. Finally, results of population assignment tests for the two U.S. populations showed that the full marker dataset provided good power to assign individuals back to their population of origin (∼83% and 92% success for Panama City Beach and Agawam River, respectively), which dropped significantly when using only 500 randomly selected SNPs (∼61% and 72% success). Overall, this study demonstrates the great utility of high-throughput sequencing technologies for characterizing fine-scale patterns of genetic structure in blue crabs, and this approach should substantially improve the delineation of stock structure and further advance our understanding of blue crab population connectivity and ecology.

Reclaiming Water to Rehydrate Wetlands: Panama City Beach's Conservation Park

When a gulf coast city in florida addressed issues with its treated wastewater disposal, it also restored wetlands and created a park for public enjoyment.

High-frequency, vertically directional short-range underwater acoustic communications

The underwater acoustic channel is a challenging environment for achieving high data rate communications due to multipath, attenuation, noise, and propagation delay. Performing and maintaining adaptive channel equalization requires significant computational overhead, leading to costly and power-hungry devices. Here we describe a low-cost reconfigurable acoustic modem platform (RAMP) intended to facilitate a cable-less benthic hydrophone array made from inexpensive and replaceable nodes. The high data rate acoustic modem is modulated on a carrier frequency of 750 kHz via binary phase shift keying (BPSK). Each modem is spaced approximately 10 m from adjacent units. Due to the vertical directivity of the transducer the half-maximum envelope of the main lobe is approximately 3°, thereby mitigating multipath from the bottom. Data at rates of up to 125 kbps will be shown from at-sea experimental measurements made in Panama City Beach, Fl. [This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research.]

Bubble–wall interaction and two-phase flow parameters on a full-scale boat boundary layer

Full scale bubbly flow experiments were performed on a 6m flat bottom survey boat, measuring the void fraction, bubble velocity and size distributions as the bubbles naturally entrained at the bow of the boat interact with the boat’s boundary layer. Double-tip sapphire optical probes capable of measuring bubbles down to 50μm in diameter were specifically designed and built for this experiment. The probes were positioned under the hull at the bow near the bubble entrainment region and at the stern at the exit of the bottom flat plate. Motorized positioners were used to vary the probe distance to the wall from 0 to 50mm. The experiments were performed in fresh water (Coralville Lake, IA) and salt water (Panama City Beach, FL), at varying velocities with most data analysis performed at 10, 14 and 18knots. The results indicate that the bubbles interact significantly with the boundary layer. At low velocity in fresh water, bubble accumulation under the hull and coalescence are evident by the presence of large bubbles at the stern. At high speeds bubble breakup dominates and very small bubbles are produced near the wall. It is also observed that salt water inhibits coalescence, even at low boat speeds. The void fraction increases with speed beyond 10knots and peaks near the wall. Bubble velocities show slip with the wall at all speeds and exhibit large RMS fluctuations, increasing near the wall.

The Reliability of Turbidity and Debris Moving Seaward to Spot Rip Currents on Florida Beaches and the Need for Better Warning and Education Programs

ABSTRACT Fletemeyer, J., 2014. The reliability of turbidity and debris moving seaward to spot rip currents on Florida Beaches and the need for better warning and education programs. In: Lee, J.L.; Leatherman, Stephen P., and Lee, J. (eds.), Proceedings 3rd International Rip Current Symposium (Busan, Republic of Korea). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, No. 72, pp. 39–43. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. In response to the estimated 100 bathers that fatally drown in rip currents on America's beaches every year, several warning and public education programs have been developed and implemented. Results from a 20-year study conducted by Fletemeyer on Panama City Beach, Florida reports that these programs, although well intended, are marginally effective with little gains in what bathers accurately know about rip currents. Education programs are often predicated on the belief that the public can learn how to spot rip currents while standing on the beach and studying the water. Two indicators ...

High-frequency sediment acoustics over transitions from dense shell hash to mud: Repeat surveys at 7 frequencies from 150 kHz to 450 kHz

Seafloor acoustic backscatter data were collected with a high-frequency multibeam echo-sounder offshore Panama City Beach, FL, in May 2013, as part of the Target and Reverberation Experiment 2013 (TREX13) sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). In this context, 7 repeat surveys of a 3 km2 area were done at individual frequencies ranging from 150 to 450 kHz, in 50 kHz increments. The regional seafloor terrain is characterized by a ridge-swale topography. Sediments in the area surveyed include mixtures of sand and mud in various proportions, augmented with shell hash whose distribution appears to be driven by bottom currents. This is inferred from maps of acoustic backscatter intensity data that show sharp boundaries (>10 dB) between dense shell hash accumulations and mud. These sediment acoustic transitions occur over a few meters and extend across the survey area, usually at the bottom of a swale. The transition pattern is consistent at all frequencies in the 7 maps of acoustic backscatter intensity (one per frequency). [Work funded by ONR Code 32OA, with sonar technical support by Teledyne-RESON.]

SAND BORROW AREA DESIGN REFINEMENT TO REDUCE MORPHOLOGICAL IMPACTS: A CASE STUDY OF PANAMA CITY BEACH, FLORIDA, USA.

The coastline of Panama City Beach, Florida (FL) has been stricken by several hurricanes during the last decades, especially after 1995. In 1998, beach nourishment projects started being implemented to address the impacts of the hurricanes on the coast. Sources of sand for that purpose are commonly from borrow areas located just offshore of the nourishment site. Impacts of these nearshore dredge pits on adjacent coasts will depend on incident wave conditions, nourishment sediment characteristics and some features of the borrow pit (distance from the shore, depth of cut, cross-shore extent, alongshore extent and orientation - Bender & Dean, 2003; Benedet & List, 2008). The practical goal of the current study was to mitigate for the negative potential effects by discovering the less impactful design of dredge pit geometries on the Borrow Area S1 in Bay County-FL. Five different cut widths and excavation depths within the permitted limits were herein evaluated. Evaluation of morphological impacts on adjacent beaches was carried with the processed-based morphodynamic model Delft3D, calibrated and simulated for a period of 13 years. Results were evaluated in terms of beach volume changes compared against a baseline simulation (no action).Switching from Alternative 1 (6,260,000 m³) to Alternative 2 (5,380,000 m³) does not result in a substantial reduction of the borrow area's projected impact. The cut depth is still deep, and the surface area is unchanged. Alternative 3 (3,555,000 m³) is able to provide more substantial reductions in the borrow area's impact. By reducing the acreage of the borrow area and switching to a uniform cut depth, the projected impact of the borrow area decreases 39% for 1.56 km along the downdrift beach. Under Alternatives 4 (3,060,000 m³) and 5 (2,755,000 m³), the impacts of the borrow area are projected to be less than 3.75 m³/m/yr. While both alternatives are viable, Alternative 5 minimizes potential impacts, and has a uniform cut depth and a volume that still satisfies the project's requirements. Given these considerations, Alternative 5 is the preferred alternative. Additionally, all the alternatives increase the net-accretion along 6.5 km of Shell Island between 0.25 to 1 m³/lm/yr., a valuable side effect in a region with high net erosion. By conducting various simulations an optimal borrow area design has been identified that reduces its effects on the adjacent beaches.

Winter coastal movement of Gulf of Mexico sturgeon throughout northwest Florida and southeast Alabama

Summary In order to characterize distribution of Gulf of Mexico sturgeon in nearshore Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and compare distributions prior to and after hurricane activity, 187 Gulf sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus desotoi) were tagged with acoustic transmitters in Ochlockonee, Apalachicola, Brothers, Choctawhatchee, Yellow, Blackwater and Escambia rivers to monitor marine movement along the GOM coastline from Florida (FL) to Alabama (AL). Nine juveniles (79–86 cm fork length, 3.4–5.2 kg), 22 sub-adults (91–126 cm fork length, 4.5–17.1 kg) and 156 adults (130–210 cm fork length, 14.9–75.2 kg) were tagged between 2003 and 2005 and acoustically monitored each year between January and April, 2004–2008. Of the 187 tagged Gulf sturgeon, 72 adults, one sub-adult and no juveniles were relocated in the GOM throughout the entire duration of monitoring between 2004 and 2008. Fish were relocated on average 1.5 km from shore in two very important foraging and over wintering areas, one of which is not currently protected under the critical habitat designation: Site A located geographically between Pensacola, FL and Gulf Shores, AL and Site B located between Mexico Beach, FL and Panama City Beach, FL. Sediment studies conducted concluded that substrate at Site A consisted of fine sand, shell and areas of silty mud and substrate at Site B consisted of shell hash and fine sand. Macro invertebrates, such as polychaetes: Hobsonia florida and Mediomastus ambiseta and mollusk: Ervillia concentric, all typical to the Gulf sturgeon diet, were present at both sites. Forty-three tagged adult Gulf sturgeon were relocated at Site A and 27 adults and one sub-adult were relocated at Site B, with two additional fish located in other areas. Individual fish movement in one direction ranged from 10 to 315 km each year. Several fish exited one river, over wintered in the GOM, and entered a different river. Identification of new, frequently used Gulf sturgeon habitat (Site A), outside of federally protected critical habitat, provided vital information that will aid in the future protection of coastal areas that support Gulf sturgeon during the winter and help with recovery efforts of the species.

Ineffectiveness of Mass Trapping for Mosquito Control in St. Andrews State Park, Panama City Beach, Florida

ABSTRACT. Mass trapping with multiple CO2- and octenol-supplemented Mosquito Magnet X traps (MM-X), operated 24 h/day, 7 days/wk, from March through November 2008, at St. Andrews State Park on northwest Florida's Gulf Coast, did not significantly reduce mosquito numbers compared to nontreated control sites. Anopheles crucians, Aedes taeniorhynchus, Culex salinarius, and Culex erraticus were the predominant species. Culex coronator was also collected for the first time in the park. Failure to reduce a late season outbreak of Ae. taeniorhynchus within the trapping area required adulticide application to achieve mosquito control.

Buried target detection with a synthetic aperture sonar

Synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) systems can provide the high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratios that are important in detecting buried targets. Previous experiments with the Coastal Systems Station SAS have shown good results for above critical grazing angle targets and mixed results for below critical angle targets. Interest in characterizing the environmental conditions, which can allow detection at sub-critical angles, has prompted additional SAS testing. This paper describes a buried target experiment that included two 1.5-meter by 0.5-meter cylindrical targets, one 35-cm silicon-fluid-filled sphere, and two 58-cm air-filled spheres. These targets were buried under sandy sediment in 17 meters of water approximately 1 mile offshore from Panama City Beach, Florida. Above critical angle and below critical angle runs were made during November 2001 and June 2002. Environmental conditions and the seafloor ripple structure were reported by divers and, during the 2002 experiment, measured by the Applied Physics Laboratory/University of Washington with their second-generation in situ measurement of porosity (IMP2) instrumentation.

Involvement: Travel motivation and destination selection

Researchers and marketers are interested in understanding and predicting the complex behaviours of consumers. One important facet of consumer behaviour is the ‘involvement’ construct. Involvement is ‘a person’s perceived relevance of the object based on inherent needs, values, and interests’. 1 This study examined the interplay between the involvement construct and push/pull factors as motivators in destination selection. Clements and Josiam 2 found that college students who had travelled during the Spring Break vacation had significantly higher levels of involvement than non-travellers. This study surveyed 795 college students during their Spring Break vacation at the beach in Panama City Beach, Florida. Vacationers were found to be highly involved with the concept of travelling on Spring Break. As hypothesised, high levels of involvement were significantly associated with push factors relevant to travel to beachfront destinations on Spring Break. High levels of involvement were also significanlty associated with the pull factors of Panama City Beach, Florida, as a popular beachfront destination for Spring Breakers.

College Students' Binge Drinking at a Beach-Front Destination During Spring Break

Four hundred forty-two women and 341 men were surveyed at Panama City Beach, Florida, to assess the effects of gender, age, fraternity or sorority membership, and travel motivation on alcohol consumption and binge drinking during spring break. The mean number of drinks consumed the previous day was 18 for men and 10 for women; 91.7% of the men and 78.1% of the women had participated in a binge-drinking episode during the previous day. Respondents less than 21 years old consumed less alcohol and reported significantly lower frequencies of intoxication than those over 21. The men's reported levels of alcohol consumption, binge drinking, and intoxication to the point of sickness were significantly higher than the women's, but fraternity or sorority membership was not associated with higher levels of consumption. Students motivated to visit the specific destination because of its “party” reputation consumed significantly more alcohol than students who cited other reasons for going there.