Water is the medium that ties together the forest, mangrove, wetland, beach, bay, lagoon and reef ecosystems. Because of its central role as mover of nutrients, pollution and oxygen and as an incubator of young marine organisms and the habitat of many, study of the coastal water has been a major research effort at CEA.

Studies to date have centered on the relation between fresh ground water from the interior of the peninsula and coastal brackish-water wetlands. This work has defined the dynamics controlling the discharge of ground water to the ocean, origin of the wetlands, affirmed the role of wetlands in removing pollutants from the water and has documented some of the sources of coastal pollutants.

While new aspects of the coastal drainage continue to be studied, the focus is now on the fate of contaminants in the off-shore environment. We seek to identify mechanisms through which contaminants might reach the offshore reefs. To support this effort, CEA has built an in-house water laboratory.

Student interns with appropriate skills in water analysis, oceanography and hydrology carry out the sampling and some analytical work under the supervision of CEA staff scientists. Data may be used by students for thesis or research papers.

The current program objectives are:

Identify contaminants passing to the sea through Yal Ku Lagoon at Akumal.
Track contaminants into the offshore environment. This will require developing sampling techniques for water films that are observed on the ocean surface.
Tracking of contaminant plumes over the near-shore area.
Construction of a near-shore bathymetric map that will show sea floor topography on a contour interval of 1 meter and a scale of 1:4000.


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