NA25NOSX478C0028
Cooperative Agreement
Overview
Grant Description
Proposal title: Targeted ECOHAB: Assessing nitrogen-acidification synergies on HAB development and toxicity for water quality and shellfish management within an urban estuary.
Investigators and institutions: Dianne Greenfield, City Univ. of NY (212) 413-3154, dgreenfield@gc.cuny.edu; Penny Vlahos, Univ. of CT 806-405-9269, penny.vlahos@uconn.edu.
Total proposed cost and budget period: $1,032,631 (3 years: 1 Sept 2024 - 31 Aug 2027).
Introduction to the problem: Nitrogen (N) inputs to developed coastlines are well-known to be linked with harmful algal blooms (HABs) globally.
Models predict that HAB incidences and severities will increase as warming makes waters increasingly stagnant and conducive to algal growth while reducing dissolved oxygen solubility.
In parallel, rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations elevate PCO2 causing acidification (OA).
The synergistic stressors of eutrophication and OA become amplified in urban estuaries where anthropogenic pressure and N-loading intensify, further impacting coastal ecosystems and the services provided to community stakeholders.
Unraveling how these combined mechanisms influence HABs is thus critical for enhancing coastal ecosystem management and resilience.
Rationale: The Long Island Sound (LIS) and surrounding New York (NY) and Connecticut (CT) embayments receive excessive N inputs from wastewater, runoff, and other sources, making the region an epicenter for numerous HAB taxa.
Recently, Greenfield's lab identified novel spatial-temporal associations between inorganic N and major LIS HAB taxa (e.g., Pseudonitzschia, Alexandrium), and Vlahos group has identified LIS regions with critically low aragonite saturation levels where OA likely promotes HABs, threatening calcifying and non-calcifying organisms.
Despite evidence that N-enrichment and OA both govern HAB development, their linkages in urban estuarine ecosystems remain poorly understood, hindering HAB surveillance and/or shellfish biotoxin assessments.
This project addresses that knowledge gap, ECOHAB priorities, and management needs by identifying the combined effects of N and OA on HAB development and toxicity, emphasizing species identified by managers as priorities.
Scientific objectives and hypotheses: The over-arching hypothesis is that HAB and OA dynamics are inextricably linked through associations with N-form and concentration.
LIS embayments are simultaneously impacted by N and OA at biogeochemical (respiration, hypoxia) and trophic (food web, shellfish) scales making them ideal environments to test this hypothesis through the following objectives.
1) Determine the spatial and temporal variability of key HABs and toxins related to water quality and nutrients (particularly N) along an urban-suburban gradient;
2) Measure the full carbonate system and OA parameters (total alkalinity (TA), dissolved inorganic carbon, PCO2, pH);
3) Test HAB species responses to N in embayments with differing TA;
4) Generate publicly-available, spatial assessments of HAB risk that characterize HAB and OA parameters to inform water quality and shellfish safety management.
Summary of work to be completed: In collaboration with NY/CT HAB and shellfish managers and CT NERR reserve staff, this study will entail field surveys (Y1-3) and targeted bioassay incubations (Y2-3) to identify the combined influences of N and OA, thus overall HAB risk, highlighting species of management concern (Alexandrium, Pseudo-nitzschia, Dinophysis).
Measurements will include synoptic sampling of phytoplankton, physical water quality, nutrients, and OA, from regions with a history of blooms, ongoing shellfish harvesting, and future HAB monitoring sites.
Seasonal N-addition bioassays will be conducted in embayments of varying TA to test the combined influences of OA and N on HAB species growth and toxicity.
Data will be used to generate layers of spatial assessments of seasonal HAB risk as management tools, thereby informing HAB and shellfish safety management.
Investigators and institutions: Dianne Greenfield, City Univ. of NY (212) 413-3154, dgreenfield@gc.cuny.edu; Penny Vlahos, Univ. of CT 806-405-9269, penny.vlahos@uconn.edu.
Total proposed cost and budget period: $1,032,631 (3 years: 1 Sept 2024 - 31 Aug 2027).
Introduction to the problem: Nitrogen (N) inputs to developed coastlines are well-known to be linked with harmful algal blooms (HABs) globally.
Models predict that HAB incidences and severities will increase as warming makes waters increasingly stagnant and conducive to algal growth while reducing dissolved oxygen solubility.
In parallel, rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations elevate PCO2 causing acidification (OA).
The synergistic stressors of eutrophication and OA become amplified in urban estuaries where anthropogenic pressure and N-loading intensify, further impacting coastal ecosystems and the services provided to community stakeholders.
Unraveling how these combined mechanisms influence HABs is thus critical for enhancing coastal ecosystem management and resilience.
Rationale: The Long Island Sound (LIS) and surrounding New York (NY) and Connecticut (CT) embayments receive excessive N inputs from wastewater, runoff, and other sources, making the region an epicenter for numerous HAB taxa.
Recently, Greenfield's lab identified novel spatial-temporal associations between inorganic N and major LIS HAB taxa (e.g., Pseudonitzschia, Alexandrium), and Vlahos group has identified LIS regions with critically low aragonite saturation levels where OA likely promotes HABs, threatening calcifying and non-calcifying organisms.
Despite evidence that N-enrichment and OA both govern HAB development, their linkages in urban estuarine ecosystems remain poorly understood, hindering HAB surveillance and/or shellfish biotoxin assessments.
This project addresses that knowledge gap, ECOHAB priorities, and management needs by identifying the combined effects of N and OA on HAB development and toxicity, emphasizing species identified by managers as priorities.
Scientific objectives and hypotheses: The over-arching hypothesis is that HAB and OA dynamics are inextricably linked through associations with N-form and concentration.
LIS embayments are simultaneously impacted by N and OA at biogeochemical (respiration, hypoxia) and trophic (food web, shellfish) scales making them ideal environments to test this hypothesis through the following objectives.
1) Determine the spatial and temporal variability of key HABs and toxins related to water quality and nutrients (particularly N) along an urban-suburban gradient;
2) Measure the full carbonate system and OA parameters (total alkalinity (TA), dissolved inorganic carbon, PCO2, pH);
3) Test HAB species responses to N in embayments with differing TA;
4) Generate publicly-available, spatial assessments of HAB risk that characterize HAB and OA parameters to inform water quality and shellfish safety management.
Summary of work to be completed: In collaboration with NY/CT HAB and shellfish managers and CT NERR reserve staff, this study will entail field surveys (Y1-3) and targeted bioassay incubations (Y2-3) to identify the combined influences of N and OA, thus overall HAB risk, highlighting species of management concern (Alexandrium, Pseudo-nitzschia, Dinophysis).
Measurements will include synoptic sampling of phytoplankton, physical water quality, nutrients, and OA, from regions with a history of blooms, ongoing shellfish harvesting, and future HAB monitoring sites.
Seasonal N-addition bioassays will be conducted in embayments of varying TA to test the combined influences of OA and N on HAB species growth and toxicity.
Data will be used to generate layers of spatial assessments of seasonal HAB risk as management tools, thereby informing HAB and shellfish safety management.
Funding Goals
20 HEALTHY OCEANS
Grant Program (CFDA)
Awarding / Funding Agency
Place of Performance
New York,
New York
100311246
United States
Geographic Scope
Single Zip Code
Research Foundation Of The City University Of New York was awarded
Cooperative Agreement NA25NOSX478C0028
worth $373,169
from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in June 2025 with work to be completed primarily in New York New York United States.
The grant
has a duration of 3 years and
was awarded through assistance program 11.478 Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research Coastal Ocean Program.
The Cooperative Agreement was awarded through grant opportunity Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB) Program.
Status
(Ongoing)
Last Modified 7/21/25
Period of Performance
6/1/25
Start Date
5/31/28
End Date
Funding Split
$373.2K
Federal Obligation
$0.0
Non-Federal Obligation
$373.2K
Total Obligated
Activity Timeline
Additional Detail
Award ID FAIN
NA25NOSX478C0028
SAI Number
NA25NOSX478C0028-000
Award ID URI
None
Awardee Classifications
Public/State Controlled Institution Of Higher Education
Awarding Office
1305N2 DEPT OF COMMERCE NOAA
Funding Office
1333BM INTERAGENCY METEOROLOGICAL COORDINATION OFFICE
Awardee UEI
EUYXHRL5MLL3
Awardee CAGE
5LRV7
Performance District
NY-13
Senators
Kirsten Gillibrand
Charles Schumer
Charles Schumer
Modified: 7/21/25