Workshops Build Capacity for HABs Early Warning Abroad

Workshops Build Capacity for HABs Early Warning Abroad

Harmful algal blooms are a growing challenge for coastal communities around the world. They have the potential to create dead zones in the ocean, contaminate shellfish with fatal foodborne illnesses, and kill off the marine species that people depend on for their food and livelihood.

That's where early warning systems come in.

Scientists at Bigelow Laboratory are helping develop computational tools to forecast and prepare for HABs. Predicting where these blooms will emerge and how long they'll last - and, perhaps most importantly, getting that information out to people - is helping managers and fishermen make science-informed decisions that protect food safety, public health, and local industries.

Senior Research Scientist Nick Record and Research Associate Johnathan Evanilla were both involved in creating the Department of Marine Resources' HAB forecasting tool here in Maine. Now, they're taking that expertise abroad.

This past fall, Record and Evanilla participated in workshops in Namibia and Morocco hosted by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission's HABs program. They worked with other scientists and local stakeholders to identify knowledge gaps and build technical capacity in order to begin the complex task of building an early warning system that's responsive to local needs and conditions. The workshops built off preliminary meetings held in both countries in 2022 and represent the end of the pilot stage of a broader project to put IOC's technical guidance into practice.

The experts involved hope these early efforts will help make HAB early warning systems more widely accessible as a tool for coastal communities to protect food safety and adapt to a warming ocean.

"The aquaculture industry is growing rapidly around the world, and it's expected to become a major source of global food security," Record said. "Meanwhile, there's new species showing up in new places, and the traditional seasonality of these blooms is breaking down. An early warning system can help people make decisions that balance the needs of aquaculture and seafood operations with public health and climate adaptation."

In addition to Record and Evanilla, four specialists from Europe are participating, bringing expertise in everything from shellfish monitoring to toxic algae identification. At the local level, participants represent the swath of stakeholders interested in HABs management and detection, including municipal and Indigenous governments, health and trade agencies, and the local seafood industry.

Bringing together that diverse array of interests and perspectives, Record said, is critical, since an early warning system needs to serve many different people and levels of decision making - from a family living by the water harvesting mussels to a manager regulating a fishery and beyond.

Bringing together all of those people also means bringing together all of their data. Though the specific goals and activities of each workshop varied, an ongoing priority in both countries is to create a single, real-time database for all the various pieces of information needed to predict and respond to a bloom.

"What differentiates Nick and I from the others on the team is that our focus is less on HABs than on working with data," Evanilla said. "We're able to collaborate with these stakeholders to organize the information they have, develop their programming skills, and visualize data in an empowering way to take away some meaningful insights."

Though the current phase of the project has wrapped up, everyone involved is planning to continue the effort in different ways. IOC has expressed interest in expanding the effort to other countries, and Record and Evanilla are developing virtual content to enable interested parties to continue building their skills in data analysis, management, and modeling.

The challenge is helping people create tools that are responsive to their particular needs and conditions, but that's something Record and Evanilla are primed for. They're already working with partners across the region to expand Maine's HABs forecasting tool in other states. What they've learned in Morocco and Namibia are helping inform that effort.

"These workshops have been very much a two-way knowledge exchange. We're able to bring the insights we have from Maine, and we've learned things that we're bringing home," Evanilla said.

"The ocean transcends the borders we draw, and our science should too," Record added.

Photo Captions:

Photo 1: Vanessa Gontes from the Namibian Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources samples at an oyster farm in Walvis Bay, Namibia (Credit: Johnathan Evanilla).

Photo 2: Senior Research Scientist Nick Record (seated, right) leads a data discussion at the HABs workshop in Namibia in November 2024 (Credit: Marie-Yasmine Bottein).

Photo 3: Participants of the HABs workshop in Casablanca, Morocco, in December 2024 gather for a group photo.

Photo 4: Participants of the HABs workshop in Swakopmund, Namibia, in November 2024 gather for a group photo.

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