NOAA scientists today released a 20-year study showing that environmental laws enacted in the 1970s are having a positive effect on reducing overall contaminant levels in coastal waters of the U.S. However, the report points to continuing concerns with elevated levels of metals and organic contaminants found near urban and industrial areas of the coasts.

To help resource managers improve the health of coastal waters degraded by nutrient pollution, a group of scientists has developed a framework for prioritizing stream restoration efforts aimed at reducing the amount of nitrogen flowing downstream.

Recent research at MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering suggests how aquatic plants in rivers and streams may play a major role in the health of large areas of ocean coastal waters.

A Canada-U.S. research team has found that commercial fisheries play an unexpected role in the decline of water quality in coastal waters. In the latest issue of Nature Geoscience, Roxane Maranger and Nina Caraco explain that the collapse of the fisheries from decades of over fishing has played a significant role in disturbing the balance between nitrogen entering and leaving costal water systems.

Marine bacteria come almost a billion to a cup. Until recently, however, little has been known about how these minute creatures live or what they need to flourish.

Like bank accounts, the nutrient cycles that influence the natural world are regulated by inputs and outputs. If a routine withdrawal is overlooked, balance sheets become inaccurate. Over time, overlooked deductions can undermine our ability to understand and manage ecological systems.

The release of sulfur and nitrogen into the atmosphere by power plants and agricultural activities plays a minor role in making the ocean more acidic on a global scale, but the impact is greatly amplified in the shallower waters of the coastal ocean, according to new research by atmospheric and marine chemists.

A dime-sized tropical crab that has invaded coastal waters in the Southeast United States is having both positive and negative effects on oyster reefs, leaving researchers unable to predict what the creature’s long-term impact will be.

Using data from instruments aboard NASA satellites, Zhiqiang Chen and colleagues at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg, found that they can monitor water quality almost daily, rather than monthly. Such information has direct application for resource managers devising restoration plans for coastal water ecosystems and federal and state regulators in charge of defining water quality standards.

Low oxygen levels in coastal waters interfere with fish reproduction by disrupting the fishes’ hormones, a marine scientist from The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute has found.

Seawater intrusion is often the consequence of freshwater aquifers overexploitation. This is a very common and serious phenomenon all over the Mediterranean basin, as well as in other areas with similar weather conditions and population.

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have found a new and substantial pathway for mercury pollution flowing into coastal waters. Marine chemists have detected much more dissolved mercury entering the ocean through groundwater than from atmospheric and river sources.