Water quality research

Hurricane Helene dropped an unheard-of 40 trillion gallons of water, creating a water quality and quantity crisis on the ground in inland states affected by the Category 4 storm that made landfall in Florida. Part One of WGCU's Water Quality Report: Hurricane Helene Special Edtion

With little time to spare scientists with the USGS attached wave sensors on anything the agency thought might be standing after Hurricane Helene roared through

I can explain how red tide can be here and not be here simultaneously. Part of it lies in how that sneaky basic component of red tide, Karenia brevis, is, along with the vernacular use of “red tide” versus the scientific meaning. And seagulls.

Connie Ramos-Williams is the new director of Calusa Waterkeeper in Southwest Florida

Lake Okeechobee is high for this time of year so we must consider releases to lower water levels before the wet and hurricane seasons no date to open the floodgates has been determined — or has it?

Ever since since the FGCU Water School began deploying their underwater classroom and laboratory, scientific research has been underway at Kimberly’s Reef. Professors and students are studying the entire water column surrounding the villages. Already changes are being made by wildlife inhabiting the reef, starting at the bottom or benthic zone.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is now accepting requests for water-quality grants from local governments, academic institutions, and nonprofits. More than $390 million is available to plan and put into practice projects that protect Florida’s water resources.

A unique classroom is literally growing beneath the waves off the coast of Florida. In the Gulf of Mexico, seven and a half miles due west of Bonita Beach and 30 feet below the surface grows Kimberly's Reef, an artificial reef complex created by The Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University. WGCU is producing a documentary about the reef and the planned scientific research around it. In the meantime, WGCU’s Pam James will keep folks informed of progress on the reef and the documentary with the occasional "Dispatch from Kimberly’s Reef." Here is the first.

Florida Gulf Coast University began installing the base of its new artificial reef, named Kimberly’s Reef, in the Gulf of Mexico. Groups of concrete culverts will create an 11-acre underwater laboratory for scientific experimentation and research.

Dr. James Douglass of the FGCU Water School, along with two FGCU biology students, Tori Guarino and Carter Oleckna, are on a mission to restore the pond at Fairwinds in Bonita Springs, from both a plant and water quality standpoint. The project could become a model for other communities in Southwest Florida.