Six projects across the state are getting $1.2 million to advance research on problems facing New Hampshire’s coastal communities and marine life.
The research ranges from the microscopic bacteria that serve as a measurement of salt marsh health to monitoring the effects of blue crabs on New Hampshire’s coast. The crustacean has been moving north as sea temperatures rise.
Erik Chapman runs the New Hampshire Sea Grant, a federal-state partnership that provides the awards every year. He said what sets these projects apart is how they’re working with communities, businesses and government agencies to find solutions.
“It’s really what makes sense when you’re trying to make a difference in the world. Solutions to problems don’t typically come from one kind of approach or another,” he said. “They require combining different ways of doing things.”
One team is working with the city of Portsmouth to develop sensors to track the timing and location of flooding at the city scale to provide communities the data and tools to prepare for and respond to these major storms.
Chapman says this project will help city officials make real-time decisions during major storm events, like in January 2024, high tides, storm surge, and rainfall led to record flooding and significant damage to coastal communities.
Another team is studying the bioaccumulation of PFAS chemicals in the American Lobster of the Great Bay Estuaries and how this contamination affects lobster fishing in the region.
PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, are man-made chemicals found in a wide variety of consumer products and are linked to cancers and other serious illnesses.
“[PFAS] has emerged as a threat to the health of both people and the environment. We know a little bit about where they are and how they are present in ecosystems, but we know less about how they persist within ecosystems,” said Chapman.
NH Sea Grant projects are also digging into long-term partnerships with cod fisheries to research the diets of Atlantic cod.
Two distinct populations of cod off the coast of New Hampshire have been recovering from population decline at different rates. Researchers hope to understand the role that the fishes’ diet may play in the varying success of reproduction and population recovery.
“The fishermen are very much on board and interested in working with scientists to help improve our understanding so that we can get to a point where we feel like we have enough information to make decisions that will support the fish and the fishermen,” Chapman said.
