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Environments
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Monitoring and Assessment of Environmental Quality in Coastal Ecosystems Volume...
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Monitoring and Assessment of Environmental Quality in Coastal Ecosystems Volume II

A special issue of Environments (ISSN 2076-3298).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 April 2023) | Viewed by 16819

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Sílvia C. Gonçalves

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Marine and Environmental Sciences Center, ESTM—School of Tourism and Maritime Technology, Polytechnic of Leiria, 2520-641 Peniche, Portugal
Interests: biodiversity and ecosystem functioning; environmental risk; aquaculture and fisheries; biotechnology and resources valorization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Coastal ecosystems are dynamic, complex, and often fragile transition environments between land and oceans. They are exclusive habitats for a broad range of living organisms, function as havens for biodiversity, and provide several important ecological services that link terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments.

Humans living in coastal zones have been strongly dependent on these ecosystems as a source of food, physical protection against storms and the advancing sea, and a range of human activities that generate economic income (e.g., tourism and water sports). Notwithstanding, the intensification of human activities in coastal areas in recent decades, as well as the global climatic changes and coastal erosion processes of the present, have introduced detrimental impacts on these environments. Organic and inorganic pollution, marine anthropogenic litter, destruction, and fragmentation and modification of habitats for multiple purposes, overexploitation of natural resources, introduction of invasive species, and loss of biodiversity are among the most common impacts. Maintaining the structural and functional integrity of these environments, as well as recovering an ecological balance or mitigating disturbances in systems under the influence of such stressors, are complex tasks, only possible through the implementation of monitoring programs and assessment of their environmental quality.

In this Special Issue, I invite colleagues to contribute original research papers and review articles on all aspects of environmental quality monitoring and assessment of coastal ecosystems, with a focus on biotic or abiotic compartments (or both) and using tools that may range between ecological levels of organization from individuals to the ecosystem.

Dr. Sílvia C. Gonçalves
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Environments is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • coastal ecosystems
  • environmental quality and environmental indexes
  • monitoring and/or assessment programs
  • environmental disturbances
  • pressures and stressors
  • anthropogenic impacts
  • bioindicators
  • biomonitors
  • ecotoxicology and biomarkers
  • populations
  • communities and ecosystem responses

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 2955 KiB  
Article
Influence of Local Factors on Coastal Erosion: The Case of Vagueira Beach in Portugal
by Luiz Magalhães Filho, Peter Roebeling and Carlos Coelho
Environments 2023, 10(2), 24; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments10020024 - 30 Jan 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3526
Abstract
Vagueira Beach, on the central Portuguese coast, is known as one of the places in Europe most affected by coastal erosion. The area has suffered more than 156 m of coastline retreat from the period 1958 to 2001. With the aim of evaluating [...] Read more.
Vagueira Beach, on the central Portuguese coast, is known as one of the places in Europe most affected by coastal erosion. The area has suffered more than 156 m of coastline retreat from the period 1958 to 2001. With the aim of evaluating the influence of local factors on coastal erosion, this paper assesses the anthropogenic and natural factors that are related to the retreat of the coastline by adopting statistical correlation and regression analyses. Through Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r), it was observed that local factors, such as annual dredging at the Aveiro Port entrance (r = 0.93), the total length of groins in the Espinho–Vagueira section (r = 0.89), and storm events (r = 0.52), are directly related to coastline retreat in the area. A multiple linear regression model was developed in which coastline retreat is explained by these same factors over the period 1980–2006. With a coefficient determination of R2 = 0.91, it was observed that the length of groins (significant at the 1% level), the dredging of the port entrance (significant at the 5% level), and precipitation (as a proxy for storm events; significant at the 10% level) are significantly correlated with coastline retreat. Hence, it is shown that anthropogenic factors are the main drivers of coastline retreat in Vagueira Beach. This study provides an innovative approach for the assessment of coastal erosion, resulting in important information that could be used for decision-making related to coastal zone management as it allows us to understand in greater detail the main drivers of coastal erosion. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Monitoring and Assessment of Environmental Quality in Coastal Ecosystems Volume II)
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18 pages, 1112 KiB  
Article
Quantifying Spatial and Temporal Trends of Microplastic Pollution in Surface Water and in the Eastern Oyster Crassostrea virginica for a Dynamic Florida Estuary
by Linda J. Walters, Casey A. Craig, Emily Dark, Jessy Wayles, Vincent Encomio, Glenn Coldren, Tess Sailor-Tynes, David W. Fox and Lei Zhai
Environments 2022, 9(10), 131; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments9100131 - 13 Oct 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4518
Abstract
Microplastics (MPs) are a ubiquitous pollutant, emphasizing the need to understand their abundance and the factors that influence these patterns around the globe. In a prior study, high numbers of MPs were found in surface waters and tissues of the oyster Crassostrea virginica [...] Read more.
Microplastics (MPs) are a ubiquitous pollutant, emphasizing the need to understand their abundance and the factors that influence these patterns around the globe. In a prior study, high numbers of MPs were found in surface waters and tissues of the oyster Crassostrea virginica collected from one location in the Indian River Lagoon (IRL, FL, USA). To better understand spatial and temporal variability of MPs throughout the IRL, for one year, monthly surface water samples were collected from 35 sites, while oysters were collected quarterly from 12 sites. Microscopy and ATR-FTIR were used to quantify MP. In total, 3755 MPs were found in 44% of water samples (mean density ± CI: 1.47 ± 0.09 MP/L). South IRL water had the most MPs, likely associated with proximity to urbanization, inlets (MP sinks) and tributaries (MP sources). MP (n = 3181) were found in 70% of examined C. virginica (n = 1402). Abundances of MP in oysters were lower in the spring and in north IRL. The overall mean abundance was 2.26 ± 0.16 MP/oyster, and the density was 2.43 ± 0.52 MP/g wet tissue weight. Our results provide a more complete picture of MPs in the IRL, a subtropical, shallow-water estuarine system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Monitoring and Assessment of Environmental Quality in Coastal Ecosystems Volume II)
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14 pages, 3138 KiB  
Article
A Development of a Robust Machine for Removing Irregular Noise with the Intelligent System of Auto-Encoder for Image Classification of Coastal Waste
by Shiuan Wan and Tsu Chiang Lei
Environments 2022, 9(9), 114; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments9090114 - 4 Sep 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2936
Abstract
Currently, the seashore is threatened by the environment of climate change and increasing coastal waste. The past environmental groups used a large amount of manpower to manage the coast to maintain the seashore environment. The computational time cost and efficiency are not ideal [...] Read more.
Currently, the seashore is threatened by the environment of climate change and increasing coastal waste. The past environmental groups used a large amount of manpower to manage the coast to maintain the seashore environment. The computational time cost and efficiency are not ideal for the vast area of the seashore. With the progress of GIS (Geographic Information System) technology, the ability of remote sensing technology can capture a wide range of data in a short period. This research is based on the application of remote sensing technology combined with machine learning to display the observation of our seashore. However, in the process of image classification, the seashore wastes are small, which required the use of high-resolution image data. Thus, how to remove the noise becomes a crucial issue in developing an image classifier machine. The difficulties include how to adjust the value of parameters for removing/avoiding noises. First, the texture information and vegetation indices were employed as ancillary information in our image classification. On the other hand, auto-encoder is a very good tool to denoise a given image; hence, it is used to transform high-resolution images by considering ancillary information to extract attributes. Multi-layer perceptron (MLP) and support vector machine (SVM) were compared for classifier performance in a parallel study. The overall accuracy is about 85.5% and 83.9% for MLP and SVM, respectively. If the AE is applied for preprocessing, the overall accuracy is increased by about 10–12%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Monitoring and Assessment of Environmental Quality in Coastal Ecosystems Volume II)
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Graphical abstract

19 pages, 5812 KiB  
Article
Assessment of the Role of Nearshore Marine Ecosystems to Mitigate Beach Erosion: The Case of Negril (Jamaica)
by Pascal Peduzzi, Adonis Velegrakis, Bruno Chatenoux, Marisol Estrella and Theofanis Karambas
Environments 2022, 9(5), 62; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments9050062 - 16 May 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4690
Abstract
Coastal and marine ecosystems are supplying a wide range of services. With accelerated Sea Level Rise, intensification of waves and storm surge severity and increasing anthropogenic pressures, these areas are under multiple threats and society may not receive the same level of ecosystems [...] Read more.
Coastal and marine ecosystems are supplying a wide range of services. With accelerated Sea Level Rise, intensification of waves and storm surge severity and increasing anthropogenic pressures, these areas are under multiple threats and society may not receive the same level of ecosystems services. This study aims at measuring the trend of beach erosion and at identifying and quantifying the role of some coastal and marine ecosystems in mitigating beach erosion in the region of Negril (Jamaica). In this location, the tourism industry provides the main source of economic revenue. Even at the national level, the two beaches are important assets linked with 5% of the national revenue as 25% of the hotel rooms are located around Negril. In Jamaica, the tourism industry is a significant component of national GDP. 25% of hotel rooms are located around the two beaches of Negril, which have lost an average of 23.4 m of width since 1968. Given the importance of Negril’s beaches to their economy, the Government of Jamaica asked UNEP to conduct a study to identify causes of beach erosion in Negril and potential solutions to address trends of beach erosion, in the context of future sea level rise scenarios induced by climate change. This paper addresses the current beach erosion status and future trends under different climate scenarios. We explain how, by using remote sensing, GIS, wave modelling and multiple regressions analysis associated with national, local and community consultations, we were able to identify and quantify the role of ecosystems for mitigating beach erosion. We show that larger widths of coral and seagrass meadows reduce beach erosion. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Monitoring and Assessment of Environmental Quality in Coastal Ecosystems Volume II)
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