USF College of Marine Science gets $3.2 million grant to develop sargassum forecasting system

TAMPA, Fla. - Over the summer, millions of pounds of sargassum floated onto Florida's east coast beaches, piling up on the sand. But, the University of South Florida received a big grant to help forecast where the piles of seaweed will end up.

For the last decade, researchers have been studying a 5,000-mile long stretch of seaweed from the shores of West Africa to the Florida Keys. It's known as the "Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt," and in recent months, large clumps of it have washed ashore on Florida's east coast. 

But, knowing what beaches the sargassum is heading to before it gets there hasn't really been possible – until now.

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"Offshore, we can monitor it with satellites," said Dr. Brian Barnes, an assistant research professor with USF's College of Marine Science. "We've been doing this for years and have some pretty high-tech techniques to really identify where the sargassum is and have some idea of where it's going, but again offshore it's not a problem. The problem is for these inshore communities."

Barnes will lead a team of researchers to help forecast sargassum blooms and prevent them from plaguing coastal communities thanks to a $3.2 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The team will use the funds to develop a sargassum forecasting system.

"Nuclear power plants and things will sometimes have water inflows, and so they're very interested in knowing that there's a patch that's going to be impacting this particular location," Barnes said.

Two years ago, sargassum blocked the inflow of water into a desalination plant in the U.S. Virgin Islands affecting their supply of running water. As it stands right now, Barnes said the new forecasting system will be able to detect what beaches sargassum is headed to about two to three days before it gets there.

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"Which is not enough time to set out like a floating barrier or something like that. But it is enough time to stage equipment. Get your dump trucks ready," Barnes said.

Using current weather satellites the resolutions of sargassum you can see is one kilometer by one kilometer, but with the grant, they'll be able to use finer resolution satellites making it so the smallest resolution is between three and four meters.

"That's the scale you really need to be looking at in order to identify sargassum patches that are meaningful going to impact a region," Barnes said.