Mapping a way out of the doom and bloom

By DANIEL CLARKE

​​14/05/26

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A leading coastal oceanographer at the forefront of monitoring South Australia’s harmful algal bloom says citizen science groups and rapid emergency response teams within affected industries should be funded to help communities cope with future marine disasters.

 

Former Kangaroo Island resident Enya Chitty, an independent coastal systems research scientist and educator at Flinders University, was the first to warn island residents of the algal bloom’s presence on our coastline in March last year.  

 

She says emergency response similar to that deployed by the Red Cross and CFS during bushfires has been utilised during blooms overseas and would help build resilience and coping mechanisms for those most at risk. 

 

“In other parts of the world that do see repeat blooms, it's really common for there to be systems ready to go if a bloom does reoccur,” Chitty said.

 

“For example, people in aquaculture are immediately given temporary positions in restoration activities. Real-time marine observation devices could be deployed and operated by our own saltwater people who would otherwise be running their businesses on the ocean.

 

“Tour guides, fishers, even recreational fishers and existing volunteer research groups could be equipped with instruments to measure the water properties and collect samples. So there's a system there - a bit like the way the Red Cross would be deployed after a bushfire - to then pivot the vulnerable people and the vulnerable groups into active roles.

 

“That’s not only a really wise use of resources but it's also very empowering and it builds enduring relationships that makes the entire community more resilient, especially if there are going to be return events. 

 

“People whose livelihoods depend on having a thriving and healthy coastal ocean, if there were roles ready to go for them to pivot into during periods where there was a harmful algal bloom, that's a really great way to not only prop up their income through a slow-moving ecological disaster but also prop up their mental health and wellbeing.”

 

Chitty said that during the devastating harmful algal bloom that has swept across South Australia’s coastlines for over a year, with Kangaroo Island hit particularly hard, it was citizen scientists who were often reporting the most important real-time information from the ground. 

 

“The citizen scientists, like the Phytoplankton of South Australia group, are the people who just decided for themselves that that was what needed to happen,” she said. “They created community networks that leant on the advice and expertise of other independent experts such as Faith and Peri Coleman, and Associate Professor Luke Moseley to provide rapid, accurate and transparent field observations with open access.

 

“But not everyone was in a position to drop everything or come out of retirement and start researching it. For many of us, we weren't in a paid position where that was an obligation, or even an option. A lot of us were only able to do any work on it on a Sunday afternoon on our own time because you’ve got kids and bills and other obligations already.”

 

Over the past 14 months, Chitty’s chlorophyll mapping work became an important source of information for authorities and the public, and a vital early warning sign of which beaches and coastlines were likely to be affected by its movement. 

 

She has been utilising data from NASA’s Worldview platform to create and share the maps that show the movement of surface chlorophyll-a concentrations, which serve as an indicator of algae concentrations. 

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​“I remember thinking pretty early on in the bloom that I have all the skills to look at real-time satellite imagery, I can interpret weather forecasts and I’m intimately familiar with the circulations of the Gulf region,” she said.

 

“When you're observing it in real time, it gives you an opportunity to start seeing the patterns and the signatures and the clusters of events. By calibrating how it's moving it informed me which community might want to be getting prepared in the coming weeks.”

 

Chitty said the health information provided to the public has been insufficient, an issue that motivated her to join The Algae Bloom Shed, an independent volunteer-driven community hub that analyses data, provides real-time tracking and produces expert-written reports to improve future responses. 

 

“People are really needing real-time information and that wasn’t forthcoming – they were really confused about whether it was safe or not,” she said. 

 

“People with asthma or who were compromised were told to stay away from the beach. While that’s not technically wrong it’s nowhere near enough detail to help people make informed decisions.

 

“Because there was such limited information, it just allowed misinformation and disinformation and conspiracy theories to run riot. What people wanted was just some science-based facts and some recommendations about how to minimize exposure, knowing that every person is responsible for themselves and everybody needs to take responsibility for their own choices.

 

“I think the South Australian community in general is very environmentally literate and we all tend to want the same thing, which is a healthy, thriving marine environment. So that's a really essential and easy way to connect everyone together and get them moving towards the same shared goals of being collaborative and supportive rather than combative.

 

“People need to believe that a better future is possible and recovery is possible, and they need to understand that they have agency to make changes and effect positive changes.”