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| Map of Laguna Larga with sampling sites, its sections, location of the water-level loggers and other details.
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Laguna Larga (Cayo Coco, Cuba) is a eutrophic coastal lagoon due to tourism development. As part of long-term monitoring of Laguna Larga, we were able to follow the lagoon's water quality from 2015 to 2018 and could assess the impacts of Hurricane Irma (September 8–9, 2017) by intensifying our sampling frequency. Physicochemical parameters (salinit...
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Consequences of anthropogenic climate change directly affect freshwater ecosystems and their aquatic biological communities. Diatoms are amongst the most sensitive organisms to hydric stress, making them good indicators of preceding hydrological conditions. We assume that river types with low runoff and associated high temperature and mineralizatio...
Citations
... Coastal lagoons lie at the nexus of freshwater and marine environments and support productive, diverse ecosystems (Kennish and Paerl 2010; Barnes et al. 2013;Gonz alez-De ...
... Zayas et al. 2021) that provide a range of valuable ecosystem services (Newton et al. 2018). However, these critical transitional water bodies are threatened under anthropogenic impacts of invasive species, rising water temperatures, and eutrophication (Tummon Flynn et al. 2018;Chac on Abarca et al. 2021;Gonz alez-De Zayas et al. 2021). ...
... ) that provide a range of valuable ecosystem services (Newton et al. 2018). However, these critical transitional water bodies are threatened under anthropogenic impacts of invasive species, rising water temperatures, and eutrophication (Tummon Flynn et al. 2018;Chac on Abarca et al. 2021;Gonz alez-De Zayas et al. 2021). These aquatic stressors in coastal lagoons can be exacerbated by coastal development and by increasingly common and intense coastal storms (Mulligan et al. 2015;Gonz alez-De Zayas et al. 2021). ...
Oceanic storms can strongly disturb the physical and biogeochemical conditions of transitional coastal waters. Impacts of extreme oceanic storms on coastal ecosystems have received limited attention worldwide, with no studies at higher latitudes (> 45°) where tropical cyclones have usually abated. This study investigates the combined impacts from marine and atmospheric forcing on a coastal lagoon in Prince Edward Island, Canada, during and after Extratropical Cyclone Fiona in September 2022. Physical (water levels and temperature) and biogeochemical (dissolved oxygen [DO], electrical conductivity, pH, nitrate–nitrogen concentrations, total suspended solids [TSS]) datasets from the lagoon and the watershed's tributaries, groundwater springs, and piezometers were used to assess ecosystem disturbance and recovery timelines following the storm. Fiona resulted in a 1.6 m storm surge into the lagoon that elevated water temperatures by up to 6°C, disturbed the density‐dependent stratification of salinity and temperature, and reduced the diel amplitude of DO, indicating a reduction in plant respiration due to ecosystem disturbance. The freshwater tributaries revealed sharp changes in flow (30‐fold increase), nitrate–nitrogen (NO 3 ‐N) concentrations and loading (70‐fold increase), and TSS loading (40‐fold increase) to the lagoon during and immediately following the storm. The lagoon rapidly recovered (hours) from the hydraulic disturbance of the storm surge, but elevated nutrient levels persisted for months. The intensity and frequency of extratropical cyclones is projected to increase in the Northwest Atlantic, making field‐based studies of cyclone impacts on coastal waters critical for understanding future coastal ecosystem disturbance and recovery periods relative to the timing of future storms.
... In Cayo Sabinal, the studies on coastal lagoons are scarce (Martínez-Quesada 2017;Valdespino-Castillo et al. 2018;González-De Zayas et al. 2020b). The coastal lagoons of the Sabana-Camagüey Archipelago are one of the most affected ecosystems due to natural (tropical storms, González -De Zayas et al. 2021) and anthropogenic causes (González -De Zayas et al. 2012;2013;2020a;2020b), but they have been less studied than other ecosystems like sandy beaches, forests and mangroves. ...
Management actions are necessary to protect tropical coastal lagoons from present and future natural and anthropogenic impacts. Three coastal lagoons located in Cayo Sabinal (Sabana-Camagüey Archipelago, Cuba) were sampled on five dates distributed between 2015 and 2017. Physicochemical parameters (temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen), dissolved inorganic nutrients and total phosphorus and nitrogen were sampled at several sites in each lagoon. We found that the three lagoons are choked, hypersaline, hypertrophic and highly dependent on seasonal precipitation due to restricted water exchange with the ocean. Los Caimanes lagoon showed the highest mean salinity (90.8 PSU), the lowest level of dissolved oxygen (2.1 ± 1.0 mg L− 1) and the highest soluble reactive and total phosphorus (0.80 ± 1.45 μM and 8.2 ± 6.4 μM, respectively). La Salina lagoon showed the highest level of dissolved inorganic and total nitrogen (95.5 ± 209.8 μM and 921.9 ± 1984.1 μM, respectively). Nutrients were very variable -spatially and seasonally- at each lagoon. The construction of roads has likely reinforced the isolation of the lagoons, causing the most severe impact on the lagoons, particularly regarding salinity levels, which dramatically increase during the dry season because of the region´s microtidal range. Restoration actions must focus on the building of culverts to increase water exchange between the lagoons and the sea, and among the isolated sections of Tortuguilla lagoon. Management and restoration actions are proposed for coming tourism development projects in order to make a sustainable use of these fragile but important tropical coastal ecosystems, among which Los Caimanes lagoon outstands as a potential site for the study of microbialite communities.
Objective: This study was to estimate the value of the ecosystem goods and services of seven
coastal lagoons in the Sabana – Camagüey Archipelago.
Methodology: Results were obtained using general and empirical methods, as well as different
research techniques. Four of the lagoons studied are in Cayo Coco and the rest in Cayo
Sabinal.
Relevance: The methodological framework for this research had dynamic, comprehensive and
systemic purposes with two steps: comprehensive characterization of the lagoons and their
ecosystem goods and services and the calculation of the value (revenues) of these goods and
services (real and potential) for each lagoon, for each territory and for the entire study area.
Results: The coastal lagoons from Cayo Coco and Cayo Sabinal offer a wide variety of goods
and services (fishing, beekeeping, tourism) still underestimated due to different factors. The
direct and indirect use values of these lagoons represented more than 95 % (15 million Cuban
pesos) of the total estimated value.
Social / management contributions: the current social and economic context of Cuba and the regulatory and institutional frameworks require the use of methods and techniques for economic valuation of ecosystem goods and services, particularly those of coastal ecosystems, in correspondence with the fast development of tourism in coastal areas. For this reason, the
results of this study could be a starting point to expand the valuation of ecosystem goods and service to other Caribbean and Cuban coastal lagoons
