| Project Name: | The Kuroshio-East China Sea Shelf Exchange Processes KEEP II |
| Project Description: | The major contribution from Taiwan to the international JGOFS program at present is the Kuroshio-East China Sea Shelf Exchange Processes study, which is the second phase of the Kuroshio Edge Exchange Processes program (KEEP-II). KEEP-I (1989-1994) was originally developed out of the interest of Taiwanese oceanographers in the water exchange across the Kuroshio frontal zone in the East China Sea northeast of Taiwan and the concomitant biogeochemical fluxes. As the significance of carbon fluxes at the continental margins was increasingly recognised, KEEP had been included in the JGOFS implementation plan and the second phase was developed and supported by the National Science Council located in Taipei. The goals of KEEP-II are three fold: (1) To observe and determine the water and material (especially, carbon) exchange fluxes between the Kuroshio and the East China Sea shelf; (2) To assess the biological resources in the East China Sea; (3) To trace the transport of sediments and anthropogenic materials in the East China Sea. There are 26 projects in this program, which is expected to continue until 1997. The third phase of the program, i.e., KEEP-III, is currently under planning. The titles and principal investigators of the KEEP-II projects are listed below. |
| 1. The Kuroshio-East China Sea Shelf Exchange Processes: the Service project. Kon-Kee Liu Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei kkliu@ccms.ntu.edu.tw | |
| 2. Current field on the southern boundary of East China Sea Tswen-Yung Tang Institute of oceanography, National Taiwan University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. tyt@ccms.ntu.edu.tw | |
| 3. Satellite remotely sensing the sea surface dynamics of East China Sea and its relationship with environment of fishing grounds. Chen Shih-Chin Taiwan Fisheries Research Institute. Fax: 886 2 462 9388 | |
| 4. A study of particle transport in the shelf of East China Sea by a moored transmissometer. Cheng-Han Tsai Department of Oceanography, National Taiwan Ocean University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. chtsai@ntou66.ntou.edu.tw | |
| 5. Distributions of chemical hydrography, chlorophyll and primary productivity in the East China Sea Gwo-Ching Gong Department of Oceanography, National Taiwan Ocean University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. gcgong@ntou66.ntou.edu.tw | |
| 6. Particle dynamics and transport processes in the East China Sea. Ching-Ling Wei Institute of oceanography, National Taiwan University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. weic@ccms.ntu.edu.tw | |
| 7. Transport and Flux of Particulate in the KEEP II area: Radiogeochemistry of particulates and sediments (II). Yu-Chia Chung Institute of Marine Geology, National Sun Yat-Sen University Kaohsiung, 80424, R.O.C. ycchung@mail.nsysu.edu.tw | |
| 8. Geochemical Fluxes of Particulate Matter in the East China Sea (II). Studies in the Southern ECS. Jia-Jang Hung Institute of Marine Geology, National Sun Yat-Sen University Kaohsiung, 80424, R.O.C. hungjj@mail.nsysu.edu.tw | |
| 9. Distribution of dissolved metals in the East China Sea Tong-Ming Hsiung National Taiwan Ocean University Keelung 202-24, R.O.C. thsiung@ntou66.ntou.edu.tw | |
| 10. A biogeochemical study of new production, bacterial production, organic carbon and iodine in the East China Sea. Kon-Kee Liu and Frank Shiah Global Change Research Center, National Taiwan University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. kkliu@ccms.ntu.edu.tw, fkshiah@iodecl.oc.ntu.edu.tw | |
| 11 Primary Production and New Production in Waters off northeast Taiwan. Yuh-Ling Lee Chen Department of Marine Resources, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, 80424, R.O.C. yll@mail.nsysu.edu.tw | |
| 12. The estimation of phytoplankton growth rate and its roles in the carbon cycle in southern East China Sea using the dilution culture method. Jeng Chang Institute of Marine Biology, Taiwan Ocean University Keelung 202-24, R.O.C. b0l76@nout66.ntou.edu.tw | |
| 13. Trophic dynamics of plankton in East China Sea shelf waters H.Y. Chen Institute of Marine Biology, Sun Yat-Sen University Kaohsiung, 80424, R.O.C. nychen@mail.nsysu.edu.tw | |
| 14. Estimation of zooplankton biomass from shipboard acoustic Doppler current profiler S.P. Yeh Department of Aquaculture, National Pingtung Polytechnique Institute Fax: 886 8 774 0225 | |
| 15. Interaction of East China Sea Ichthyoplankton with the Kuroshio Current. Tai-Sheng Chiu Department of Zoology, National Taiwan University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. tschiu@ccms.ntu.edu.tw | |
| 16. Oxic and anoxic organic carbon respiration rate in the East China Sea sediments (IK) - anoxic sulphate reduction rate and organic carbon deposition rate. Sawlwood Lin Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. swlin@ccms.ntu.edu.tw | |
| 17. The partitioning of trace elements in seawater particulates and sediments from the East China Sea (II). Fei-Jan Lin Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. Fax: 886 2 362 6092 | |
| 18. Distribution of fatty alcohols and sterols in sediments off north-eastern Taiwan. Woei-Lih Jeng Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. wljeng@iodecl.oc.edu.tw | |
| 19. The study of the benthic biological activities in the sediment Northeast of Taiwan. I-Jiunn Cheng Institute of Marine Biology, National Taiwan Ocean University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. b0107@nout66.ntu.edu.tw | |
| 20. ZKEEP II/WOCE/South China Sea-Carbon Flux Study (II). Chen-Tung Arthur Chen Institute of Marine Geology, Sun Yat-Sen University Kaohsiung, 80424, R.O.C. ctchen@mail.nsysu.edu.tw | |
| 21. Study of the sea surrounding Taiwan using Synthetic Aperture Radar images. Ming-Kuang Hsu Department of Oceanography, National Taiwan Ocean University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. hsumk@ind.ntou.edu.tw | |
| 22. d13C-POC and d13C-CO2aq of seawater in KEEP region. David D. Sheu Institute of Marine Geology, National Sun Yat-Sen University Kaohsiung, 80424, R.O.C. ddsheu@mail.nsysu.edu.tw | |
| 23. Fishing ground formation in the north-eastern waters of Taiwan by the satellite and acoustic method. Ming-Anne Lee Department of Fishery Science, National Taiwan Ocean University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. xtuser@lee.fd.ntou.edu.tw | |
| 24. Studies on phytoplankton distribution in relation to oceanographic conditions in the East China Sea. Kuo Ping Chiang Department of Fishery Science, National Taiwan Ocean University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. b0173@nout66.ntou.edu.tw | |
| 25. Distribution, Post-Mortem Transportation and Sedimentary Flux of Calcareous Nannoplankton in the Kuroshio Edge Exchange area off northern Taiwan (1995-1998) Kuo-Yen Wei Department of Geology, National Taiwan University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. weik@cc.ntu.edu.tw | |
| 26. Study of the seafloor northeast of Taiwan using 3.5 kHz echo sounder Ho-Shing Yu Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University P.O. Box 23-13, Taipei, R.O.C. yu@moonzo.oc.ntu.edu.tw |
| Project Name: | The Climatic Changes and Variations in the Shelf’s Coastal Sea of Cuba and their Impact. |
| Project Description: | The Ocean-Atmosphere interaction is considered to moderate or intensify the climatic changes, but at least it will always be a modifier. The main purpose for predicting the Global Change is to estimate its impact in different regions. The islands and archipelago areas are considered among the most vulnerable regions of the world surface to the impacts of climatic changes. Some of them, like Cuba, have extensive shelf areas. Coastal seas are the link between the ocean and the coast in which the climatic changes exert strong and rapid influence because there are more actives and variables than the ocean. The necessity to know and understand what the climatic change and variations annual, decade and their interrelations with the ocean, will generate in the coastal sea and their impact mainly in the species and fisheries, is the main objective of this project. |
| Contact Person: | Dr Carlos J. Garcia Fisheries Research Center 5th Ave and 248 Barlovento, Sta Fe, C. Havana, Cuba. |
| Project Name: | Structure, function and dynamics of mangrove ecosystems in Kenya |
| Project Name: | Interlinkages between Coastal Marine Ecosystems in the East African Region |
| Project Name: | The Netherlands Indian Ocean Project and Marine processes in the Kenyan Coastal Waters. |
| Contact Person: | Dr E. Okemwa Director - Kenyan Marine & Fisheries Institute P.O. Box 81561, Mombasa, Kenya. Fax: 254 11 472 215 |
| Project Name: | Dynamics and Assessment of Kenyan Mangrove Ecosystems |
| Project Description: | The association of coastal lagoon and mangrove forests along the Kenyan coast constitutes unique environments sustaining enhanced biomasses of several commercial fish, shellfish and crustaceans species as compared to coastal and open sea environments. The lack of appraisal of the status of Kenyan mangrove forests has been limitation on the formulation of an adequate management and conservation policy. Therefore, the project was designed as an interdisciplinary scientific co-operation between Kenya, The Netherlands, Italy and Belgium to gather basic information on the structure and functioning of a selected Kenyan mangrove ecosystem, Gazi-Bay, situated 50 km south of Mombasa. The research work focused on the following: (i) Assessment of the different components of the ecosystem, in terms of biodiversity, biomass and productivity. (ii) estimation of nutrient and energy flows through the ecosystem and mathematical modelling. |
| Contact Person: | Prof. P. Polk Laboratorium of Ecology, Free University of Brussels Pleinlaan 2 B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. |
| Project Name: | Coastal changes in Eastern Africa: Sedimentation and erosion |
| Project Description: | Much of the shoreline of the eastern African region is highly dynamic with beaches, mangroves and wetlands being eroded, and in some areas accreting. The present causes of the widely observed coastal erosion are not well understood, and neither are the possible trends in relation to increasing sea level. Anthropogenic actions, including clearance of mangroves and degradation of reef environments may play an important role in reducing the biogeomorphological processes which stabilise shorelines. |
| The project has the objectives of: | (1) characterising and quantifying the vulnerability of different coastal environments to erosional processes driven by natural and anthropogenic forcing; (2) quantifying the capacity of individual coastal ecosystems to supply and retain sediments; (3) assessing riverine flux of sediments to the coastal zone; determining recent, past trends in shoreline evolution; (4) determining the quantities and physical-chemical characteristics of the sediments delivered to the coastal zone and their temporal variation, and quantifying the relationship between hydrodynamic conditions and sediment fluxes within and between coastal systems. |
| Contact Person: | Prof A.K. Semesi Department of Botany, University of Dar-es-Salaam P.O. Box 35060, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. |
| Project Name: | Ocean Margin Exchange (OMEX) |
| Project Description: | The aim of the Ocean Margin Exchange (OMEX) project, supported by the European Commission in the framework of the MAST programme, is to gain a better understanding of the physical, chemical, and biological processes occurring at the ocean margins in order to quantify fluxes of energy and matter across this boundary. The objective is to provide a more accurate picture of the biogeochemical interactions between the coastal zone and the open ocean. This information is essential for the development of predictive models required to evaluate the response of the shelf and slope are to global environmental changes. The physical studies are mainly focused on the determination of advective and diffusive transport processes at the European shelf edge boundary using field measurements and theoretical analyses. Prognostic models are being developed to estimate fluxes of water and particles in characteristic but contrasting systems of the North-eastern Atlantic European shelf edge. Special efforts have been devoted to the understanding of the various components of the carbon cycle and associated elements (nutrients and oligo-elements). This includes the study of the temporal and spatial variability of production, consumption, transport and burial of organic matter. Ecological models are developed in order to assess the population dynamics in relation to the food flux with special emphasis on the pelagic-benthic coupling. The distribution, properties, transport and rate of accumulation of sediments in the selected areas are determined with particular consideration on the role of the nepheloid layer. The physical chemical and biological aspects of the utilisation or burial of organic and inorganic carbon in the sediments are investigated by examining the vertical distribution of dissolved and particulate matter. Finally the ocean margins often characterised by upwelling and enhanced biological activity, are essential areas for the evaluation of fluxes of gaseous components between the ocean and atmosphere. Determinations of rates of exchange of CO2, CH4 sulphur biogases are performed. There are 41 principal investigators from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Spain and Portugal. All data collected during OMEX is being assembled at the British Oceanographic Data Centre, (BODC) to facilitate the interchange of data among the project’s scientists and to enable a comprehensive project data set to be published. An overview of the OMEX Data Management regarding OMEX cruises and data events can be obtained from the World Wide Web (http://www.nbi.ac.uk/bodc/omex.html). |
| Contact Persons: | Co-ordinator: Prof. Roland Wollast (Dr Lei Chou) Laboratoir e’Océanographie Chemique, Université} Libre de Bruxelles Campus de la Plaine - C.P. 208, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. |
| Sub-Project Leaders: | Physics Dr John Huthnance Bidston Observatory, Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory Birkenhead, Merseyside L43 7RA, UK Fax: 44 151 6536269 jmh@ua.nbi.ac.uk |
| Biological Processes Dr Paul Wassmann Norwegian College of Fishery Science, University of Tromso PO Box 3083 Guleng, 9001 Tromso, Norway Fax: 47 83 71832 paulw@nfh.uit.no | |
| Biogeochemical Cycles Dr R. Fauzi C. Mantoura Plymouth Marine Laboratory Prospect Place, West Hoe, Plymouth PL1 3DH, UK Fax: 44 1752 633101 rfcm@wpo.nerc.ac.uk. | |
| Benthic Processes Dr Tjeerd C.E. van Weering NIOZ PO Box 59, 1790 AB Den Burg, Texel, The Netherlands Fax: 31 222 319674 haas@noiz.nl | |
| Carbon Cycling and Biogases Dr Soren Larsen Department of Meteorology and Wind Energy, RISO National Laboratory 400 Roskild, Denmark Fax: 45 46 755619 metsol@risoe.dk |
| Project Name: | EUROMARGE NB |
| Project Description: | EUROMARGE is the European extension within the EC Marine Science and Technology-MAST II programme which addresses these topics on a larger scale. Participating countries are France, Spain, United Kingdom, Italy, Greece and Switzerland. The major objective is to determine some of the fundamental features of particle transfer across ocean boundaries from the comparison of several typical regions across the Mediterranean. This has been realised in different trophic environments, from the mesotrophic north-western to the oligotrophic eastern Mediterranean. Besides this large programme activities, we currently maintain a long-term monitoring in the Gulf of Lions; particle fluxes are measured on a monthly basis since 1993 and intended to obtain at least a 5 year time series. |
| Project Name: | MATER |
| Project Description: | Regarding the near future, a new large integrated research programme will start during the coming year (1996) within the EC MAST III programme. This project, called MATER (Mass transfer and Ecosystem Response), federates around 60 European Laboratories and focuses on two main research axes; (1) general circulation, seasonal and interannual variability; (2) biogeochemical cycling and budgets between different compartments. Since the Mediterranean is a marginal basin, many of the proposed activities could directly relate to the joint effort in the field of Continental Margins programmes. |
| Contact Person: | Andre Monaco University of Perpignan France, 52 Ave de Villeneuve, 66820, Perpignan, France. |
| Project Name: | EMIR (Exportation de Carbone sur une Marge Insulaire Recifale) - Carbon Export on an Island Reef Margin |
| Project Description: | Coral reefs, known as one of the most productive ecosystems of the world, develop in an oligotrophic oceanic environment. The export of organic and inorganic carbon by reef ecosystem have been seldom investigated. In particular, the carbon export towards the ocean has never been quantified until now. This is the general aim of the EMIR project, supported by the French Coral Reefs National Programme (PNRCO). The main objectives of the EMIR project are: (1) to quantify the carbon flux in the coastal ocean and to identify its nature and composition (2) to determine the respective contributions of lagoons and island bays, the role of the outer reef slope, and the importance of the vertical and advective components of the carbon flux. (3) to evaluate the future of the carbon flux. The EMIR strategy is to track the carbon flux from the source points, either lagoons or bays, to the definitive export destination, in a multidisciplinary approach of the hydrological, geochemical, sedimentological and biological processes. |
| Contact Person: | Dr Bruno Delesalle Laboratoire de Biologie Marine et Malacologie EPHE, URA 1453 CNRS, 52 Avenue de Villeneuve F-66860 - Perpignan Cedex, France. |
| Project Name: | ECOMARGE (Ecosystemes de MARGE continentale) |
| Project Description: | ECOMARGE is a multidisciplinary programme which aims to determine the origin, composition and transport of particulate matter and associated elements on continental margins, as well as the benthic response to such transfers. Field work is mainly performed through time series observations and seasonal surveys. The integrated results from the first phase in the Mediterranean in the Gulf of Lions were published in Continental Shelf Research (10, 1990). In order to draw up mass and element budgets for the whole margin, research in this area was coupled with studies on coastal accumulation and river discharge, in the frame of the PNOC (Programme National d’Oceanographie Cotiere) / ECOCOT (ECOsysteme COTier). |