Algae bloom research turns into useful storm tool

Many of us watched and waited as hurricanes Helene and Milton sent storm surges onto our roads, into our homes and businesses, altering what we know as home forever.

At the same time, one Florida Gulf Coast University student saw the storms as a scientific opportunity.

What started as algae bloom research turned into real-time data for all of us as storm waters surged.

Kayla Hughes only needs to stop by occasionally because the device, known as a data sonde, is deployed at all times and collects real-time water data.

For Hughes’ thesis research at FGCU, chlorophyll is the big one.

“So, chlorophyll is a great indicator for the water body’s health. It’s kind of like an indicator for phytoplankton biomass, so with phytoplankton comes harmful algae blooms,” Hughes said.

Like red tide, the data is the first step.

“We have it connected to a solar panel that provides power and battery life so that it can upload data to the cloud every 10 minutes,” Hughes said.

The goal is to follow seasonal, daily and hourly trends and create a model to predict blooms.

“We’ve had this site up for almost two years,” Hughes said.

At the university’s Vester Field Station in Bonita Springs, three other data sites in Estero Bay, Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel have been up for a year. All four were up during hurricanes Helene and Milton and WINK News utilized the data.

“One of my coworkers had texted me and said, ‘They’re using your data on the news. They’re using it to look at live, real-time conditions,’ and [they] sent me the link they were looking at the depth between Hurricane Helene and what was happening live during hurricane Milton,” Hughes said.

The graph shows salinity levels during the storms, but Hughes and our meteorologists are not the only ones who see the data.

“We can collect more data, and having that data allows us to give access to the public, to other scientists and researchers and resource managers in the area,” Hughes said.

It’s available to anyone now as Hughes works to predict blooms down the road.

Click here to check out the real-time data for yourself. There’s also a survey if you look at the data that asks how you used it and what else you’d want to see.