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Left: Healthy seagrass. Right: Sparse seagrass.

Seagrass

From the 2018 IRL Health Update: Seagrass secures the lagoon bottom, reduces erosion, and is an important primary producer for the ecosystem, providing habitat and food for many types of lagoon life.

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Nitrogen

From the IRL Health Update: Nitrogen (N) is a key nutrient necessary to the primary production of the system, but can be devastating in excess, causing algae blooms and lowered dissolved oxygen in the water which chokes out life.

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Phosphorus

From the IRL Health Update: Phosphorus (P) is a key nutrient for lagoon health that can be harmful in excess. Although the Clean Water Act requires phosphorus reductions, concentrations have significantly increased in many lagoon regions.

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Turbidity

Turbidity is a measurement of water clarity. Dirty water loaded with sediments and disturbed muck increases turbidity and decreases water clarity. Historical recounts describe the clear “turquoise blue” water in the lagoon that one could see through to the bottom.

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Special Thanks

From the 2018 IRL Health Update: Continuing to assess and report lagoon health takes time and funding. Independent funding is needed to keep this report as an independent, unbiased and unmanipulted product. Help support this effort and add your name to the list below by donating now.

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Calculating Habitat Quality Index

From the IRL Health Update: The Habitat Quality Index was developed to normalize the offset percentages from the seagrass transect data to a 0–100 scale, identical to the Water Quality Index scale. Establishing a habitat index allows future indicators to be incorporated into the index using the same normalized approach.

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