Emerging challenges: Massive green algae blooms in the Yellow Sea

Abstract

The massive green algae (Enteromorpha prolifera) bloom in a coastal area of Qingdao between May and July 2008 prior to the sailing competition of the 29th Olympic Games has raised great concerns in local and regional communities and governmental agencies on environmental deterioration, causes and mitigation of such massive algal blooms. Results from field and laboratory studies during the bloom and post-bloom periods revealed that the bloom was originated from an offshore area 150 km south of Qingdao, and caused by complex coupled land-ocean and natural-human processes associated with increases in nutrient and organic matter loadings to the coastal ocean due to rapid expansions of agriculture, aquaculture and urbanization, behavior of algae, seasonal wind and coastal currents, and transport of nutrients and biota. This environmental disaster has brought us emerging challenges on how to integrate monitoring, analysis and prediction of complex coupled natural and human processes, environmental regulations, and management in land-ocean uses for the sustainable socioeconomic development.