Challenge 07: Expand the Global Ocean Observing System
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Ocean Decade
Challenge 07:
Expand the Global Ocean Observing System
Ensure a sustainable and sustained ocean observing system across all ocean basins that delivers accessible, timely and actionable data and information to all users.
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- The Philippine shipbuilding and ship repair industry situation report 1997Maritime Industry Authority (Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development, 2002)This report presents a comprehensive overview of the Philippine shipbuilding and ship repair (SBSR) industry as of 1997, prepared by the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA). As an archipelagic nation dependent on maritime transport for 95% of its cargo and passenger movement, the Philippines requires a strong SBSR sector to support its domestic and international fleet. The report details the industry’s profile, including 253 licensed enterprises with facilities concentrated in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, and a workforce of nearly 35,000 skilled and technical personnel. It highlights the dominance of foreign-assisted large shipyards, the rise of ship construction for both domestic use and export, and the central role of ship repair activities due to regulatory requirements and regional demand. Issues such as low local demand for newbuildings, reliance on imported secondhand ships, inadequate ancillary industries, outdated facilities, and manpower challenges are discussed. Government policies, investment incentives, and private sector initiatives are outlined to address these constraints. Finally, the report emphasizes growth prospects in shipbuilding, repair, and shipbreaking, underscoring the industry’s potential to achieve international competitiveness through modernization, foreign partnerships, and research and development.
- Ocean energy and its potential use in the PhilippinesElauria, Jessie C. (Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development, 2002)Ocean energy systems are energy systems which make use of the tremendous potential of the oceans and seas - as a result of a great percentage of solar radiation falling on the earth’s surface collected and stored in them. This energy resource creates an energy potential a hundred times more than our present needs. There are four types of ocean energy systems that are considered for development in the Philippines, namely: Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) Systems, Tidal Power Systems, Wave Energy Systems, and Ocean Current Systems. The biggest obstacle in utilizing this energy resource in the Philippines is the substantial engineering development required to make the scheme. The feasibility of using these energy sources has already been demonstrated in various parts of the world. In the Philippines initial works have already been made to tap the private sector in the development of these technologies. The implementation of Executive Order No. 462 (enabling private sector participation in the exploration, utilization, development and commercialization of ocean, solar and wind energy resources) which was issued last December 1997 would pave the way for the full-scale development of ocean energy.
- A perspective on Philippine seabed explorationTumonong, Malyn M. L.; Quebral, Ramon D. (Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development, 2002)The issues and challenges currently facing the mineral industry led to the shift in its operating principles. Primary of which is the establishment of Sustainable Mining and Best Practice in environmental management. Corollary to these would be the search for alternative solutions to major and prevalent issues. Seabed exploration, consequently leading to seabed mining is one alternative. Seabed exploration is a relatively young scientific endeavor in the country. Initiated in the early seventies by the then Bureau of Mines and Geosciences, most of its activities were concentrated near or along coastal areas. The lack of a legal framework and advancement in technology and methodology proved to be a hindrance to its open and wider acceptability as an option in mineral resource development Notwithstanding these impediments, the other resulting contributions from seabed exploratory data proved to be the significant supplement to geoscientific studies and technology advancements. These and the fact that the Philippines is a highly endowed country are enough reasons to sustain and develop Philippine seabed exploration.
- The mapping of storm surge-prone areas and characterizing surge-producing cyclones in Leyte Gulf, PhilippinesRodrigo, Soccoro Margarita T.; Villanoy, Cesar L.; Briones, Jeric C.; Bilgera, Princess Hope T.; Cabrera, Olivia C.; Narisma, Gemma Teresa T. (Springer Nature Link, 2018-03-15)Historically, Leyte Gulf in central eastern Philippines has received catastrophic damage due to storm surges, the most recent of which was during Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. A city-level risk assessment was performed on Leyte Gulf through synthetic storm generation, high-resolution ocean modeling, and decision tree analyses. Cyclones were generated through a combination of a Poisson point process and Monte Carlo simulations. Wind and pressure fields generated from the cyclones were used in a storm surge model of Leyte Gulf developed on Delft3D. The output of these simulations was a synthetic record of extreme sea level events, which were used to estimate maximum surge heights for different return periods and to characterize surge-producing storm characteristics using decision tree analyses. The results showed that the area most prone to surges is the Tacloban–Basey area with a 2.8 ± 0.3 m surge occurring at a frequency of every 50 years. Nearby Palo area will likely receive a surge of 1.9 ± 0.4 m every 50 years while Giporlos–Salcedo area a surge of 1.0 ± 0.1 m. The decision tree analysis performed for each of these areas showed that for surges of 3–4 m, high-velocity winds (> 30 m/s) are consistently the main determining factor. For the areas, Tacloban, Basey, and Giporlos–Salcedo, wind speed was also the main determining factor for surge > 4 m.Funding was provided by the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic, and Natural Resources Research and Development, Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCAARRD). We thank the reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.
- Sponge-microbe partnerships are stable under eutrophication pressure from maricultureBaquiran, Jake Ivan P; Conaco, Cecilia (Elsevier, 2018-11)Sponges harbor a great diversity of symbiotic microorganisms. However, environmental stresses can affect this partnership and influence the health and abundance of the host sponges. In Bolinao, Pangasinan, Philippines, chronic input of organic materials from mariculture activities contributes to a eutrophic coastal environment. To understand how these conditions might affect sponge-microbial partnerships, transplantation experiments were conducted with the marine sponge Gelliodes obtusa. High-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA revealed that the associated microbial community of the sponges did not exhibit significant shifts after six weeks of transplantation at a eutrophic fish farm site compared to sponges grown at a coral reef or a seagrass area. However, sponges at the fish farm revealed higher abundance of the amoA gene, suggesting that microbiome members are responsive to increased ammonium levels at the site. The stable association between G. obtusa and its microbiome indicates that the sponge holobiont can withstand eutrophication pressure from mariculture.
- Local marine reservoir age variability at Luzon Strait in the South China Sea during the HoloceneHirabayashi, Shoko; Yokoyama, Yusuke; Suzuki, Atsushi; Esat, Tezer; Miyairi, Yosuke; Aze, Takahiro; Siringan, Fernando; Maeda, Yasuo (Elsevier, 2019-09-15)Here, we report new estimates of local marine radiocarbon reservoir ages from northwestern Luzon Island in the Philippines, on the east side of the South China Sea. Data for two periods, through the 1940’s and the mid-Holocene, were derived from modern and fossil corals. Our results from Luzon Island show variable ΔR values, from −39 ± 25 to 337 ± 27 14C yr over the past 6000 years and highlight the importance of understanding temporal ΔR changes to obtain accurate radiocarbon dates for mid-Holocene samples. An abrupt shift in ΔR at ∼5.5 ka BP, in the east side of the South China Sea, can be attributed to changes in the intensity of the upwelling, in the eastern Pacific, and to the East Asian Monsoon. Additional reservoir age data from the Pacific is likely to reveal details of oceanographic and climate changes at this time.
- Copper pollution exacerbates the effects of ocean acidification and warming on kelp microscopic early life stagesLeal, Pablo P.; Hurd, Catriona L.; Sander, Sylvia G.; Armstrong, Evelyn; Fernández, Pamela A.; Suhrhoff, Tim Jesper; Rolenda, Michael Y. (Nature, 2018-10-03)Ocean warming (OW), ocean acidification (OA) and their interaction with local drivers, e.g., copper pollution, may negatively affect macroalgae and their microscopic life stages. We evaluated meiospore development of the kelps Macrocystis pyrifera and Undaria pinnatifida exposed to a factorial combination of current and 2100-predicted temperature (12 and 16 °C, respectively), pH (8.16 and 7.65, respectively), and two copper levels (no-added-copper and species-specific germination Cu-EC50). Meiospore germination for both species declined by 5–18% under OA and ambient temperature/OA conditions, irrespective of copper exposure. Germling growth rate declined by >40%·day−1, and gametophyte development was inhibited under Cu-EC50 exposure, compared to the no-added-copper treatment, irrespective of pH and temperature. Following the removal of copper and 9-day recovery under respective pH and temperature treatments, germling growth rates increased by 8–18%·day−1. The exception was U. pinnatifida under OW/OA, where growth rate remained at 10%·day−1 before and after copper exposure. Copper-binding ligand concentrations were higher in copper-exposed cultures of both species, suggesting that ligands may act as a defence mechanism of kelp early life stages against copper toxicity. Our study demonstrated that copper pollution is more important than global climate drivers in controlling meiospore development in kelps as it disrupts the completion of their life cycle.
- Interannual coral Δ14C records of surface water exchange across the Luzon StraitRamos, Riovie D.; Goodkin, Nathalie F.; Druffel, Ellen R. M.; Fan, N.; Siringan, F. P. (AGU Publications, 2019-01-02)The Luzon Strait (LS) hosts the largest transport of water between the Western Pacific Ocean (WPO) and the South China Sea (SCS). The transport through the strait, dominated by the westward propagation of the Kuroshio Intrusion, influences the climate and circulation of the SCS. While numerical models have investigated the interannual variability of the transport and subsequent water exchange across the LS, a lack of long-term on-site records prevents a general consensus on the transport rates, variability, and drivers. Corals offer high-resolution, continuous histories of radiocarbon (Δ14C) content of the seawater dissolved inorganic carbon, allowing us to track changes in ocean transport and circulation through time. Seasonal and annual Δ14C samples from Houbihu, Taiwan, and Palaui, Philippines, located on either side of the strait, are compared to the Western Pacific Ocean and SCS Δ14C records to examine the spatial and temporal Δ14C variability in the region. We calculated the mean transport across the strait using a five-box mixing model and identified its potential drivers. The mean amount of water exchanged across the strait from 1970 to 1999 was 2.2 Sv, ranging from −13.4 to 16 Sv, where a positive (negative) value indicates net flow into (out of) the SCS. A weaker East Asian Winter Monsoon increases the contribution of the SCS outflow on the Kuroshio Intrusion-dominated LS, while the El Niño–Southern Oscillation primarily drives the intrusion into the SCS. These results provide support to the dominant control of El Niño–Southern Oscillation on the long-term ocean circulation variability in this region.The authors would like to thank K. Hughen and J. Ossolinski for fieldwork. Additional help in the field was also provided by J. Aggangan, J. Quevedo, R. Lloren, G. Albano, J. Perez, and A. Bolton in the Philippines and S. Murty, A. Bolton, L. Tsai, R. Tan, S. Doo, I. Suprihanto, and D. Prayudi in Taiwan. We thank S. Griffin for the Δ14C analysis. The detailed comments and suggestions of two anonymous reviewers significantly improved the original manuscript. Coral Δ14C data set and box model calculations are available in the supporting information. This research was funded by the National Research Foundation Singapore under its Singapore NRF Fellowship scheme awarded to N. F. Goodkin (National Research Fellow award NRF-RF2012-03), as administered by the Earth Observatory of Singapore and the Singapore Ministry of Education under the Research Centres of Excellence initiative and by the Ministry of Education, Singapore through its Academic Research Fund Tier 2 (Project MOE2016-T2-1-016). This work is a part of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Coordinated Research Project K41015. This work comprises Earth Observatory of Singapore contribution 229.
- Molecular phylogeny of three unarmored dinoflagellates from Masinloc Bay, Zambales, Central Luzon, with a description of the morphology of Gymnodinium catenatum H.W.GrahamBenico, Garry; Azanza, Rhodora (Science and Technology Information Institute, 2021-10-27)Unambiguous identification of unarmored dinoflagellates is important in distinguishing toxic from non-toxic species occurring in the coastal waters of the Philippines. In this study, molecular phylogeny inferred from rDNA sequences of Gymnodinium catenatum, Gymnodinium impudicum, and Akashiwo sanguinea-collected from Masinloc Bay, Zambales, Central Luzon-is reported for the first time. Morphology of G. catenatum was critically examined using light and confocal laser scanning microscopy. The three unarmored dinoflagellates were identified as G. catenatum, G. impudicum, and A. sanguinea based on their phylogenetic positions inferred from LSU and SSU rDNA. Both G. catenatum and G. impudicum grouped in a well-supported clade of Gymnodinium sensu stricto, which includes other genera of unarmored dinoflagellates, confirming the polyphyly of the clade. Akashiwo sanguinea separated into four subclades, which is similar to previous reports-with our strain grouping with sequences from Malaysia, Singapore, and China. Cellular characteristics of our G. catenatum are congruent with earlier reports particularly its long chain-forming habit (up to 64 cells) and large cell size (44.6-63.3 µm long). Our result is the first verified record of G. impudicum and A. sanguinea in the Philippines, and the first record of G. catenatum as another highly toxic dinoflagellate species occurring in Masinloc Bay.