Island Lab · coastal ecosystem health
DESIGN STAGE v0.11
Bellingham Bay · Nord-Trøndelag · Los Lagos

A crop,
or a cost.

The same growth on a submerged surface is worth harvesting, worth recruiting, or worth killing. Which one depends on the surface.

01  The problem

Four things on one shore. All four called pollution.

Adds nitrogen
A salmon farm
Adds copper
A port, from antifouling paint
Takes light
A river mouth
Clears the water
A shellfish lease

Four signatures. Four responses. One of them was never a problem.

02  The method

Measured against the coast next door.

Not against a threshold every coast is supposed to agree on. The mechanism travels between coasts. The numbers stay local.

1.00
the reference, by definition
0.43
salmon farm with both interventions, modelled archetype
9,929
samples, and copper still has no settled direction
03  The system
Question one

What condition is this coast in?

Five coasts compared across six measures
Five pressures, one shore
Five sites, six measures, one reference.
Generalized
 Hex map of Bellingham Bay with tidal flow streaks
One coast, cell by cell
Modelled pressure and tidal flow over eight days.
Synthetic
 Three renderings of a depth-resolved water column
A water column, three ways
A flat map gives one number per place.
Synthetic
Question two

Where does the contaminant go?

A food web with each level at its measured trophic height
The contaminant ladder
Producer, filter feeder, predator, at measured height.
Synthetic

The hinge. Crop or disposal problem, settled in tissue.

Cu
Mercury and zinc climb. Arsenic falls. Copper goes both ways, so it gets measured here.
Question three

What do you do about it?

Plan and profile view of a salmon plume with a compliant siting band
Site a long line
The band where the nitrogen still pays and the tissue copper still clears spec.
Modelled
 A harbour asset table sorted into suppress, groom and release
Suppress, groom or release
Consequence decides. A surface can foul hard and still be worth releasing.
Placeholder coefficients
04  Read it end to end

The argument, and everything under it.

A briefing slide showing five pressure signatures
The briefing
Sixteen slides, four tools running live inside.
16 slides
 The project index listing every surface
Every surface
Every tool, and the coefficients underneath.
Index
05  What is real

The ground is measured. What sits on it is modelled.

Bathymetry and coastline are cited. The fields drawn over them are generated.

4
open datasets and one statute, all openly licensed
Flowing today · 4 datasets and 1 statute
GEBCO
2020 bathymetry, via OpenTopoData
Mapzen
Coastline, four land masks
Copernicus
GLO-90, the finest land mask
Esri
Gray Canvas basemap and labels
WA Ecology
Washington copper antifouling law
Planned · 0 of 5 flowing today

Tide and weather on the map are a synthetic harmonic. These are the gauges the real ones will come from.

NOAA
Tide, Bellingham 9449211
planned
Open-Meteo
Sea temperature, wind
planned
LiveOcean
Salish Sea circulation
planned
NCEI
Survey-grade Puget Sound depth
planned
RCW 79.135
Washington wild-harvest law
planned
05b  References

Three numbers, and who they came from.

45%   of feed nitrogen leaves as DIN, the fraction a seaweed can use.
Wang, Olsen, Reitan & Olsen 2012 · Aquacult Environ Interact 2:267-283
9,929   samples. Mercury and zinc magnify, arsenic dilutes, copper unresolved.
Sun et al. 2020 · Environmental Pollution, 61 studies, 33 countries
20 ppm   total heavy metals in the extracted excipient, not the crop.
Ph. Eur. sodium alginate monograph · 0625E
Every claim on these surfaces carries a verdict in a tracked evidence ledger. It has caught two errors that were live.
06  Start here

The same system, four different questions.

You run or supply a salmon concession
The nitrogen you pay to discharge is a crop. Your net coating decides whether it sells.
site a long line →
You buy or qualify marine biomass
Where it grows sets the copper it carries.
find the band →
You own a harbour, a port or a wharf
Some surfaces are coated for no return.
sort the surfaces →
You regulate or study a coast
The signatures differ in kind, not only size.
compare the coasts →