Research axes
The PELD CSB is composed of an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional team involving state departments, NGOs, and national and international universities. In this context of interdisciplinarity and applicability to practical socio-environmental problems, the project was structured in five main areas of research, training of human resources, and scientific dissemination.
Axis 1 – Environmental Dynamics is composed of researchers with expertise in Environmental Chemistry, Geochemistry, Physical Oceanography, Geological Oceanography, and Geomorphology. The semiarid coast has coastal systems, such as estuaries and sandy bars, subject to wide environmental variability in space and time. They are classical hyposaline estuarine systems during the rainy season, which become hypersaline estuaries (salinity higher than the sea) during the dry period. Understanding this environmental dynamic is essential to verify the effects on populations, communities, and ecosystems (Axis 2) and human communities (Axis 3) as fishermen and shellfish gatherers.
Axis 1 will focus on producing a series of medium and long-term hydrochemical and sedimentological data involving the variability of temperature, depth, granulometry, types of sediments, salinity, pH, alkalinity, nutrients, organic and inorganic dissolved carbon, and geochemistry of sediments in recent times. These environmental data will make it possible to understand the variability over gradients and periods of drought and rain during the years of existence of the PELD CSB.
Axis 2 – Ecology of Populations, Communities, and Ecosystems is composed of researchers who have expertise in the area of Ecology, Biological Oceanography, Zoology, Microbiology, and Ecological Modeling. The semi-arid coast has coastal ecosystems with significant biodiversity, endemism, and productivity, which need to be studied to understand their long-term variability in space and time concerning ongoing human impacts. Understanding ecological dynamics at different hierarchical levels of biological organization (populations, communities, and ecosystems) and their relationship with environmental dynamics (Axis 1) and human communities (Axis 3) is the key aspect of the PELD CSB proposal.
This research axis will focus on producing a series of long-term ecological data involving microorganisms (bacteria, archaea, heterotrophic protists, and fungi), coastal vegetation (dunes, seasonal semideciduous forests, marine grasslands, and mangroves), plankton (phyto-, zoo- and ichthyoplankton), fish, benthos (for example, mollusks, crustaceans, and polychaetes) and birds. In addition, as an ecosystem service, stocks of blue carbon in the semiarid mangrove will be evaluated. In this context, the spatial and temporal variability of communities (wealth, dominance, and taxonomic and functional diversity) and populations of key species (selected for their ecological and/or socioeconomic relevance) constitute the main research target for Axis 2 of the PELD CSB.
Axis 3 – Human Ecology and Environmental Perceptionis composed of a group of researchers who have expertise in Ecology, Human Geography, Physical Geography, Fishing, and Ecological Modeling. The semi-arid coast has traditional human subsistence communities and small-scale economies, such as fishermen and shellfish gatherers, which need to be studied to understand their catchment areas for fishing resources (mollusks, crustaceans, and fish), the variability in space and time of the use of resources and their perception and adaptation to ongoing environmental changes, such as increased winds, increased salinity, temperatures, overfishing, among others. Understanding human dynamics, productivity and sustainability of fisheries, fundraising areas and their relationship with environmental (Axis 1) and ecological (Axis 2) dynamics is a relevant theme for the management of conservation units and adaptation to environmental changes in the context of the PELD CSB proposal.
This research axis will focus on producing a series of data on long-term human ecology involving environmental perception, fishing landings, ways of life, and the use of coastal spaces (mangroves, dunes, estuaries, sandy banks) using techniques of social cartography and fisheries sustainability analysis.
Axis 4 – Integrated Data Analysis is a transversal axis that aims to centralize the management of the database, integrating with SIBBr and WebSIG and conducting integrative and interdisciplinary analyzes composed of the other axes (1, 2, and 3).For the environmental data collected by Axis 1, a three-year database of information will be prepared, which will be integrated using the LOICZ (Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone) model. These models allow generating future scenarios to understand the socio-ecological effects of severe droughts, temperature rise, hypersalinity, and others, which are predicted in the Anthropocene for the semiarid coast. In addition, they provide information on whether the system acts as a sink or source of nutrients and the net metabolism of the ecosystem.
The Ecopath ecological program will be another integrating and unprecedented model to be used to unite the information from Axes 1, 2, and 3 of research by PELD CSB. Ecopath will make it possible to include networks of interactions between animals and biomass from numerous chief groups, such as those described in Axis 2, and to develop predictive models with environmental variations or withdrawal of resources such as fishing. Finally, a WebSIG of the PELD website will be prepared at the end of the project, with online data that will allow the integration and visualization of abiotic, biotic, and human information in a geospatial database with the data produced by the PELD CSB in its first series of 3 years of data (2021-2023) as well as pre-existing data from previous decades.
Axis 5 – Public Communication of Science and Environmental Education is an integrating axis that aims public communication/education of the project and scientific dissemination about environmental aspects, fauna, flora and microorganisms, and traditional human communities. These actions will be done both in-person in formal and non-formal education spaces as well as using social media. The PELD CSB has an adequate infrastructure because it has an advanced research station on the research site (CEAC – Center of Coastal Environmental Studies at UFC https://labomar.ufc.br/pt/ceac/), which carries out educational activities environmental (PEAM- Marine Environmental Education Program) for over 30 years, with the use of ecological trails in the dunes, boards, mangroves, and estuaries for public elementary and high schools.In this case, the PELD will strengthen this extension program and start new face-to-face activities in the Beach Park that is a place with infrastructure for leisure, recreation, and tourism. Beach Park is located in the area of the PELD site in the metropolitan region of Fortaleza (Ceará) and is known as the largest water park in Latin America, receiving more than 1 million visitors every year.
