Hosted by US Environmental Health Agency
Cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cyanoHABs) produce great amounts of cyanotoxins, significantly threatening aquatic ecosystems and public health. Knowledge of the timing and location of cyanoHAB events and cyanotoxin production is important for water quality management of recreational and drinking water systems. This webinar will go over two EPA research efforts related to detecting and forecasting cyanoHABs.
This webinar will present an EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) and Office of Water collaboration to develop and publicly distribute cyanoHAB forecasts. Satellite data is used to predict the weekly probabilities of cyanoHABs in over 2,000 US lakes. The team launched the public beta test forecast website for the 2024 active HAB season, and a newly updated forecasting website is planned for 2025. The forecasting has 91% overall accuracy, allowing local partners and states to prepare and quickly respond to cyanoHAB events, mitigate health risks, and protect public health.
EPA ORD is also using cyanotoxin encoding genes as an early warning system to predict cyanoHABs in source and recreational waters throughout the US. This webinar will report on the abundance and transcripts of these genes in the waterbodies investigated in the US, and how gene abundance and transcripts correlate to cyanotoxin concentrations. The resulting development and use of these markers as an early warning system in forecasting cyanotoxins will then be described.