STRONG Coasts is a community-engaged training and research program on systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations.
What are the leverage points for food-energy-water systems in a specific geographic context to improve the sustainability of the overall system across different scales?
From community-engaged research to innovative, holistic solutions!
STRONG Coasts
Systems Training for Research on Geography-based Coasts
With 40% of the world’s population residing within 100 kilometers of a coast, these environments are critical to local and global economies. Human activity related to the generation and use of food, energy and water has been linked to impacts such as nitrogen pollution that degrades the quality of coastal waters. This degradation affects reef ecosystems, fisheries, and people’s economic livelihoods and health. Replenishment requires innovative systems thinking and better consideration of the way food, energy, and water systems are integrated in terrestrial and coastal environments.
Systems thinking considers the whole system including engineered infrastructure, the environment, and sociocultural aspects, rather than an assembly of isolated parts. Integrating sociocultural dynamics and meaningful engagement of community stakeholders is fundamental to this approach.
STRONG COASTS is supported by a National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) award (#1735320) led by the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a community-engaged training and research program in systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations. The project will train PhD-level trainees from engineering and applied anthropology at USF and MS-level trainees from marine and environmental sciences from the UVI in four locations: Tampa, Florida, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Barbados and Belize. This project is co-funded by the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program. The LSAMP program supports comprehensive, evidence-based, and sustained approaches to broadening participation of students from racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in STEM.
Vision
To train Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics graduate students at the University of South Florida (USF) and University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) with 21st century skills to create and synthesize knowledge in engineering, social science, and environmental science for innovation via systems thinking and community-engaged research and practice.
Goal
To develop a transformative community-engaged training and research program for STEM graduate students who will work with community partners to innovate solutions to sustainably manage complex and interconnected coastal social, economic, and environmental systems.
STRONG Coasts Overview
the team
STRONG Coasts is a team of faculty mentors, students, partners, and advisory board members working together to develop innovative, community-engaged solutions in coastal communities.
Strong Coasts Trainees will gain 21st century and global competency skills to create and synthesize knowledge in engineering, social science, and marine sciences, for innovation via systems thinking and community-engaged research and practice.
Research
Strong Coasts trainees will consider complex systems comprised of engineered infrastructure, the biophysical environment, and sociocultural dynamics. Trainees will integrate sociocultural dynamics and meaningful engagement of community stakeholders in Tampa Bay, the US Virgin Islands, Barbados, & Belize with research.
Strong Coasts provides an interdisciplinary curriculum that includes Systems Thinking & Practice, Systems Modeling of the Environment, an interdisciplinary project-based FEWS Global course with an international field component in either Belize or Barbados, Communication, and Leadership.
Strong Coasts trainees will build professional skills for jobs that match individual development plans, gain research communication training, and work in interdisciplinary teams with collaborators from study sites, to learn inclusive and innovative research practices in conjunction with our partners in international settings.
Through our proposed systems thinking approach and training in interdisciplinary, 21st century, and global competency skills, trainees will conceptualize the interactions between FEWS, develop proficiency with the qualitative and quantitative approaches from different disciplines needed to characterize these interactions, identify leverage points for sustainable FEWS development, and propose informed and innovative approaches for the management of resources for FEWS and livelihoods security.
Research sites, food-water-energy components, research foci, and partners.
Virgin Islands
Florida
Barbados
Belize
Nexus Component
Food
Fish/Sugar
Strawberries
Sugar/Chicken
Bananas/Shrimp farming
Energy
Coal, Solar,
Liquid Propane
Coal, Natural
Gas, Solar
Diesel generators,
Solar
Hydroelectric, Solar
Water
Desalinated & Rainwater
Groundwater, Desalinated & Surface Water
Groundwater & Desalinated Water
Groundwater, Desalinated and Surface Water
Research Focus
Technology
Resource Management
Regulation
Organizations
Example Partners
Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority
Lakeland Water Utilities
Barbados Water Authority, University of West Indies
Caribbean Community Climate Change Center, University of Belize
To be considered for admission to our program, prospective students must already have been awarded admission into a PhD graduate program at the University of South Florida, either in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Engineering or Anthropology. Application form essays should indicate how the STRONG Coasts traineeship fits with your academic/professional plans and how you will contribute to the program/cohort?
Civil & Environmental Engineering
To be enrolled as a PhD student in the Civil and Environmental Engineering program as a part of this NRT, students should apply to the University of South Florida – Tampa campus.
To be enrolled as a PhD student in the Anthropology department as a part of this NRT, students should apply to the University of South Florida – Tampa campus.
To be enrolled in the Master of Science in Marine & Environmental Science (MMES), students should apply to the University of the Virgin Islands in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands.
I recently watched a video of a solar eclipse occurring in front of a cheering crowd and could only see how beautiful the event was. Shortly after I imagined that same event through my ancestor’s eyes and how scary or ominous it could have been to see the sun disappear in the middle of the day. My training as an environmental engineer has taught me to see the relationships around me through math and science and interpret the world by first focusing on a small scale to simplify the interactions, and then expanding from there. Most of my training has been in direct relationships, meaning if X occurs, the result will be Y. The problem with that is that there are often far more X’s that influence the resulting Y. To get a better understanding of what will happen, we must get a better understanding of what causes it, and how those causes interact with each other as they influence the outcome. In complex systems modeling, we focused on those influences. Not only the influences that the causes have on one another, but also the influences the outcomes have on the causes, or feedbacks.
For most people, including myself, it is difficult to keep track of this elaborate dance of forces. We used modeling programs like Python and Vensim to help us take small relationships, and treat them like a puzzle piece to complete an image of what is occurring, and what can occur based on what has occurred and how these trends are changing with time. While I found physical and chemical interactions like agricultural flow rates, nutrient loading, and their impacts on water bodies easier to model, I also learn to integrate social factors like economics and human behavior into the modeling process. Since humans do not always behave in a way that is readily captured in today’s models, archetypes of know behaviors were used to better predict what can occur.
I took this course as the pandemic of COVID-19 continued to change the world around me. The pandemic and the way people and nations responded gave me a deeper respect for epidemiologists and the people tracking this data to inform public policies. When people say how the scientists were wrong at predicting the number of deaths, I do not think they realize that the system is always changing based on our actions or in actions. Fortunately, the original predictions of death tolls over a given period were wrong because behaviors were changed. Hopefully, in the future we use complex modeling techniques to better inform the public and take educated actions on what we are willing to sacrifice to get what we hope to achieve. Fear of these natural phenomenon often come from not knowing why they occur and what is to come, and that “not knowing” can be greatly reduced through complex systems modeling.
About the AuthorAfter high school Daniel spent six years in the Navy as a nuclear plant operator onboard a submarine. Those experiences created an interest in engineering that lead to environmental engineering. After completing his contract with the Navy, Daniel enrolled in community college and later transferred to San Diego State University (SDSU). At SDSU he was accepted as a research assistant helping with algal biomass research. There he grew algae in wastewater to treat the water and use the algae as fuel stock . Upon completing his bachelors in environmental engineering, he was accepted to University of South Florida (USF), Tampa, for a Ph. D. program in civil engineering with a concentration in environmental engineering. There he researches biological onsite wastewater treatment for removal of nutrients. His research interests revolve around food, water, energy nexus specifically in wastewater treatment, resource recovery from waste, and bioremediation.
STRONG COASTS is supported by a National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) award (#1735320) led by the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a community-engaged training and research program in systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations. The views expressed here do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
In Fall 2019, Strong Coasts opened the application for Challenge Grant Proposals to fund research projects for the 2020/2021 academic school year. Challenge Grants are interdisciplinary projects performed by Strong Coasts cohort members, focusing on community-engaged research rooted in a systems-thinking framework and working with global or field-based research partnerships. Four projects were selected for funding for the upcoming academic year: Seaweed Farming in Belize, Water Reuse in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Wastewater Management on Laughing Bird Caye in Belize, and Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease and Coral Restoration Monitoring in the Florida Keys. In this blog post, we hope to give you the inside scoop on what the latter, Florida Keys Project, has been up to over the last couple of months.
The Florida Keys Project is a collaborative study between Strong Coasts Fellows, Kris-An Hinds, Department of Anthropology, and Michelle Platz, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The objective of their study is to strengthen the relationship between ocean-based and land-based reef restoration in Florida by filling two predominant socio-environmental research gaps: 1. Literature detailing how reef decline and restoration has affected Florida Keys stakeholders, including residents, business owners, scientists, and tourists; 2) Published monitoring data evaluating the efficacy of Florida’s reef restoration efforts. By incorporating both social science and engineering perspectives, this project aims to identify leverage points within the reef restoration system to improve restoration monitoring and strengthen the relationships between the system’s stakeholders listed above.
After receiving IRB approval in May, Kris-An and Michelle conducted their first interviews with restoration practitioners and reef managers working to regenerate the Florida Reef Tract in June, officially kicking off the project’s ethnographic chapter! We cannot wait to keep learning from these professionals as we continue interviews throughout the summer. Last week, two reef monitoring systems were installed at Cudjoe Ledge and Marker 32 Reef in the lower Florida Keys as part of a collaboration between scientists from USF’s Watershed Sustainability Research Group, the Mote Marine Laboratory, and the Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). These sensors will be used to monitor changes in the reef’s net community metabolism throughout the summer as they undergo coral restoration! More to come as Strong Coasts continues to learn about Florida’s treasured Reef Tract and the community of scientists and citizens diligently working to save it!
Check out the video below for a time lapse of recent fieldwork preparing and installing the monitoring systems on their respective reefs!
About the authorMichelle Platz is pursuing a PhD in Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida. She has a BS in Environmental Engineering from the University of Cincinnati and a Masters in Environmental Engineering from the University of South Florida. Her dissertation research investigates monitoring in-situ community metabolism, the processes involved in cycling carbon for coral calcification and biomass production, in coral nurseries and on restored reefs as a means to monitor coral restoration. She is working with a suite of monitoring technologies known as the Benthic Ecosystem and Acidification Measurement System (BEAMS) which was previously developed by Dr. Yui Takeshita of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Her research goal is to use these data to improve restoration practitioners’ understanding of the metabolic, environmental, and hydrodynamic processes driving coral growth. She hopes to contribute data which can be used to inform upstream environmental and ecological engineering interventions to help protect the ecosystem services reefs provide.
STRONG COASTS is supported by a National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) award (#1735320) led by the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a community-engaged training and research program in systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations. The views expressed here do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Located in Sarasota, Florida lies a research and development facility dedicated to increasing domestic aquaculture production to feed local residents of Florida in a sustainable manner. This facility is called the MOTE Aquaculture Research Park (MAP) and is led by senior scientist, Dr. Kevan Main and her team of experts. On October 4th, 2019, several STRONG Coast fellows and special guest, Dr. Jesse Edwards from the Chemistry Department at FAMU, met with Dr. Kevan Main a to tour the Mote facility and learn about their work with integrated aquaculture systems and fisheries enhancement.
Left to Right: Dr. Jesse Edwards (FAMU Chemistry Professor), Kris-An Hinds, Michelle Platz, Dr. Kevan Main, Adaline Buerck, Estenia Ortiz Carabantes, Michelle Henderson, and Maya Carrasquillo.
MAP focuses on marine and freshwater land-based aquaculture systems that are used for fish stock enhancement and food production. These systems are maintained in a sustainable manner in that the water that is used for production is reused. These recirculating systems at MAP use mechanical and biological treatment methods such as biofilters to purify the water and ensure conditions are suitable for the fish.
Our very knowledgeable tour guide, Tom Waldrop (Senior Biologist), showing the biofilter media that is used for water treatment at the facility.
The biological filter media allows nitrifying bacteria to colonize and oxidize ammonium, a waste product from the fish that is also toxic to them. The nitrification process, and removal of harmful concentrations of ammonium, enables the water to be recirculated. As a result, there is little to zero water discharge from this facility making it a top leader in the U.S. on developing marine recirculating aquaculture methods.
Another use of these recirculating systems is to grow plants that can be used for consumption or ecosystem restoration. MAP combines technology in aquaculture and hydroponics to grow fish, sea vegetables, and certain wetland plants. Dr. Main has worked closely with Gil Sharell from Aquatic Plants of Florida to innovate efficient and sustainable freshwater and salt-water aquaponics systems for these purposes. While most aquaponic production has focused on freshwater species, MAP expands that scope to marine aquaponics.
Sea purslane growning in a marine aquaponics system at MAP.
Sea Purslane at Laughing Bird Caye National Park taken during the Strong Coasts Field Trip to Belize in June 2019.
Current research looks at growing red drum, a hearty fish that is easy to cultivate, with sea purslane, a Florida native sea vegetable. Sea purslane is commonly found on sand dunes along coasts and is vital to stabilizing these coastal zones and substrates. Cultivated sea purslane from MAP is sold to local restaurants and farmers markets. This plant is also a common in Caribbean islands and is frequently found in markets in Asian and European regions. It is in the same family as spinach, but has a milder and saltier flavor which pairs up nicely with the fresh grown red drum fish farmed at MAP. Dr. Suzanne Boxman’s research as a master’s and doctoral student in the USF Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, focused on two of MAP’s projects. Some products from that work, include a video on cooking sea purslane and a publication, Evaluation of water treatment capacity, nutrient cycling, and biomass production in a marine aquaponic system.
Cooking with Sea Purslane. A video produced by Suzanne Boxman, Emma Lopesz, and Colleen Naughton for Reclaim Is, a social media class at the University of South Florida.
MAP currently works with four fish species: red drum fish, Florida pompano, Almaco jack, and snook. Research on each of the species provides insights into developing better methods for improving captive maturation, spawning, and health management to name a few. Not only does this system provide nutritious fish for consumption, it also works to restore declining fish populations in the wild through this research. Aquaculture and aquaponic systems are gaining great traction in many parts of the world and are of growing interest in some of the coastal communities we work with in the Strong Coast program. As demand increases for food, energy, and water resources, integrated systems such as the ones we observed at MAP will be at the forefront of ensuring we address these needs in a sustainable manner.
About the Author. Estenia Ortiz Carabantes is a 1st year Ph.D student in Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, FL. She received her BS in Environmental Engineering Sciences at the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, FL and her AA at Miami Dade College in Miami, FL. Estenia previously worked with understanding mercury capture using modified activated carbon and has served on several university executive boards involving outreach and STEM education. Her research interests include water quality, water reuse, sustainability, food-energy-water systems, food security, and human and economic development. Estenia’s current research focuses on the the food-energy-water nexus as it relates to residential food production. In order to combat urban food insecurity, she hopes to continuously examine existing green infrastructure and re-imagine their function through a cultural, educational, and engineering lens.
STRONG COASTS is supported by a National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) award (#1735320) led by the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a community-engaged training and research program in systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations. The views expressed here do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
“Kathleen?” “Kristalina?” “Kaleesha!” “yes, Kaleesha!”. Our interdisciplinary team of eight is sweating profusely in a scorching open-air bus station in Belmopan, the capital of Belize, waiting for our 4 pm bus to arrive. We’re “guessing” the middle name of one of our esteemed PIs, anthropologist Dr. Rebecca K. Zarger. She eventually tells us, but there are references to ‘Kaleesha’ over a month later during our weekly meeting. Small spontaneous moments build relationships.
Drs. Zarger and Trotz with the Strong Coast fellows on an early morning bus to Belmopan, Belize.
In June 2019, our Strong Coasts cohort of three anthropologists and five environmental engineers from the University of South Florida spent two weeks in Belize studying relationships between water, food, and energy. The Strong Coasts program is an exercise in many things: community-based research, global competency, and interdisciplinary training.
The need for interdisciplinary training as a means of navigating the complex challenges of our day is a common refrain in academia. But interdisciplinary work typically requires more than one person. Sure, there are polymaths out there that can do the academic equivalent of spinning plates while riding a unicycle and juggling one-handed. But for the rest of us mere mortals, understanding a discipline well enough to pass the Ph.D. finish line is challenging enough. To get to the heart of interdisciplinary training, you must have teams of people. You need to have meaningful relationships.
When researchers study interdisciplinary teams, the same relationship challenges crop up. The big three seem to be: communication (1,2), negotiating identities (3–5), and institutional support (6–8). Our program takes these obstacles head-on through a community-based problem-solving approach, pairing us off into interdisciplinary teams for specific research projects. An engineer and I look at wastewater treatment on small islands off the coast; other groups look at farming practices, gender and tourism, and seaweed farming. Each project has a stakeholder collaborator who defines the problem. Although we have group projects, we all participate in each other’s research trips. Over our time in Belize, we lived together, or at least in a string of bungalows next to each other, sharing most meals and beachside chats.
Learning Through Shared Experiences
One of the consequences of specialization is becoming entrenched in esoteric language. Analyzing the social history of the concentration of wealth and power becomes a political economy, the way that organisms break down biological material without oxygen becomes anaerobic digestion. The words might share similar etymologies, but they seem like different languages. See what I did there? Navigating different vocabularies can be a struggle. But sharing problems with colleagues from different disciplines is like live streaming on-demand YouTube tutorials. Two examples highlight how.
A wastewater treatment system installed by EcoFriendly Solutions at the educational facility at Hunting Caye, Belize.
During a trip to the island of Hunting Caye, I found myself staring at a series of white pipes and black tanks, skin sticky from an earlier snorkel. As an anthropologist with no environmental engineering training, staring does not reveal any secrets. But as my engineering colleagues patiently walk me through the wastewater treatment system, it becomes clearer. There are four septic tanks (2×2) that filter the solids as the remaining wastewater funnels into a digester that converts some of the nitrogen into a gas. Iteratively, as they describe systems on each of the eight islands we visited, communication gets easier. I understand their shorthand; they anticipate some of my questions. I begin to understand how the availability of water, land, and economics influences what type of wastewater treatment is possible.
Another story involves a local fisher who runs a seaweed farm. He sells most of his seaweed to local restaurants and consumers who mix it into smoothies. Recently he has begun shipping some to Texas to become a value-added product in cosmetics. He currently only sells one species of seaweed but raises three. After discussions with him and another Placencia resident, who is also developing processed seaweed products, members of our team agreed to run tests for inorganic elemental properties, like the presence of lead and arsenic, among others. A WhatsApp thread shared among the cohort keeps me in the loop. I passively participate as they decided which tests to run and explain why. Since we collectively approached our problems, these bits of knowledge stay attached to a tangible set of circumstances, people, and challenges. The training is more than the sum of knowledge. It is a peer support network and vividly drawn applications.
The Human Side of Collaboration
Our program is especially ambitious as it crosses the aisle from engineering all the way to anthropology. Traversing this intellectual divide is not a short distance. Although taking a community-based approach shortens it. By starting from the resident’s perspectives, social science becomes an inherent part of the process. It flattens the hierarchy between the disciplines. We all represent multiple entry points into the problem. Plus, nothing is a better barometer of your weaknesses than working with a group of differently skilled people.
Engineering, like anthropology, is applicable to almost any facet of life. Consequently, we have members with skillsets in community-based approaches to urban environmental justice, coral reefs, water quality monitoring technology, wastewater treatment and reuse, grassroots entrepreneurship, agriculture, and chemical analysis. But working with others, you don’t just benefit from their technical knowledge; you get the whole person. To say my interdisciplinary colleagues only bring their discipline to the table would be a great disservice to them. Technical expertise is just the tips of a pyramid founded on a lifetime of experiences influencing how we perceive and talk about the problems we are trying to understand.
Strong Coasts fellows Michelle Henderson and Estenia Carabantes Ortiz interview Mr. Lowell Godfrey about seaweed farming in Belize as other fellows observe the process.
When advising an engineer about how to perform interviews, I leaned on my years of experience both as a social scientist and living in the Caribbean to try to help them understand how to use interviewing techniques. We had bonded previously on a few shared values. Sitting in wooden beach chairs, awaiting sunset, we bounced between the specifics of the shared problem we were approaching and our personal experiences until we reached a mutual understanding.
“We embody a spectrum of skin tones, so much so at one point, we lined up for a photo like a color swatch.”
For our group of three men and five women, these experiences come from diverse backgrounds. We hail from different geographic places, mellow Southern Californians to less mellow upstate New Yorkers, some Midwesterners, and even a Scandinavian. Our religious beliefs range from the devoutly Christian to the mildly hedonistic. We embody a spectrum of skin tones, so much so at one point, we lined up for a photo like a color swatch. I, with my Irish and poltergeist heritage, was at the back of the line. It takes a great deal of trust to navigate all these differences. Trust that we built singing Karaoke, playing two truths and a lie on the beach, through the shared suffering of long uncomfortable bus rides, mutual interests in understanding social justice in context, and bearing through necessary but uncomfortable conversations with each other.
We’re all back at the University of South Florida now, moving in different directions based on our dissertation interests. It is not uncommon for this to happen on interdisciplinary projects; over time, they become more parallel than integrated. The value of our experiences so far isn’t just learning the ins and outs of wastewater treatment or how solutions emerge within cultural contexts. It is in learning to be part of a diverse team. Given that future problems will involve different stakeholders, with different needs, the ability to have relationships and collaborate with other people might be the most useful interdisciplinary skills of all.
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About the Author.W. Alex Webb is a cultural anthropologist currently interested in the relationship between critical infrastructure transitions and rapid tourism development in the Caribbean. His research emphasizes human-environment relationships, economic anthropology, systems thinking, and the study of science and technology.
Alex’s previous research focused on natural resource management in St Thomas, USVI, tourism development in Southern Utah, and socio-technical systems transitions in Belize. He is currently a student in the Applied Anthropology Ph.D. program at the University of South Florida. He received his BS in Psychology from Westminster College and MS in Marine and Environmental Science from the University of the Virgin Islands.
STRONG COASTS is supported by a National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) award (#1735320) led by the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a community-engaged training and research program in systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations. The views expressed here do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
As the Strong Coasts cohort waited to catch Ritchie’s bus to Placencia, Belize that summery Friday afternoon, determined vendors passed by selling a variety of goodies such as tamales, tortillas, and mini seaweed shakes. This initial glimpse into Belize captured my attention as tamales and tortillas are a staple in my Floridian household. Even more exciting was seeing the seaweed shakes on the first day as my colleague, Michelle Henderson, and I were were responsible for focusing on seaweed farming in Belize while we were there!
For two weeks, we traveled by bus and chatted with the residents of Belize over rich cuisine overlooking a gorgeous landscape. The goal of this trip was for our team to explore interdependencies among food, energy, and water systems with coastal communities.
Mr. Lowell Godfrey, Placencia Fisherman’s Cooperative & Placencia Seaweed Farmers at Little Water Caye showing seaweed farms.
We spent the first week caye hopping, investigating how land practices impact marine environments, and deep diving into the ridge-to-reef approach. Moreover, visiting the seaweed farms at Little Water Caye and talking with seaweed guru, Mr. Lowell Godfrey (aka Japs), further demonstrated ideas of the blue economy. According to Mr. Godfrey, harvesting 75% of the seaweed grown at the farms leaves 25% to serve as starter for the next cycle. The seaweed acts as a nursery for marine life, including juvenile fish, conch, crabs, and spiny lobsters — all essential to local and international fishing industries.
Seaweed on ropes at Little Water Caye in Belize. Photo by Maya Trotz, June 2019.
Seaweed, after it has been washed on freshwater and then dried in the sun for about 24 to 48 hours, changes color from golden to white. Small crabs are individually removed during the drying process because they are difficult to shake off during the harvesting process.
Seaweed washed in freshwater & sun dried. Image showing small crab that was removed from seaweed post harvesting. Photo by Maya Trotz, June 2019.
We learned that persons on the Placencia peninsula have been innovating with this superpowered algae for food, skin care, hair care, and even for burns. Seaweed shakes in Placencia are a popular way to cool off after a long day on the water and are found in several restaurants along the peninsula, including the Shak and Brewed Awakenings. Sustainably farming seaweed has allowed for the thriving of many markets furthering its demand.
Gelatinous seaweed that is added to seaweed shakes at Brewed Awakening. Photo by Estenia Ortiz, June 2019.
Belize taught me about the tradeoffs in food, energy, and water systems and the importance of community perspectives to provide robust context. We met people working at these intersections who are striving to be more sustainable. They have helped me to see the strong, valuable connections between natural and social systems. For instance, some are using their resources and cultivating crops only when they are in season. Their profound understanding of the environment allows new creativity and innovation to blossom. Moreover, this awareness and holistic thinking are engraved in their culture which continues to draw communities to lead various conservation efforts, protecting the beautiful scenery we enjoyed.
Overall, my goal as an engineer and researcher is to work alongside the community partners we met and provide extra support where possible. As I have learned more about the ways the community uses their resources, I have become more interested in improving the benefits of these systems through a food, energy, water nexus lens.
About the Author. Estenia Ortiz Carabantes is a 1st year Ph.D student in Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, FL. She received her BS in Environmental Engineering Sciences at the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, FL and her AA at Miami Dade College in Miami, FL. Estenia previously worked with understanding mercury capture using modified activated carbon and has served on several university executive boards involving outreach and STEM education. Her research interests include water quality, water reuse, sustainability, food-energy-water systems, food security, and human and economic development. Estenia’s current research focuses on the the food-energy-water nexus as it relates to residential food production. In order to combat urban food insecurity, she hopes to continuously examine existing green infrastructure and re-imagine their function through a cultural, educational, and engineering lens.
STRONG COASTS is supported by a National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) award (#1735320) led by the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a community-engaged training and research program in systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations. The views expressed here do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
In Belize, close to the village of Trio, there is a community-based cacao agroforestry concession that was established in 2015. This concession is a first of its kind in Belize and employs an interesting technique wherein the community has access to a protected area which they can use for the improvement of their livelihoods.
After a controlled burn the land will be planted with corn.
The path to the founding of the agroforestry concession was not a simple one and it was not without interactions of different levels of actors: local communities, Belize’s federal government, and the global political economy. In short, in early 2000s the Maya Mountain North Forest Reserve was being encroached upon by citrus and banana plantations. In addition to paid labor at the plantations, the workers needed additional means to support their families . As such, the people used the forest reserve for farming and resources gathering. Eventually in 2012, through multiple steps, the government of Belize evicted the people form the forest.
The people who were displaced took it upon themselves to contact the Belize Forest Department to gain legal access to the forest. It became a community effort and Ya’axché Conservation Trust was (and still is) a critical partner in the process. In 2015, Trio Farmers Cacao Growers Ltd. was established as a cooperative to support community agroforestry in the concession area. Their main goal was to support local livelihoods in Trio.
In June 2019, the Strong Coasts cohort from the University of South Florida visited the cacao agroforestry concession with guidance by Gustavo Requena from Ya’axché Conservation Trust. Gustavo is a farmer who uses different agroforestry and agroecological growing methods on his own farm in San Pedro Columbia. This is important because his work with Ya’axchéis remarkably similar to extension work by agricultural officers. Because he is a farmer and uses the methods he tells other people about, he has gained credibility with the cooperative farmers.
During our trip, Gustavo lead us off the main highway towards the village of Trio. “It is six miles, and then another six miles,” he says right before he drives off the gravel road. The road takes us through newly deforested tropical forests that are now barren, awaiting banana plantations. The plantations spread year by year, leveling more and more forest. It reminds me of what anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose explains in “Reports From a Wild Country” about settler colonialism and frontiers. The wild (in this case the forest) is awaiting transfiguration to become agricultural land. As our journey continued, the Jeep could hardly overcome the road which had turned into a watery, muddy trek that stretched along cattle pastures, burnt land, and tropical forest.
The encroaching banana plantations on land that used to be old growth forest.
Eventually, we made it to the end of the road, left our vehicles, and started a hike into the concession. We crossed the Trio Branch of Bladen River on a newly built bridge which was put in place for the cacao growers to have an easier access to the markets. The first part of the concession is reserved for annual plants. These are planted for farmers to have an immediate source of income for their families as they wait for the cacao which will not produce right away. Gustavo explains the importance of planning for the short-term, middle-term, and long-term as farmers need year-round provisions for their families. A farming system that relies on monocrops does not have this type of imbedded resilience planned and is more vulnerable to stresses.
You have to cross a newly built bridge to cross the Trio Branch of River Bladen to reach the agroforestry concession.
Finally, we reach our destination, the cacao agroforestry lands. Gustavo shows how cacao is grown and what is needed to keep the plants healthy. He elaborates on what farmers should do in order to promote higher yields while maintaining biodiversity. It becomes clear that shade is an important part of the cacao systems. The farmers control shade by trimming and pruning of the cacao and the surrounding trees. There is a trade-off between the shade, cacao yields, and biodiversity. With greater amounts of shade there is more biodiversity, but less shade yields more cacao. Ya’axche recommends that the farmers optimize the amount of shade so that production of cacao is plentiful. By the looks of the nearby markets, it seems that there is plenty of shade and that cacao is being produced in abundance.
As we make our way through the stands in the heat and humidity, Gustavo cannot help himself but to remove suckers from the cacao trees left and right. “These need to be removed in the next week or two, otherwise the farmer will be in trouble as the suckers will become branches and less cacao will be produced.”
Gustavo Requena from Ya’axché Conservation Trust showing the best way of trimming and pruning a cacao plant. You should leave four branches for optimal yields.
This particular area in the concession for growing cacao was chosen because it was a place where local cacao was already growing. This finding shows that the soil in the area is suitable for cacao, so sophisticated analyses of soil samples are not needed to figure that out. The taste of the local cacao is slightly different and presumably the markets are better for the imported variety. If you pick a cacao pod from the tree, open it, and pop a seed in your mouth it does not taste like chocolate, but more like a sweet fruit. Then if you bite on it the taste turns bitter, like dark chocolate. Better not to chew, but to just cherish the fruitiness covering the seed. In order to reach the chocolatey flavor, the seeds need to be fermented and roasted. They say that chewing on cacao beans can give you energy and relieve hunger. I had quite a few beans one day, and subsequently forgot to eat dinner. I guess it did something but wouldn’t recommend it for that purpose.
About the Author. Atte Penttilä is pursuing a PhD in Applied Anthropology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He has a BSc in environmental engineering from Tampere Polytechnic, University of Applied Sciences and an MSc in agroecology from University of Helsinki. His multidisciplinary and international background brings together different aspects of the food-energy-water nexus. In his Master’s thesis, Atte studied the effect of dung beetles on greenhouse gas emissions from cow dung. The results were published in PLOS One and featured in several news outlets and magazines, including National Geographic. Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, Atte worked in the field of development in Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Finland. His work focused on agroforestry with regards to local farmers’ associations. Atte is interested in how food production relates to local livelihoods, sustainability, and climate change.
STRONG COASTS is supported by a National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) award (#1735320) led by the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a community-engaged training and research program in systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations. The views expressed here do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
On June 2nd, Strong Coasts visited Belize’s Laughing Bird Caye National Park (LBCNP), home to one of the most successful coral restoration sites in the world. In addition to marveling at the immense thickets of coral surrounding the island, the purpose of the team’s visit was to explore the dynamics between food, energy, and water at the caye; we found LBCNP to be the perfect microcosm of the food-energy-water systems we came to Belize to study.
Strong Coasts cohort with Fragments of Hope and colleagues from UNC Chapel Hill at Laughing Bird Caye National Park in Belize, June 2nd, 2019. Photo by Victor Faux, Fragments of Hope.
Snorkeling around the island, the innumerable schools of fish clearly demonstrate how the coral restoration work at LBCNP impacts the fish populations there; as Fragments of Hope reminds us on their billboards seen throughout Placencia, Belize, More Corals = More Fish. While Laughing Bird Caye National Park is a no take zone, many of the fish that use the area as a nursery will eventually venture outside the park and become part of the fish stocks that support the Belizean fishing industry.
Images of Laughing Bird Caye National Park by Maya Trotz, June 2019. Reef restoration work by Fragments of Hope and the park is managed by the Southern Environmental Association.
Water comes into context when considering tourism. The national park attracts numerous visitors, sometimes on the order of 200 snorkelers and divers per day. While the park fees paid by tourists help maintain the health of the caye, with these visitors comes waste water. If unmanaged, waste water negatively impacts the coral by fostering algal blooms which compete with coral for space, light, and chemical resources.
Algae, Chaetomorpha linum, seen closer to where toilets are located at Laughing Bird Caye National Park in Belize, June 2nd, 2019. Similar sightings were seen in 2015 by Lisa Carne, Founder and Executive Director of Fragments of Hope. Coupled with erosion challenges, the facilities were moved to this new location and upgraded by EcoFriendly Solutions Ltd.. Photograph by Maya Trotz.
To protect coral from this excess nutrient runoff, the caye’s decentralized wastewater system was recently upgraded with larger tanks and additional treatment steps, however, there may be room for improvement. As for energy, tourists rely on tour boats for transportation to the caye, and the boat fuel used to get there constitutes the largest energy requirement and financial expense incurred by many seafarers. Additionally, the non-renewable fossil fuels used to get to the caye contribute to the greenhouse gasses driving global warming and ocean acidification, which impose stress on coral.
Food Energy Water Systems (FEWS) conceptual model for Laughing Bird Caye National Park, Belize. Arrow polarity is based on the relationship between the variables linked. If two variables share the same direct relationship e.g. both positively or negatively related to each other the arrow is positive. Conversely, if the variables share an inverse relationship the arrow is negative. Created by Michelle Platz with guidance from Dr. Christine Prouty.
In short, much can be learned from the dynamics of this minute yet complex system. Optimizing the operation of Laughing Bird Caye National Park may give way to insights on how larger systems, such as the Placencia Peninsula, could likewise be optimized to benefit both the people and the ecosystems in which we are a part.
About the Author. Michelle Platz is an Environmental Engineering PhD student at University of South Florida whose dissertation research applies engineered environmental monitoring technology to reef restoration efforts to improve coral mariculture and transplant techniques. She is working with a suite of previously developed monitoring technologies known as the Benthic Ecosystem and Acidification Measurement System, or BEAMS for short. She is using BEAMS to quantify coral metabolism in situ: the processes involved in cycling carbon for coral calcification and biomass production. By improving restoration practitioners’ understanding of the metabolic, environmental, and hydrodynamic processes which drive coral growth within nurseries, she hopes to gain a better understanding of how to develop more robust, storm-resilient coral restoration initiatives in the shortest amount of time.
STRONG COASTS is supported by a National Science Foundation Collaborative Research Traineeship (NRT) award (#1735320) led by the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a community-engaged training and research program in systems thinking to better manage complex and interconnected food, energy, and water systems in coastal locations. The views expressed here do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
On Saturday, February 9th, 2019 Strong Coasts fellow Michelle Platz had the opportunity to meet with legendary oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle and discuss ocean conservation solutions with a group of students, conservation activists, and local Dunedin community members. Conversation focused on local efforts to improve community sustainability, the importance of youth participation in conservation initiatives, local natural resource management and protection, and the nomination of the Tampa Bay Area to be one of Mission Blue’s Hope Spots: places identified as being critical to the health of the ocean.
Dr. Sylvia Earle with NRT STRONG Coasts Fellow Michelle Platz. Michelle’s advisor at the University of South Florida is Dr. Mauricio Arias.
In 2009, Dr. Earle launched her Hope Spot campaign as part of her TED Prize Wish, asking people around the world to “use all means at your disposal” to inspire public support for marine protected areas, with the hope of creating a protection network large enough to restore the ocean. The Strong Coasts cohort is doing its part to respond to Dr. Earle’s call to action, utilizing their academic platform to investigate the food-water-energy nexus within coastal regions and develop solutions to make human production and consumption more sustainable. By taking a systems thinking and community-engaged approach, Strong Coasts strives to develop students who will bring about long-lasting, impactful change, protecting both our societies and the ocean on which we depend. In order to have truly healthy oceans and thriving fisheries, we must first have strong coasts.
“To me the most exciting thing about this project is the focus on community engagement, collaboration and partnership with colleagues, students and people living in coastal communities that are already being affected by things like sea level rise, extractive industries and tourism that may not have their best interests in mind.” Rebecca Zarger, USF.
To me the most exciting thing about this project is the focus on community engagement, collaboration and partnership with colleagues, students and people living in coastal communities that are already being affected by things like sea level rise, extractive industries and tourism that may not have their best interests in mind.
Rebecca Zarger,USF
In order to build 21st century skills students have to be prepared to operate and be a problem solver in a world that has become very complex and very dynamic. So that requires alot more skills out of their traditional discipline, in my case engineering. That means they need to be able to communicate to the public, they need to be able to communicate with policy makers, and they need to interact with disciplines outside such as social sciences, geography, and the environmental sciences.
Jim Mihelcic, USF,
“We are building an ecosystem to support food, energy and water that uses everybody’s capabilities in the best way possible.”
Maya Trotz,USF
We are building on an existing collaboration with USF and experience in areas that UVI does not particularly have with stakeholders and sectors of our community that does not usually interact with academia. The training that we are doing for students is truly global in that we are having our students participate in field sites throughout this part of the world.
Sennai Habtes,UVI
One thing that really attracted me to this was the cross training.I really see food, energy, and water as being connected with community and human health, physical and mental health. You really need to address all three of them in order to increase the likelihood of overall human and community health.
David Himmelgreen,USF
This grant builds capacity through global connections and innovative solutions.
