Red tide app coming to a shore near you

Whenever it hits the shore like clockwork, a collective groan is heard up and down the coast: red tide. Again? A nuisance to local beach loungers or a plague to the sunburned tourist, the crimson algae takes over Gulf beaches like cockroaches in a Manhattan apartment.

Current forecasts give a vague, 18-to-30-mile county-wide warning of imminent foiling of summer plans, but a new app will soon pinpoint exactly which beaches are affected by the toxic algal bloom.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System, Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota and the Florida Department of Health are teaming up to better specify where red tide is. The project received a 3-year, $1.1 million grant from NASA on October 1 of last year and is expected to be finished by 2018.

“All we can do right now is forecast that Manatee County might have respiratory impact,” said Barbara Kirkpatrick, executive director of GCOOS.

But with the app, trained citizens can take videos of water samples on their local beach every day. Data on the presence of red tide, which will be recognized by facial-recognition software, as well as environmental conditions on the Gulf, will be sent to a cloud-based server and will help scientists better understand how red tide moves.

Red tide is caused by the accelerated growth of K. brevis, a type of phytoplankton that releases brevetoxins that are harmful to marine animals and humans. Algal blooms happen when there’s a perfect storm of factors, much like hurricanes, said Kirkpatrick. The algae’s biology, a high amount of nutrients in the water and the flow of the oceans must be just right.

“Red tide blooms are patchy and the effects can vary greatly from beach to beach, even when the beaches are right next door to each other,” said Richard Stumpf, an oceanographer with the NOAA who is leading the app project.

According to the NOAA website, not all algal blooms are harmful; most serve as food for marine animals. Toxic algae makes up a small percentage of all blooms. But there are also non-toxic harmful blooms that die and decompose, therefore dangerously lowering the oxygen in the water, leaving animals to move on or die off.

Kirkpatrick said the first year of app development was focused on matching microscopes to cellphones, and the next year will be dedicated to making the most practical microscope-phone unit.

After the app is ready and running in Sarasota, Kirkpatrick said the technology will make its way to Texas, whose coast is also affected by the bloom.

This story was originally published May 30, 2016 at 3:48 PM with the headline "Red tide app coming to a shore near you."