Introduction

In the spring of 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Washington (UWT) Estuarine Field Studies class was replaced by an Oceanographic Data Analysis course. So students, instead of going out on boats weekly and collecting data in Puget Sound, embarked on a different (online) adventure as a research team and explored the oceanographic conditions in Clayoquot Sound on the West Coast of Vancouver Island (WCVI) British Columbia, Canada in 2015.

University of Washington Tacoma has been sampling the waters of Clayoquot and Barkley Sounds on the West Coast of Vancouver Island since 2000. The 2015 data was collected by UWT faculty and students from 8-15 September aboard the R/V Barnes (figures 1 & 2). Data collected included CTD profiles of temperature, salinity, density, dissolved oxygen, fluorescence and transmissivity and discrete water samples for dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll-a, nutrients and phytoplankton, as well as microplastics surface net tows and surface sediment coring (see methods page for details). This class website focuses on reporting and analyzing the results from the CTD and nutrient data.

Clayoquot Sound is located on the southwestern coast of Vancouver Island; one of five such sounds on this coast, each made up of interconnected fjords which were carved out by glaciers during the last ice age (figures 3 & 4). These coastal sounds are characterized by deep, narrow basins with sills and steep, mountainous topography (figures 5 & 6). The coastal climate is classified as a temperature rainforest with mild temperatures year round and annual rainfall of about 3 meters which supports dense forests of evergreens. The land portion of Clayoquot Sound is 272,000 hectares (2,720 square kilometers or 1,050 square miles), comprising about 8% of Vancouver Island (Friends of Clayoquot Sound). Tide ranges are on the order of about 4 meters and the inlets are highly productive with a wide variety of marine life.

Approach

Students started by learning about oceanography and estuaries, and gathered contextual information and data first for Puget Sound (where lots is known) and then for Clayoquot Sound where substantially less is currently known. Students worked as a team to find data about the physical forcing conditions in Clayoquot Sound, such as atmospheric and coastal oceanic conditions, as well as stream flow and tide data (see the Environmental Conditions page for more details). They then processed, plotted, analyzed and interpreted the 2015 CTD and nutrient data in the context of these forcing conditions (see the inlets pages). In addition, they explored the natural and human history in this region and more specifically the natural resource extraction industries that dominated the local Tofino economy for years until tourism took over (see the Contextual Papers page for more information).

Acknowledgements

We thank the crew of the R/V Barnes - Captain Bob Goodman & First Mate Ken Pinnell and the UWT scientists Cheryl Greengrove (Co-Chief Scientist) and Julie Masura (Co-Chief Scientist), Marine Technician Michael Foy and UWT students Lindsey Claassen and Madison Drescher for collecting the data.

We thank Dr. Rick Keil for providing the ship funding for this research.

We thank Nannette Huber, UWT Environmental Science Alumni and GIS Guru, for help this quarter teaching us GIS.

Thanks to guest speakers Laura Loucks (Clayoquot Biosphere Trust) CBT for sharing her knowledge of Clayoquot Sound with us.

Thanks to Laura Loucks and the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust, as well as the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at UWT for providing the funding to continue this project.

The Research Team