Quantifying ocean monitoring effort and cost in the Southern California Bight over the last 25 years

Ocean monitoring to assess the status and trends of the physical, chemical, and biological integrity of the coastal zone is critical for successful environmental decision making. The National Research Council found in 1990 that ocean monitoring in the Southern California Bight (SCB), while extensive, was largely ineffective for decision making and numerous steps have been taken since to improve monitoring. Here, we repeat a study conducted in 1997 to inventory ocean monitoring throughout the SCB to answer three questions: (1) How much ocean monitoring is conducted in the SCB in terms of effort and cost? (2) How does this ocean monitoring effort and cost vary amongst different habitats, indicators, and monitoring agencies? (3) How does ocean monitoring effort and cost compare to ocean monitoring 25 years prior? We found that 64 organizations conducted ocean monitoring in 2022, compared to 115 monitoring organizations in 1997. Despite roughly half the number of monitoring agencies, the number of samples collected more than tripled from 244,917 to 919,858 per year. The cost of ocean monitoring also doubled from 62 million dollars ($62M) in 1997 (inflation adjusted to 2022 dollars) to $138M in 2022. The majority (58 % of samples and 52 % of costs) of the ocean monitoring effort in the SCB is conducted by agencies with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits, a requirement imposed by state and federal regulators. The reduction in number of monitoring agencies is in part attributable to fewer NPDES dischargers between 1997 and 2022. The largest monitoring effort was for beach water quality monitoring, a direct outcome of legislation to protect public health of beach goers. While this ocean monitoring effort may appear large, the effort amounts to <0.5 % of the region's ocean-generated revenue.