“State of the Bay” monitoring programme for Saldanha Bay & Langebaan Lagoon

The Saldanha State of the Bay monitoring programme is designed to provide an annual assessment of the state of Saldanha Bay, Langebaan Bay and surrounding ecosystems. A detailed State of the Bay report is produced every year that summarises all available data and information on activities and discharges affecting the health of the Bay (residential and industrial development, dredging, coastal erosion, shipping, and sewage and other wastewaters, and fish effort), water quality in the Bay itself (temperature, oxygen, salinity, nutrients, and pH), sediment quality (particle size, trace metal and hydrocarbon contaminants, TOC and nitrogen). Annual surveys are conducted by Anchor Environmental each year (since 2008) to collect data on water quality and sediment quality (48 stations).