ecological states on local scales (Lecher and Mackey, 2018) or contributing greenhouse gases with global implications (Sadat-Noori et al., 2016, Lecher et al., 2016. In spite of remaining unknowns, this Research Topic takes us a step closer, through methodological improvements in SGD quantification, to understanding the contribution of SGD to coastal nutrient and chemical balances, and the effects these chemical subsidies have on coastal trophic food webs. Finally, a review paper synthesizes progress in SGD research over the last decade, including a focus on its economical and cultural values.
Four papers are devoted to refining methods of quantification of SGD. A common indirect approach of quantifying SGD rates is to apply a mass balance of a chemical with concentration in groundwater exceeding those in seawater. Lamontagne and Webster (2019) caution that inadequate sampling focusing on surface water only when vertical mixing is slow may lead to biased SGD estimates. Short-lived radium (Ra) isotope distributions revealed that slow vertical mixing creates vertical gradients that need to be accounted for when building mass balance models. Depending on the hydrogeologic settings, DSi can trace terrestrial and brackish SGD or can be used as a tracer for marine SGD. They emphasize that DSi is a nutrient and may exhibit non-conservative behavior in the coastal ocean. A large improvement in DSi application is a recent progress in its chemical analysis that allows measurements from 1-mL sample volumes. This helps with the recurring problem of end-member characterization, especially from low-volume pore water samples.Characterization of SGD and nutrient fluxes from coastal karst aquifers was also the focus of Bejannin et al. (2020). SGD estimates in karstic coastlines are difficult due to the combined presence of different water sources that include springs, pore water exchange, and rivers. Horizontal eddy diffusivity from offshore 224 Ra transects and nutrient gradients were used to derive SGD nutrient fluxes. With this approach, the authors bypass the need for an exact characterization of the SGD endmember, minimizing uncertainties. However, this method is only applicable when the SGD tracers and nutrients behave conservatively within the timeframe of coastal mixing and have no significant external sources.
It has long been recognized that SGD is a significant source of nutrients to the coastal ocean. Over the last decades progress has also been made on characterizing the origin of nutrients in SGD, mainly implicating anthropogenic sources. However, in many settings single tracing techniques alone cannot discriminate between sources. Tamborski et al. SGD supports biological productivity SGD-derived nutrients sustain primary production, which in turn increases food availability to higher trophic levels. Andrisoa et al. (2019) showed that mussel growth rates and condition is greater at groundwater exposed sites. High growth rates were the consequence of both the higher winter temperatures moderated by groundwater discharging at constant temperatures, and groundwater-derived nutrient supply that increased food availability. This study provides direct evidence for the "downstream" ecological impacts of groundwater discharge on higher trophic levels and that SGD can have a local economic effect.The propagating effect of SGD along trophic linkages was also explored by Fujita et al.(2019) who investigated how SGD enhances the productivity and biomass of producers, primary consumers, and secondary consumers. Carbon stable isotopes revealed that nutrients from terrestrial SGD were utilized by juvenile marbled sole. Fish biomass across three sites in the western North Pacific were also related to high SGD locations. Starke et al. (2020) argue that apart from nutrient inputs, temperature should also be considered to drive fish distribution around fresh SGD sites in the tropics, perhaps due to the higher oxygen content of colder water. They demonstrated that fish are attracted to SGD sites using a biofouling experiment. The enhanced settlement of filamentous sessile algae near SGD sites became the food source attracting fish. The results presented showed that submarine springs attract fish in tropical settings and represent some of the first manipulative experiments in the SGD context. This collection of studies from multiple parts of the globe including Pacific Islands, USA, France, Australia, and Japan further illustrates the global significance of SGD for water, nutrient, and contaminant delivery to the coastal ocean. These papers show improved ways of quantifying the different components of SGD and pore water exchange. Through multiple examples presented here now we also have clearer evidence for the importance of SGD in driving food webs, fish stocks, and therefore indirectly also economies.
The recent advances in the field are highlighted in a review by Taniguchi et al. (2019).The field has now entered a "mature stage" with a large number of research groups exploring the multiple hydrological, geochemical, biological, and oceanographic facets of SGD. The review includes updates on technological advances of SGD measurement, description of geophysical drivers, magnitudes, and biological effects of SGD and porewater exchange. It is now recognized that terrestrial freshwater discharge, processes driven by wave setup and tidal pumping, as well as pore water exchange are not necessarily synergistic or additive. It has also become clear that global fresh SGD only accounts for a minor fraction of river discharge (Luijendijk et al., 2020) while the total (saline + fresh) SGD is often much greater than river inputs (Cho et al., 2018).The economic and cultural implications of SGD are now finally being evaluated. SGD's role in supporting coastal ecosystems and food resources had also had significance in various cultures historically, these cultural values and roles of SGD are now being described in the scientific literature.
