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18 March 2014

Is the red tide back or is salinity causing red-brownish colour?

Local expert Professor Brian Allanson says there could be two factors at play. One could be an income red tide due to warm temperatures experienced recently. The other could be as a result of a decrease in salinity resulting in water appearing dark from the East side. “Salinity is the saltiness of dissolved content of a body of water. It is an important determining factor of numerous aspects of the chemistry of natural waters and biological processes within it.”

The salinity of the water determines the types of organisms that live in that body of water.

Knysna marine rangers from SANParks collected samples from the Knysna estuary from three points (the Heads, buoy 27 and in Thesen Island) for Professor Allanson to interpret.