CHONe II
Canadian Healthy Oceans Network
About

CHONe (pronounced “Ko-Nee”), is an NSERC strategic Pancanadian network for healthy oceans, that brings together and mobilizes Canadian expertise in marine sciences in order to establish scientific guidelines for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity resources. Chone takes its name from a marine worm found in Canada’s three oceans, and is an indicator of a healthy benthic habitat.
From 2015 to 2020, scientists from multiple universities will be present on the North-Shore, particularly in the Bay of Sept-Îles. They work in partnership with the Institut Nordique de Recherche en Environnement et en Santé au Travail (INREST), that represents the Port of Sept-Îles. The Bay of Sept-Îles has been chosen as one of the study sites for the second phase of CHONe II. The northern environmental conditions, the freshwater input, and the presence of industrial, municipal, tourism, and leisure activities, make it a prime location to study cumulative impacts in northern environments.
MULTIPLE JOINT PROJECTS, ONE OBJECTIVE
Bays are one of the most diverse and productive coastal environments. There is often a significant series of stress factors, both natural (eg. freshwater and estuarine water input) and anthropogenic (eg. wastewater outfalls, ports, dredging), at a high frequency and magnitude. CHONe II’s project on the North Shore are aimed at understanding the influence of multiple stress factors on northern ecosystems and would allow the development of tools to assess the health of these ecosystems, thus improving the efficiency of conservation efforts.
This research is sponsored by the NSERC Canadian Healthy Oceans Network and by its partners: the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and INREST (represented by the Port of Sept-Îles and the city of Sept-Îles).
One of CHONe II’s projects focuses on marine currents in the Bay of Sept-Îles.