The Remote Sensing of Mercury Pollution in South San Francisco Bay project aims to create maps of multiple chemical forms—or “species”—of mercury across time and space, giving resource managers new tools to monitor water quality, especially after extreme storms. By combining satellite imagery, shipboard radiometry, and in-water sampling, researchers are building a time series of data on mercury species, including methylmercury, a particularly dangerous form that accumulates in fish and other wildlife. … Understanding where and when mercury levels spike is crucial to ecosystem health. This is especially important as climate-driven storms and floods become more frequent, churning up bottom sediments and releasing previously trapped mercury into the water column.