Hazards

This informational webpage provides an overview to community planners and emergency managers regarding the coastal hazards associated with collision, a regime within the storm impact scale. This page describes the conditions that lead to a collision regime and the risks it poses to local resources. Collision is the second of four storm impact regimes, and the first regime where substantial impacts...

This informational webpage provides an overview to community planners and emergency managers regarding the coastal hazards associated with inundation, a regime within the storm impact scale. This page describes the conditions that lead to the inundation regime and the risks it poses to the beach and adjacent communities. Inundation is the fourth of four storm-impact regimes and is the most severe...

This informational webpage provides an overview to community planners and emergency managers regarding coastal hazards associated with overwash, a regime within the storm impact scale. This page describes the conditions that lead to the overwash regime and the risks it poses to the beach and local community. Overwash is the third of four storm-impact regimes and leads to considerable impacts on...

This informational webpage describes the swash regime, including depictions of the beach complex under its influence (Image 1), the conditions that define it, and any risks to the beach complex. Swash is the first of four storm-impact regimes, with minimal to no impacts expected from it.

This webpage provides a technical description of how water levels are defined and calculated during a coastal storm event (such as a hurricane). It describes how the USGS team calculates the peak water level against which a reference beach complex is modeled in order to determine risks.

This webpage expands on the concept of the beach complex introduced on the storm-impact regime homepage. It clarifies the morphological (beach shape) markers used to assess the impact of elevated water levels and relates them to the swash, collision, overwash, and inundation regimes. It also introduces additional terms used by professionals to describe these same features (such as dune toe and...

This webpage provides technical details regarding how the USGS calculates beach metrics related to morphology features; specifically, the dune crest position and elevation, the dune base/toe position and elevation and beach slope. This is a brief overview of that process with links and references to the full source material.

This webpage explains coastal hazards caused by high water at the coast. These high-water levels, called "total water levels," happen when tides, waves, and storms combine and push the ocean higher than normal. This page provides an overview for community planners, emergency managers, and anyone else who wants to understand these risks.

On Florida and Caribbean coral reefs, stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) has caused widespread destruction and loss of coral cover since its first appearance off the coast of Miami in 2014. So far, the only intervention found to be effective at halting progression of this disease and saving the lives of infected coral colonies is applying an amoxicillin paste, a type of antibiotic, to the...

Coral disease was first documented on Florida reefs in the 1970s. Since then, outbreaks of diseases have increased, and disease is now one major reason why coral reefs worldwide are in decline. Although what causes most coral diseases is not known, the few with known causes have been linked to microorganisms, highlighting the need for studies of microbes associated with diseased corals.

In nature, microbes typically exist in communities made up of many different types of microorganisms (for example, bacteria, viruses, etc), all interacting with and influencing one another. Therefore, in order to understand the role that microbes play in an environment, it is often important to think of microbes operating as complex communities rather than as individual microorganisms.

This project aims to understand the microbial processes, including disease, that influence the health of coral reef communities. We use microbiology and molecular biology techniques to better understand the role of microorganisms in shaping reef structure and function.