Priority Landscapes

The USGS collaborated with the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes to co-design a dashboard mock-up for a real-time web application that monitors tree island health in the Everglades.

The USGS and partners will survey bird and human activity on beaches in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to determine breeding bird response to stewardship activities aimed at protecting and recovering bird populations.

To sustain economic and ecologically viable ecosystems into the future, USGS is developing freshwater delivery targets for water flowing southward into Everglades National Park by integrating climate and sea level projections, hydrologic modeling, and ecological modeling to forecast ecosystem responses to future freshwater availability scenarios.

The USGS Wetland and Aquatic Research Center (WARC) has created a refuge for biodiversity in Lafayette, Louisiana, through the restoration of coastal prairie, a unique and vital ecosystem that has almost vanished within the last 100 years.

Dauphin Island, Alabama, is the only barrier island providing protection to much of Alabama's coastal natural resources. Severely impacted by repeated extreme events, like Hurricane Katrina and Deepwater Horizon oil spill, USGS and partners are conducting a joint study to evaluate the feasibility of certain alternatives to increase resiliency and sustainability of the island.

WARC first implemented geographic information systems (GIS) in 1980 to help monitor the nature and extent of wetland habitat changes. The center continues to use GIS, remote sensing, and other computer based technologies to address a wide range of natural resource related issues.

USGS WARC first implemented geographic information systems (GIS) in 1980 to assist in monitoring the nature and extent of wetland habitat changes. Today, WARC geographers and support staff create, maintain, and use geospatial data to analyze restoration efforts in Louisiana.

State and Federal agencies, including USGS, are working together to assess the damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and to determine appropriate restoration actions to restore natural resources, ecological services, and recreational services injured or lost due to the incident.

The Coastwise Reference Monitoring System was designed to monitor the effectiveness of restoration actions at individual sites, as well as across the entire Louisiana coast.

As the first federally mandated restoration program, Louisiana enacted the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA) to address Louisiana’s land loss crisis.

USGS and partners will assess the potential cumulative effects of restoration projects on the resiliency of barrier islands and barrier shorelines in the north-central Gulf.

Researchers at WARC will use data and models to produce probabilistic maps of current and future wetland inundation, coastal wetland extent, and coastal and wetland trangression.