Priority Landscapes

USGS researchers will utilize long-term soil elevation change data to help advance understanding of soil elevation dynamics and ecological transformations due to climate change within coastal wetlands of the Greater Everglades.

In order to enhance habitat for nesting Brown Pelicans, terns, Black Skimmers, and gulls, the USFWS has contracted with USGS to conduct project monitoring on North Breton Island from FY23 to FY31. Monitoring conducted by USGS will facilitate evaluation of habitat characteristics and determine restoration success or need for adaptive management.

The USGS is collaborating with researchers from other agencies, academia, and industry to predict coastal impacts from hurricanes. The results from this study will better inform coastal morphological change models, which will lead to improved hurricane impact projections.

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.

USGS researchers will examine how hydrology and landscape vegetation changes impact Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow survival and population growth.

USGS will compare the EverForecast hydrologic forecast, the South Florida Water Management District's Position Analysis, and observed water level recordings from gages located across the Everglades landscape to examine which forecast performs better during the wet and dry seasons; wet, dry, or average years; or in different areas of the Everglades.

The USGS is participating in the Louisiana-Trustee Implementation Group Monitoring and Adaptive Management work group to assess the injuries caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and to select the appropriate restoration measures to compensate the public for the injury to coastal and marine resources.

Forty-two fish biologists from seven organizations participated in a two-day Spring Fish Slam event in southwest Florida. Fourteen species of non-native fishes were collected or observed.

The Joint Ecosystem Modeling team will be running a suite of ecological models to evaluate scenarios and provide insight into how alternative restorations plans compare, indicate whether alternatives could lead to unintended consequences, and determine effects of alternatives that could conflict with other goals.

In the summer of 2021, instrumented platforms were deployed at Seven Mile Island Living Laboratory, New Jersey to conduct time series measurements of tidal velocity, turbidity, surface elevation, sediment concentration, and suspended sediment characteristics. The collected data will be used to provide decision support to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as they plan dredging activities in the Gulf...

Wetland and Aquatic Research Center and Fort Collins Science Center are coordinating a long-term, landscape-scale Burmese python research strategy for South Florida.

The Gulf Coast Joint Venture (GCJV) was established in 1988 as a result of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, which espouses the restoration of continental waterfowl populations through conservation partnerships in priority habitat regions. Since that time GCJV partners have expanded their mission and purpose to include the provision of habitat to support other priority bird species...