Coastal

Researchers are investigating beach compaction, the incubation environment for turtle nests, and shorebird nest abundance at beaches throughout the southeastern United States to better understand the impacts of beach compaction to nesting turtles and foraging seabirds.

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.

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.

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...

WARC researchers partnered with managers and species experts to develop a Bayesian network model and a geospatial habitat characteristics dataset to predict the number of breeding pairs of Black Skimmer and Gull-billed Tern along the northern Gulf of Mexico.

WARC Researchers are comparing tree and root growth, soil CO2 flux, and surface elevation change between fertilized and unfertilized mangrove forests to assess the potential impact of increased nutrient loading and to help rate mangrove stand vulnerability.

USGS WARC works with partners on early detection and rapid response (ED/RR) efforts, rapidly removing newly introduced non-native marine fishes from Florida’s coastal waters to prevent invasions.

USGS WARC scientists are monitoring both the long- and short-term effects of coastal restoration efforts on ecosystem health in coastal habitats of Louisiana’s Barataria Basin.

Estuaries and their surrounding wetlands are coastal transition zones where freshwater rivers meet tidal seawater. As sea levels rise, tidal forces move saltier water farther upstream, extending into freshwater wetland areas. Human changes to the surrounding landscape may amplify the effects of this tidal extension, impacting the resiliency and function of the upper estuarine wetlands. One visible...

USGS researchers will provide technical guidance to inform the development of monitoring plans for the western coast of Louisiana.

The State of Louisiana's Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring (BICM) program has partnered with USGS to developed two habitat classifications schemes for monitoring barrier island habitats and habitats in beach-dune systems along the mainland. These schemes builds upon previous BICM habitat mapping efforts.