Large-Scale Restoration Science

Managing the world’s freshwater ecosystems including lakes, rivers, and springs, and the water they supply to meet environmental and societal needs in a changing climate is one of the biggest challenges for the 21st century.

Alaska is simultaneously a landscape of extremes requiring specialized adaptations by plants and animals to survive the winters and a landscape of abundance that supports breeding birds each summer from as far away as Africa. Terrestrial Alaska also supports iconic species such as caribou and muskoxen whose population dynamics, predator/prey relationships and habitat ecology are researched by USGS...

The San Francisco Bay-Delta PES is one way that USGS continues to provide science for the restoration and conservation of the SF Bay and its watershed. USGS research topics range from wetland restoration in the Bay to restoring habitat for anadromous fish (e.g., salmon) in the uplands. USGS has made several important discoveries critical to the fundamental understanding of this system and...

USGS scientists in the Gulf of America region conduct research that investigate the past, present and future trajectories of coastal ecosystems, the stressors that impact those ecosystems, and restoration and management alternatives that aim to recover and sustain ecosystem functions and services. Our researchers are engaged in restoration programs across the Gulf, including those spurred after...

The Platte PES focuses on restoration of the Central Platte river in Nebraska which has been designated as Critical Habitat for the survival and recovery of the Endangered whooping crane. USGS conducts research which informs the rehabilitation of the structure and function of habitat used by whooping cranes. The Platte PES is an element within the larger Midcontinent Migration Connectivity...

The Greater Everglades Priority Ecosystem Sciences Program (GEPES) in USGS was established to conduct long-term research, monitoring, and modeling to provide science to inform Everglades restoration decisions and meet natural resource management goals. The program is one of several placed-based efforts in the USGS that focuses resources and science in “iconic” landscapes to support restoration and...

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 shoreline, beaches, and infrastructure in Duluth, Minnesota have been degraded along the Minnesota Point barrier island because of high water levels and heavy wave action. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is exploring the beneficial use of dredge material for beach nourishment on the Lake Superior side of the barrier island.

WARC researchers have developed a literature review of science on the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow focused on topics relevant to upcoming management decisions.

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.

Goals of the ATLSS Program are to help achieve a better understanding of components of the Everglades ecosystem, to provide an integrative tool for empirical studies, and to apply these tools to an adaptive management framework.

The USGS partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its conservation partners to develop 16 Biological Planning Units (BPU) and six Aquatic Extensions and compile population objectives for 166 species that are representative of habitats within each BPU.