Louisiana

To assess use of dredge material areas, avian ecologists from USGS WARC are conducting bird surveys across the annual life cycle.

WARC researchers partnered with Gulf Sturgeon decision makers and biologists to develop a Bayesian network model that uses habitat characteristics to predict the quantity of juvenile winter foraging habitat under alternative river discharge and timing of juvenile arrival scenarios.

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 Brown Pelican breeding pairs on islands in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

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.

The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s Coastal Master Plan is a blueprint for responding to environmental changes. As part of the agency’s continued engagement, USGS supports model developments and improvements for the 2023 Coastal Master Plan.

The goal of the State of Louisiana Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring (BICM) program is to provide long-term data on the barrier islands of Louisiana that could be used to plan, design, evaluate, and maintain current and future barrier-island restoration projects.

Breton Island, located at the southern end of the Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana, is part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) established in 1904 by Theodore Roosevelt. Breton NWR is recognized as a globally important bird habitat because of the resources it provides, and hosts one of Louisiana's largest historical brown pelican nesting colonies. Without actions to restore sand to the...

CRMS uses a multiple reference approach to biological monitoring and uses aspects of hydrogeomorphic functional assessments and probabilistic sampling that address the limited effectiveness of the traditional paired-reference monitoring approach in Louisiana.This approach includes a suite of sites that encompass the range of ecological conditions for each stratum, with projects placed on a...

USGS uses weather surveillance radar data and landscape-scale habitat metrics to model bird-habitat connections along the western coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Coastal wetlands provide valuable ecosystem services such as wave attenuation, surge reduction, carbon sequestration, wastewater treatment, and critical habitats for endangered fish and wildlife species. However, wetland loss threatens the capacity of coastal wetlands to provide these ecosystem services.

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.

The federally threatened piping plover relies on sand-beach habitat year-round for nesting, foraging, and roosting, habitat that is particularly vulnerable to loss and degradation from coastal development, recreation activities, erosion, and sea-level rise.