Marshes

The USGS will establish Rod Surface Elevation Tables at five National Wildlife Refuges on the Texas coast. This work will support climate adaptation and resilience planning by identifying areas susceptible to loss and degradation due to sea-level rise and extreme climatic events along the Texas Gulf Coast.

USGS researchers are collecting information about lower trophic levels in Barataria Estuary to develop a long-term monitoring plan.

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.

Sudden Marsh Dieback - SMD - has been documented for the past two decades throughout coastal areas of the United States. With these large-scale diebacks comes the loss of ecosystem functions and services. USGS scientsts use field work and greenhouse studies to investigate the factors that control the resilience and resistance of coastal salt marshes to SMD.

USGS and NPS partners are working together to analyze and synthesize long-term SET-MH measurements to improve understanding of coastal wetland soil elevation change and ecological responses to sea-level rise.

USGS researchers will define the range of elevation targets supporting optimal plant performance and soil strength by identifying the lower and upper thresholds of marsh conversion, and characterize ecosystem development of restored marshes over time to identify the lifetime and sustainability of restored marsh during sea-level rise. This work addresses priority science needs to improve...

USGS will monitor hydrologic and marsh conditions at the Turtle Bayou mitigation area. This effort will help provide a long-term water level dataset for Turtle Bayou.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is leading a Monitoring and Adaptive Management (MAM) activity with USGS collaborators to establish reference ranges and restoration targets, assess data gaps for focal nekton species and/or guilds associated with Louisiana’s estuarine and coastal habitats, implement the fixed-area sampling strategy to quantify fishes and invertebrates...

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.

WARC Researchers are studying carbon, water, and nutrient cycling in upper estuarine wetlands.

WARC researchers are working to quantify the impacts of future climate and land use/land cover change on greenhouse gas emissions and reductions.

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...