Land Use / Land Cover Change

South Florida's pine rockland ecosystem represents less than 3% of its original extent. This project will evaluate habitat conditions for two pine rockland snake species to develop future habitat condition scenarios for Species Status Assessments.

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.

Mottled ducks rely on the coastal marshes of the Texas Chenier Plain, which are considered among the most critically endangered habitats in the United States. USGS scientists are evaluating what might be contributing to the degradation of high-quality mottled duck habitat to better understand the causes of habitat loss and subsequently mitigate those losses.

National Wildlife Refuges provide habitat for important fish and wildlife species and services that benefit coastal communities, like storm-surge protection. USGS scientists are helping coastal refuges plan for and adapt to sea-level rise.

For many years, coastal marshes in Texas and Louisiana have served as critical habitat for the mottled duck ( Anas fulvigula ) , which is considered a priority species in the Texas/Louisiana Gulf Coast area.

Barrier islands provide numerous invaluable ecosystem goods and services including storm protection and erosion control for the mainland, habitat for fish and wildlife, salinity regulation in estuaries, carbon sequestration in marshes, recreation, and tourism. These islands are dynamic environments due to their position at the land-sea interface. Storms, wave energy, tides, currents, and relative...

Critical information predicting condition changes in manatee habitat resulting from the alteration of freshwater flows to estuaries is needed to develop the PSRP Detailed Design and PSRP Operations Plan components and complete consultation under the Endangered Species Act.

Significant damage to coastal communities and surrounding wetlands of the north Atlantic states was caused by Hurricane Sandy in late October 2012, mostly tied to an associated storm surge of record extent and impact.

Field observations over recent decades have confirmed mangrove expansion landward in tropical zones and poleward in temperate saltmarsh settings around the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Prescriptions in the forest habitat management plan for Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge are designed to produce a forest once represented in the Tensas Basin. There are several problems with reconstructing original forests. In most areas, conditions have changed since these forests were cut; particularly, hydrology, soils, and climatic conditions.

Peninsular Florida has a high density of species and ecosystems of conservation concern, as well as many threats to the persistence of native species and their habitats. USGS worked closely with the Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative to define conservation targets to help meet conservation goals.

Peninsular Florida is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change in the United States. With complex socioeconomic and ecology dynamics and a large number of governing agencies involved in conservation planning, USGS worked to created an appropriate framework for landscape conservation cooperative-scale decision-making across current conservation planning agencies and jurisdictions.