Saltwater

USGS will provide support to the Large-scale Marsh Creation – Upper Barataria Component Project by monitoring change in the area of land and water, and recovery of vegetation and elevation over time.

USGS researchers and their partners will develop a coupled hydrodynamic and water quality modeling system; calibrate and validate the models; assess and predict outcomes of a canal backfilling restoration project on key water quality attributes; and run the modeling system under a suite of climate change scenarios.

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

A new study aims to collect information on sturgeon temporal and spatial distribution to inform offshore wind energy and sand leasing operations.

A USGS multi-disciplinary team will use laboratory and modeling approaches to investigate the cause of stony coral tissue loss disease.

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.

To better understand the environmental drivers of methane emissions in tidal saltmarsh, tidal freshwater swamp forest, tidal freshwater marsh, and non-tidal freshwater marsh habitats, researchers are collecting observations of CH4 emissions and porewater concentrations at research sites representative of each of these habitats.

WARC scientists work with local partners to verify and document sightings of non-native marine fishes.

WARC researchers sampled anuran populations at sites within Big Thicket National Preserve to explore saltwater intrusion on these populations.

When it comes to hurricanes, wind and storm surge effect vegetation differently. USGS anlyzes these differences following Hurricane Sandy to help inform management on storm mitigation and long-term planning.