Coastal Ecosystems

The Sparrow Helper tool allows for the evaluation of water management scenarios by generating, plotting, and mapping hydrologic metrics across a range of time scales to predict impacts of proposed water depth changes to sparrow subpopulations.

WADEM (Wader Distribution Evaluation Modeling) is a JEM model that estimates species-specific habitat suitability across the landscape for Great Egret ( Ardea alba ), White Ibis ( Eudocimus albus ), and Wood Stork ( Mycteria americana ).

High rates of wetland loss continue to occur along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast, and this remains an issue of concern to resource managers.

Relict forests (i.e., forests unable to reestablish after disturbance) may develop in the southeastern U.S. in future predicted extreme climates of temperature, flooding, and drought, according to the International Panel on Climate Change.

NPWRC is developing, applying, and refining an integrated, process-based, systems model for prairie-pothole wetlands to facilitate forecasts of how climate and land-use change will affect wetland processes and biota. The Pothole Hydrology Linked System Simulator model (PHyLiSS) simulates changes in hydrology, water chemistry, plant communities, invertebrates, and other biota as a result of altered...

Beyond the impacts to jobs and business activities, economics can play an important role in understanding the return on project investments by studying the benefits of project outcomes to society.

The South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) has developed a Conservation Blueprint: a “living spatial plan to conserve natural and cultural resources for future generations.” This blueprint is a data-driven plan based on terrestrial, freshwater, marine, and cross-ecosystem indicators to measure the overall health of South Atlantic ecosystems.

Developing effective living shoreline restoration projects that can withstand hurricanes and storms requires a better understanding of how restoration structures reduce the impact of wave and current energy on marsh edges in estuaries and bays. Without this knowledge, existing living shoreline projects and adaptive management measures are more likely to fail, decreasing the possibility for long...

Marl prairie is the most diverse freshwater vegetation community in the Greater Everglades and provides the only suitable habitat for the federally endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrow (CSSS; Ammodramus maritimus mirabilis ).

EverSnail, developed in collaboration with the University of West Florida, is an age- and size-structured spatially-explicit landscape model of native apple snails ( Pomacea paludosa ).

Because the American alligator ( Alligator mississippiensis ) is a keystone species of the Everglades ecosystem, managers need a way to quantitatively assess the effects of alternative restoration scenarios on alligators.

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...