Suggested Citation:"Grants." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Gulf Research Program Annual Report 2020. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26147.
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Suggested Citation:"Grants." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Gulf Research Program Annual Report 2020. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26147.
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HEALTHY Ecosystems 4
| A Coupled Natural-Human Framework for Risk Assessment of Coastal Communities from Land Use and Climate Change | AWARD AMOUNT $1,113,056 |
PROJECT DIRECTOR Christopher Anderson (Auburn University) |
PROJECT TEAM AFFILIATION Auburn University, University of Georgia, University of South Alabama |
| OVERVIEW: Along the Gulf of Mexico, the conversion of forests to urban or other agricultural uses can exacerbate water pollution and discharge. Land use change has become particularly apparent along the Emerald Coast, a region of coastal Alabama and the Florida panhandle. This project seeks to understand how climate and various socioeconomic factors may change forest and landowner decisions; and how forest loss may affect water quality and drainage patterns along the coast. The team will develop a framework that includes 30-year land use and land cover scenarios to predict future coastal ecosystem conditions. | |||
| Development of Gulf Coast Resiliency Management Plan Using Sentinel Species and Natural Infrastructure | AWARD AMOUNT $1,204,180 |
PROJECT DIRECTOR Elena Craft (Environmental Defense Fund) |
PROJECT TEAM AFFILIATION Environmental Defense Fund, Galveston Bay Foundation, Texas A&M University |
| OVERVIEW: Hurricanes, including Katrina and Harvey, have demonstrated that oil and gas facilities are vulnerable to flooding-related damage, which can trigger the release of petroleum products and chemical contaminants into the air, water, and surrounding neighborhoods. This project will study the human and ecosystem health risks from toxics potentially released from industrial facilities following weather- and climate-related events. It will also examine the possible use of Natural and Nature-Based Features (also known as green or natural infrastructure solutions), including constructed wetlands, to mitigate flooding-related toxic chemical releases. The team is focusing specifically on Galveston Bay in Texas, due to its proximity to vulnerable oil and gas facilities, but findings could also help inform industrial areas along the Louisiana coast. | |||
Suggested Citation:"Grants." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Gulf Research Program Annual Report 2020. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26147.
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| Ecological and Economic Impacts of Land Use and Climate Change on Coastal Food Webs and Fisheries | AWARD AMOUNT $1,107,499 |
PROJECT DIRECTOR Micheal Allen (University of Florida) |
PROJECT TEAM AFFILIATION University of Florida |
| OVERVIEW: The Suwannee River estuary supports several imperiled species, multimillion-dollar fisheries, aquaculture, and tourism in Florida’s Nature Coast. This project will assess how past, present, and future climate and land use scenarios influence the quality of natural resources in the Suwannee River estuary. The team will develop a predictive model to evaluate different watershed management actions, based on water quality and nutrient flow. These predictions, combined with food web modeling, will project how changes in freshwater quality and quantity will influence fish and shellfish populations. Results from the watershed and food web models will also be combined with survey data to evaluate the economic impacts of different land use and climate scenarios. | |||
| Ecological and Social Drivers of Mangrove Expansion and Restoration in the Future Gulf of Mexico | AWARD AMOUNT $697,868 |
PROJECT DIRECTOR Randall Hughes (Northeastern University) |
PROJECT TEAM AFFILIATION Northeastern University, The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Geological Survey |
| OVERVIEW: Along the Gulf of Mexico tropical mangrove forests are expanding beyond their usual boundaries due to warming winters. However, mangroves are displacing salt marshes, which can have cascading effects on the ecosystem and communities that depend on marshes for water filtration and protection from storm damage. This project will synthesize existing knowledge on current mangrove distribution, abundance, and ecosystem function and analyze what is driving people’s decisions to inhibit or promote mangrove expansion. Results will be translated into a Coastal Resilience decision support tool and a Mangrove Explorer interactive app. The app will help identify which human and ecological communities may be especially impacted by continued mangrove expansion. | |||
Suggested Citation:"Grants." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Gulf Research Program Annual Report 2020. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26147.
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| OysterFlows: Using Science and Data Visualization to Evaluate Freshwater Impacts to Oysters in the Gulf | AWARD AMOUNT $557,171 |
PROJECT DIRECTOR Bryan Piazza (The Nature Conservancy) |
PROJECT TEAM AFFILIATION The Nature Conservancy and RTI International |
| OVERVIEW: Oysters and their reefs perform vital functions in the Gulf of Mexico—from filtering water and providing habitat to supporting one of the last viable oyster fisheries in the world. But no tools exist to assess how the health of Gulf of Mexico oysters is affected by the quantity and timing of river flows. Without these tools, it is impossible to develop integrated river-management plans, make wise investments in oyster restoration, or facilitate climate adaptation for Gulf oysters and the communities they support. This project will address this need by developing OysterFlows—a decision support tool that models how climate change, upstream water use, and water management decisions made far upstream from the coast are likely to affect oyster resources in Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico coast. | |||
| Panacea or Pandora’s Box: Coastal Restoration and Recreational Fishing Livelihoods in Salt Marshes of Coastal Louisiana | AWARD AMOUNT $588,579 |
PROJECT DIRECTOR Michael Polito (Louisiana State University) |
PROJECT TEAM AFFILIATION Louisiana State University, Rhodes College, University of Central Florida, University of Mississippi |
| OVERVIEW: Louisiana salt marshes provide nearly 1.2 billion pounds of seafood each year, and they remain a popular destination for sport fishing. The distribution and abundance of fish are typically synchronized with freshwater inflow patterns to the marshes. However, it remains unclear whether human activities and natural processes may affect those patterns and the predictability of fishing forecasts. This project seeks to understand the effects of freshwater inputs into salt marsh ecosystems and how those activities affect the behaviors and livelihoods of the recreational fishing industry. To date, studies focusing on recreational fishing in salt marshes have considered only the effects of human activities on salt marshes. By contrast, this project will assess how human activities and natural processes interact by combining empirical knowledge, fish distribution and abundance data, and environmental parameters. Model outputs from this project will help predict how ecological and socioeconomic changes affect the livelihoods of recreational fishing communities. | |||
