A Coupled Natural-Human Framework for Risk Assessment of Coastal Communities from Land-Use and Climate Change

Description: 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 (LULC) scenarios to predict future coastal ecosystem conditions.

Development of Gulf Coast Resiliency Management Plan Using Sentinel Species and Natural Infrastructure

Description: 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 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.

Ecological and Economic Impacts of Land-Use and Climate Change on Coastal Food Webs and Fisheries

Description: 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 modelling, 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

Description: 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.

OysterFlows: Using Science and Data Visualization to Evaluate Freshwater Impacts to Oysters in the Gulf

Description: 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 GOM 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

Description: 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 behaviors and livelihoods of the recreational fishing industry. To date, studies focusing on recreational fishing in salt marshes have only considered 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 livelihoods of recreational fishing communities.

Focus Groups

Focus Group/Advisory Committee Facilitated Discussion

Suwannee River Estuary Model Inputs

Suwannee River Estuary Model Outputs

Household survey response data to assess use and non-use value of coastal resources in the Nature Coast, Florida, obtained in 2022

Economic Impact Analysis Results for Suwannee River Basin Scenarios

Saltwater recreational angler survey response data to assess current visitation and future visitation under climate/land use change scenarios, Suwannee River Estuary, Florida, 2023

Suwannee River Surface Water-Groundwater Model, Inputs, and Outputs

Mangrove distribution in the southeastern United States in 2021

Knowledge and perceptions of waterfront residents surrounding mangrove expansion in the northern Gulf of Mexico, USA

A multi-region study of perceptions surrounding marsh and mangrove fisheries ecosystem services conducted from 2021 to 2022

Data for a study on waterfront property owners’ shoreline preferences amid salt marsh to mangrove transitions

Oyster Flows Salinity Model Input Data - Historic Sea Level Scenario

OysterFlows salinity model input data, future climate scenario

Oysterflows Spatial Data

Oyster Flows: An Investigation of the Ecological Flow Connections from Watersheds to Oyster Growing Estuaries

Oysterflows Statistical Model for Salinity Prediction

Literature review of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values from taxa collected within and around Barataria Bay, Louisiana

Survey of Recreational Fishers (SuRF)

Socioeconomic Indicators in the LA Coastal Zone

Water parameters, catch per unit effort (CPUE), gut contents, and carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur stable isotope values of spotted seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus) from Barataria Bay, Louisiana, 2003-05-20 to 2004-05-18