Gridded bathymetry at 60m resolution surrounding Guam Island, Guam U.S. Territory. Bottom coverage was achieved in depths between 0 and ~3500 meters. The Arc ASCII grids and floating point geotifs include multibeam bathymetry data acquired over multiple surveys by the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, Ecosystem Sciences Division (as of May 2017). The data were acquired using the Simrad EM300, and Reson 8101 multibeam sonars, with sonar frequencies of 30 and 240 kHz respectively. The 60m grid is mosaiced from data sets acquired in 2003, 2007, 2010 and 2017.

Blue carbon storage – carbon sequestration in coastal wetlands – can help coastal managers and policymakers achieve broader wetlands management, restoration, and conservation goals, in part by securing payment for carbon credits. Despite considerable interest in bringing wetland restoration projects to market, the transaction costs related to quantifying greenhouse gas fluxes and carbon storage in restored marsh has been a significant limiting factor to realizing these projects.

This collaborative research project conducted extensive field work on the South Carolina coast. This project monitored and evaluated the effectiveness of a variety of living shoreline techniques under different coastal environmental conditions. Three datasets were generated by the project:

A new tool has been developed, the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Tool for Coastal Habitats (CCVATCH), to help land managers, decision makers, and researchers develop conservation, management, and restoration plans for coastal habitats. This assessment tool identifies primary sources of vulnerability to assist with prioritizing coastal habitat management actions. As part of this project, four estuarine reserves in New England will conduct assessments of their areas, demonstrating the utility of the tool to support adaptive management in response to climate change.

Climate change is a pressing concern for Alaska's coastal communities and fisheries businesses facing disruptions to the abundance and reliability of fish populations. As decision-makers in south-central Alaska began climate adaptation planning, they recognized that fishermen were often under-engaged in resilience conversations and lacked resources to integrate climate risks into business strategic planning.

This project conducted field research at six shoreline sites in the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve in northeast Florida. At each of the six study sites, the project team installed experimental living shoreline treatments.

Drawing upon experience using scenario planning to help local communities prepare for climate change in the Tijuana River Valley (Southern California), the project team will use the best available science to facilitate local dialogue addressing how climate change may impact the Kenai Peninsula. The project will engage regional leaders and community stakeholders to collaboratively develop plausible future planning scenarios based on a wide range of possible environmental responses to a changing climate.

Using a collaborative approach that engages researchers and local business owners, the project team will adapt a tourism-resilience index for southern Maine businesses. After pilot-testing, a broader community of local business leaders will complete facilitated self-assessments in Kennebunkport and Kennebunk, Maine. Participating businesses will be given their custom tourism-resilience index, or score, along with a set of suggested steps they can take to increase their resiliency to natural disasters.

A team of collaborators from the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, Southwest Wetlands Interpretive Association, and University of California-Davis are exploring the environmental consequences of managing the opening and closing of lagoon mouths. The project approach includes the following elements:

Collaboration with Users: The project team will regularly engage members of the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project, which coordinates and funds restoration projects throughout the region.

This project will assess the ecosystem services of shellfish farming by measuring impacts of newly established farms in the North Carolina Research Reserve. Because there is an opportunity to assess conditions before farm installation, North Carolina estuaries provide an ideal place to measure these effects. Two years of intensive sampling in and adjacent to oyster farms, concentrating on wild shellfish resources and the physical and chemical environment, will aim to link small-scale changes with larger-scale ecosystem-level alterations.