Project Explorer

This project explored how changes in the flow of the Mississippi River impact natural resources and their use in the Gulf of Mexico.

This project identified, developed, and evaluated ecological health and ecosystem services indicators and an associated assessment and decision framework.

This project adapted an existing computer model for assessing the suitability of a site for construction of a living shoreline, applied the model to Perdido Bay/Wolf Bay/Ono Island complex in coastal Alabama; Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana; and Galveston Bay, Texas, and developed an interactive decision support tool that allows for a rapid assessment of a site.

This project developed a decision-support tool to aid resource managers, municipalities, and a county with decisions related to the preservation and restoration of mangrove, marsh, and beach habitats; water management; and coastal planning, zoning, and land acquisition.

This project developed a cost-benefit framework for watershed management that informed and reduced uncertainties during project selection of the Louisiana Watershed Initiative.

This project prioritized efforts to restore, enhance, and create warm-water habitats in order to provide a network of thermal shelters for manatees along Florida’s Gulf Coast.

This project characterizes seasonal, annual, and decadal trends in marine mammal species in the Gulf and assess the role of ocean conditions and human activities in driving these trends.

This project investigates how three bird species of concern (black rail, yellow rail, and mottled duck) respond to different prescribed fire management regimes within high marsh ecosystems across the Gulf.

The project team collaboratively scoped and designed research to inform decisions about the design of marsh creation projects.

This project investigated how river diversions influence the living communities, food web structure, and function of created versus natural marshes to inform the development of marsh restoration strategies.

This project investigated migratory bird use of stopover habitats to inform bird habitat protection and restoration decisions in the Gulf of Mexico region.

This project improved and expanded an observing network and website that provides accurate real-time weather and water quality data to Alabama environmental managers and the public.

This project established a collaborative working group to scope and design an evaluation framework for the assessment and restoration of Gulf marine mammals in the face of multiple stressors.

This project assessed Gulf of Mexico observation networks from an ecosystem management perspective, based on an approach that has been successfully used to assess the capacity of ocean observing networks to effectively monitor ocean circulation.

The project team will develop science-based guidance on environmental stewardship techniques for the Gulf, which will help resource managers reduce threats from human disturbance to coastal-breeding bird populations.

This project tested whether trace elements associated with oil can be detected in oyster shells and serve as an indicator of oil exposure, thus providing resource managers with a way to detect past oil exposure on oyster reefs.

This project designed, tested, and applied a decision support tool to assist resource managers and oyster farmers in optimizing oyster resources in the State of Mississippi.

This project explores how oyster, blue crab, and spotted seatrout populations respond to human and environmental changes with the goal of improving the management of these economically and culturally important species.

The project team developed a roadmap for improving fishery forecasting by accounting for future environmental and management impacts to Gulf fisheries.

The project team seeks to better inform county and state governments’ decisions in Charlotte Harbor, Florida, by creating decision-making support tools that prioritize locations for restoration and protection of juvenile snook and tarpon habitat.

This project worked with fishery managers to develop a decision-support tool to assess the effectiveness of different long-term management strategies and short-term management regulations for the red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico.

The project team will expand on a model of the West Florida Shelf to account for red tide mortality when assessing Gulf reef fish and will develop red tide maps, which will help inform future recommendations on acceptable biological catch, or number of fish that can be harvested each year, for reef fish species that will undergo stock assessments between 2024-2028.

The project team described the extent of depredation, or the removal of captured fish by non-target species before the fish can be retrieved by a fishing vessel, in the Gulf to improve reef fish stock assessments.

This project combines habitat and water quality information with three integrated reef fish surveys to improve stock assessments of important fisheries by producing the most comprehensive database available for Gulf reef-fish abundance, size, and community composition.

The project team will develop a prioritization tool that incorporates biogeophysical constraints on waterbird nesting and economic considerations to help managers prioritize a network of colony islands in Texas.