Florida Barrier Islands Resilience

Lead Investigator: Sara Zeigler, U.S. Geological Survey St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (szeigler@usgs.gov)

Natural Resource Manager: Patricia Kelly (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Project Team: Jennifer Miselis, Davina Passeri, Ian Reeves, Simeon Yurek, Alexandra Evans (U.S. Geological Survey); Julie Zinnert (Virginia Commonwealth University)

Collaborators: Raya Pruner (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission); Beth Rankin, Daryl Hatfield (Florida Department of Environmental Protection); Mark Frey, Monique LaFrance Bartley, Bruce Leutscher (U.S. National Park Service); Michael Gillikin, Melanie Kaeser, Caroline Walker, Kristi Yanchis (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service); Margaret Lamont, Erika Lentz (U.S. Geological Survey)

Technical Monitors: Rose Palermo (rpalermo@usgs.gov) and Byron Tsang (byron_tsang@nps.gov)

Federal Program Officer/Point of Contact: Caitlin Young (caitlin.young@noaa.gov)

Award Amount: $3,573,544

Award Period: June 2026 – December 2030

Why it matters: Barrier islands and their associated coastal habitats are highly dynamic because they are strongly influenced by changing weather and climate patterns. In the Florida panhandle, natural resource managers are tasked with balancing long-term island resilience, species conservation, and visitor use which are often in conflict with one another. Federal and state agencies need information on the historical trends and future projections of the barrier island system to determine which actions to take to support resilient landscapes and natural resources as well as recreation.

What the team is doing: The project team will evaluate how barrier islands along the Florida panhandle are changing in relation to temperature, precipitation, storm trends; sea-level rise; and restoration efforts and how this change is likely to influence management objectives related to conservation, visitor use and enjoyment, and the long-term resilience of the barrier island system. This research integrates four fundamental components of coastal landscape change—sediment movement, vegetation dynamics, external forcing factors (i.e., climate, storms), and human responses— to address knowledge gaps and management needs as defined during the scoping and design phase. The team will compile region-specific environmental trends from published sources and create a time series of island change from the 1980s to present day. They will use these maps to measure total habitat area and connectivity for beach mice, snowy plovers, and nesting sea turtles. The team will also assess elevation and shoreline change over stormy and non-stormy periods and collect observations of plant species type, density, rates of establishment and succession, and potential shifts in functional groups. Finally, the team will use the Mesoscale Explicit Ecogeomorphic Barrier model (MEEB) to simulate barrier island change based on climate change scenarios co-produced with managers.

Expected outcome: This project will be among the first to synthesize regional interdisciplinary research to create a more comprehensive understanding of barrier island evolution with explicit connections to management needs. Specifically, the research will determine the historical location and area of barrier island systems in the Florida Panhandle; how their characteristics have changed and are likely to change; and the likelihood of achieving various management goals based on these evolving characteristics. The work will culminate in a ‘Science to Management’ workshop where the team will use project findings and manager input to co-produce a map that locates areas where specific management goals are more likely to be successful. This region-based approach will support managers interested in investigating the impacts of their decisions beyond the individual properties they manage.