NOAA and Smithsonian project to improve Chesapeake and Delaware bays' nearshore habitat management

NOAA has awarded the Smithsonian Institution's Environmental Research Center and several partner organizations $946,000 for the first year of an anticipated five-year, $5 million collaborative project to study the degradation of nearshore coastal habitats in the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. Research will be used by environmental managers and local officials to better protect and restore these estuaries over the long-term, as well as plan for sea level rise and other consequences of climate change.

Invasive species, contaminants, excessive nutrients and sediment are just some of the many factors threatening sensitive wetlands and seagrass beds. An additional issue has been community efforts to "harden" shorelines by lining shores with bulkhead, rock, or rubble to try to protect adjoining lands against erosion and sea level rise. These structures can threaten the health of living shorelines, such as wetlands and marshes. This project will look at the combined effects of these multiple stresses on nearshore habitats and their dependent species.

"These habitats, which are nursery and feeding grounds for so many species, have typically been managed in a piecemeal, parcel-by-parcel fashion and are slipping away in areas of heavy development," said Robert Magnien, Ph.D., and director of the NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science's Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research, which awarded the grant. "Developing scientific information that ties multiple species and their environment will be used to advance management approaches."

The Smithsonian Institution's Environmental Research Center will lead a team of investigators from the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the University of Delaware, Pennsylvania State University, and the United States Geological Survey. Area coastal managers are also part of the research team and will provide input. Program managers from NOAA's National Ocean Service will provide oversight.