DOI Project # SA 024; Decision Support for Hurricane Sandy Restoration and Future Conservation to Increase Resiliency of Tidal Wetland Habitats and Species in the Face of Storms and Sea Level Rise. (UCONN LCC)

This is an announcement for issuing a single source financial assistance award to The University of Connecticut, A State Public Institution of Higher Education in the State of Connecticut (UConn). This announcement is for notification purposes only. The Department of the Interior Project is #24, Decision Support for Hurricane Sandy Restoration and Future Conservation to Increase Resiliency of Tidal Wetland Habitats and Species in the Face of Storms and Sea Level Rise. That project included goals to: (1) Compile and summarize initial results of assessments of impacts of Hurricane Sandy on tidal marshes and marsh-dependent species; (2) Compile regionally-consistent spatial data including elevation, tidal restrictions, ditches, and hardened structures; (3) Monitor and assess the effectiveness of tidal wetland restorations completed in response to Hurricane Sandy for increasing resiliency of marshes and marsh species to future storms and sea level rise and use this information to develop best management practices for future restorations and prioritize locations with the highest likelihood of success; (4) Develop models for understanding future impacts of sea level rise and storms on tidal marshes along with other stressors such as urban growth to address critical management decisions for increasing resiliency through marsh restoration, management and protection at regional and local scales; (5) Incorporate models for sea-level rise and storms into the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) modeling framework "Designing Sustainable Landscapes" throughout the Northeast Region in combination with other predicted effects of climate change, urban growth, conservation and management on tidal wetlands and adjacent uplands to understand combined habitat and species impacts and thereby guide decision making across a number of goals; (6) Provide decision support tools, maps, models and monitoring results available to decision makers at scales and formats needed and provide capacity to work with partners to use this information at the regional, state and local level. The intent of the award is to support several aspects of that project building on the extensive experience and large collection of historical and contemporary measures of plant and bird communities in tidal marshes from VA to ME through the Saltmarsh Habitat & Avian Research Program (SHARP). SHARP partners through UConn and subcontracts to other university SHARP partners will use this platform to assess the efficacy of restoration activities and to provide planning guidance to enhance the future resiliency of natural coastal assets. Specifically, they will: (1) Collect baseline data in 2015-16 to enable quantification of the efficacy of Hurricane Sandy restoration projects using a standardized set of protocols that allows both integration with similar work already planned for many National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) and comparison with SHARP¿s larger regional data set (a network of >1500 locations sampled annually in 2011-14). (2) Collect detailed, high resolution, marsh elevation data in association with SHARP¿s existing sampling network and at new study sites associated with restoration evaluation. (3) Generate a detailed, ground-truthed vegetation map for tidal marshes throughout the region in order to facilitate both the evaluation of restoration work and future resiliency modeling and planning. And, (4) integrate SHARP¿s work with that of other LCC and Hurricane Sandy resiliency partners in order to conduct regional conservation planning, design and decision support. This project is authorized by the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013, Public Law 113-2.