Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief, Proj 67: Restoration on Fire Island National Seashore, NY

Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief, Proj 67: Restoration on Fire Island National Seashore, NY. The intent of the award is to support the Department of the Interior¿s Bureaus efforts to work with local and regional partners on coastal restoration and resiliency efforts. Specifically, this proposal was designed to further the goals of the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative, which has an overall goal of integrating existing data, models, and tools with foundational data and assessments of both the impact of Hurricane Sandy and the immediate response to guide decisions about where to conduct beach restoration, management and conservation action to sustain ecological function, habitat suitability for wildlife and ecosystem services, including flood abatement in the face of storm impacts and sea level rise. The project will aid in developing a synergistic ecological-coastal resiliency framework for a significant portion of the coastal habitat on Fire Island. It is envisioned that the project will provide key information on beach restoration, management and conservation actions for the federally-listed piping plover and other beach dependent species along the entire south shore barrier island system chain. The project will also contribute to the evaluation and prediction of the impacts of sea-level rise and management decisions on piping plover nesting suitability throughout the areas impacted by Hurricane Sandy.