Coastal Resilience

Coastal resilience is the ability of a community or ecosystem to withstand and recover from weather and climate-related events, including hurricanes and rising sea levels. Improving resilience depends on coastal intelligence—information used by public and private decision-makers to make the best choices to support healthy ecosystems, robust economies, and thriving communities along our coasts. NOAA CESSRST’s Theme I (Coastal Resilience) research tasks address a high-priority research area for NOAA through a combination of:

• Coastal observations
• Development of new remote sensing tools
• Assessment of the environmental and socioeconomic effectiveness of developed approaches for mitigating the impacts of coastal stressors on nearshore habitats and coastal communities

Theme I Research Tasks

Ocean Observatories in Critical Coastal Regions

• Integration of satellite remote sensing data and field observations to characterize ocean and atmospheric properties and dynamics across CESSRST ocean observatories
• Development of enhanced atmospheric correction approaches for satellite ocean color algorithms developed for existing and future satellite ocean color sensors
• Assessment of the impacts of human activities and extreme events on coastal habitats such as coral reefs and coastal resources

Quantifying Coastal Erosion in the Arctic and Assessing Its on Vulnerable Coastal Ecosystems and Communities

• Development of new methods for delineating the position of the Arctic Coastline and nearshore environment from high spatial resolution satellite imagery to improve the resolution of coastal erosion assessments, especially near vulnerable Arctic communities
• Assessment of the impacts of coastal erosion and riverine input on nearshore water quality

Development of Coastal Water Quality Indicators

• Development and evaluate satellite algorithms for monitoring chlorophyll, dissolved organic carbon, particular organic matter, and sediment dynamics in optically complex coasts, both for existing satelliteas well as future

Development of In-situ and Satellite-based Environmental Datasets for Assessing Resilience to Disturbance in Tropical Coral Reefs

• Apply satellite and ground-based observations to increase the quantity, type, and coverage of in-situ environmental data in coral reef ecosystems
• Develop species distribution models to help improve the survival rates of coral nursery transplants to promote coral reef recovery and to objectively determine ideal sites for coral nurseries.

Improved Monitoring of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and Their Impacts in Coastal Eutrophic Systems

• Evaluate modular hybrid green infrastructure systems designed to mitigate pollutant loading and explore the relationship to offsetting HAB growth and toxin production
• Apply satellite data to assess the effectiveness of modular green infrastructure systems in mitigation efforts

Student Training in Coastal Resilience

Students will have the opportunity to develop skills and knowledge in a wide variety of research and analytical techniques, including hands-on training in deployment and operation of a wide range of in-situ sensors for optical, physicochemical, biological, biogeochemical measurements in the field; development and evaluation of remote sensing bio-optical algorithms; and development and application of modeling tools for environmental and socioeconomic assessments.