Here are a few improvements we're working on getting into the next update of the Southeast Conservation Blueprint. These improvements will be particularly helpful when you want to use the South Atlantic Conservation Blueprint, but your questions also include areas it doesn't fully cover. We're hoping to have a draft of Version 4.0 of the [...]
Salt marsh in Core Banks, NC. Photo by John Buie/Flickr, CC BY 2.0. Predicting where future salt marsh habitat will be, and how much we'll have, can be tricky. Over the last year or so, Amy and I have been working with Steve Hartley and Dan Stone from U.S. Geological Survey on improved [...]
Last month, Addie's blog talked about the Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability (SERPPAS) Good Map project. The idea is for the Good Map to serve as a visual way for diverse partners to identify overlapping interests and areas for collaboration where they could get mutual benefits. Sounds familiar, right? Mallory and I have [...]
Flooding on N.C. 12 on Pea Island in Dare County. Photo courtesy of NCDOTcommunications/Flickr, CC BY 2.0. As local governments throughout the South Atlantic struggle to adapt to sea-level rise, they're faced with a number of legal challenges. I'm sure you can think of at least 1 regularly flooded coastal road where you [...]
Shared from Rua's post on the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy blog Southeast Blueprint Version 3.0 identifies high value areas for conservation and restoration across the Southeast and Caribbean. Southeast Conservation Blueprint 3.0 data are now final and ready for you to use. The major improvements in this version include: Integration of new data from the Texas Crucial Habitat Assessment Tool (CHAT): This fills in [...]
Lately I've been helping the Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability (SERPPAS) improve the mapping of their priorities. SERPPAS is a six-state partnership comprised of state and federal agencies that promotes collaboration in making resource-use decisions supporting conservation of natural resources, working lands, and national defense. A big focus of the partnership is facilitating actions in [...]
A couple of weeks ago, the directors of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (SEAFWA) unanimously approved an explicit goal for Southeastern ecosystems. This was a high priority improvement in the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS). I've been talking about the steps leading up to this goal in my last few blog posts. [...]
Setting goals for the future is hard. It never feels like we have enough data and the future is so uncertain. That said, goals can be a powerful way to bring in new resources and stay focused on outcomes. A couple of months ago, I talked about assessing the state of the Southeastern ecosystems. This [...]
Alvin collects a sample of Lophelia pertusa from an extensive mound of both dead and live coral. Image copyright Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The new and exciting discoveries from deep water dives in the South Atlantic just keep on coming. You might have seen my previous post about cool stuff the Okeanos dives [...]
How are the ecosystems of the Southeast doing? How is that changing over time? I've been working on integrating ecosystem assessments across the Southeast to get at those key questions, primarily to support a major task this year for the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS): developing an explicit and near-term goal. The big idea is trying [...]