Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Chesapeake Watershed CESU

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The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research in a joint research program in the field of global climate and sea-level change under the auspices of The Global Change Research Act of 1990, which established the United States Global Change Research Program. The proposed Cooperative Agreement has as its major goal to analyze the impacts of Holocene sea level rise and extreme storm events on tidal marsh wetlands in the greater Chesapeake Bay region with emphasis on the Potomac and Rappahannock River estuaries. The threat of accelerated sea level rise has raised awareness of the potential inundation to critical tidal marsh wetland habitats in Chesapeake Bay. For example in 2009, Presidential Executive order 13508 ¿Strategy for Protecting and Restoring the Chesapeake Bay Watershed¿ outlined the need to protect this treasured landscape from climate and sea level change. In 2014, the new draft of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement was published and its revision will include recommendations for additional research on wetlands and sea level rise. These policy-related documents outline stakeholder needs that are entirely consistent with the broader goals of the USGS Climate and land Use Mission and its R&D Program and the Ecosystem Mission and its Chesapeake Bay Program.

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