Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Southern Appalachian Mountains CESU

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The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research in storm surge modeling for a coastal unit of the National Park Service Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina (CALO). USGS and the National Park Service (NPS) are currently collaborating on a pilot study to map and value ecosystem services at Cape Lookout National Seashore, and to develop a framework for using ecosystem services information in planning at other NPS units. Ecosystem services information is increasingly requested by managers (Bagstad et al. 2013); understanding the benefits that parks provide to nearby communities and the impacts of adjacent private land management on the health of parks are both pressing questions related to ecosystem services and parks management (Palomo et al. 2013). Coarse-scale mapping of the value that ecosystems provide in protecting lives and property coastal communities has been completed nationwide (Arkema et al. 2013); however, these data are too coarse scale to inform management at the scale of a community or NPS unit. Additionally, NPS is working to model storm surge impacts on coastal NPS units under sea level rise (SLR) scenarios for different tropical storm intensities, primarily using the Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model (Caffrey and Beavers 2013). Given the threat of SLR associated with climate change (IPCC 2007) and the vulnerability of coastal communities and NPS units to SLR and storm surges, this work is timely for coastal resource managers.

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