Restore America's Estuaries is partnering with the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Training Program Initiative and the five research reserves in the Gulf Coast to promote blue carbon projects. Through workshops planned around the Gulf, the project team will facilitate discussions about current needs and opportunities related to blue carbon. The project team will also help to establish local working groups and provide technical assistance through a targeted Gulf Coast blue carbon training workshop. The goal is to support new projects that advance local understanding of blue carbon science and help pilot ways to use emerging carbon markets to fund coastal wetland restoration and conservation. This science transfer project was funded by NOAA through the National Estuarine Research Reserve System Science Collaborative to promote the use of science. It did not produce any new data.

Land use change and wetland loss have decreased the ability of estuaries to mitigate storm damage and reduce flooding in Wisconsin’s Douglas County. The loss of these valuable services was apparent in the aftermath of severe storm events that caused significant flooding and damage in 2012. And, as the climate shifts, the region is likely to experience more frequent powerful storms. Strategic wetland protection and restoration planning could help communities work together in protecting wetlands and the services they provide.

This project will develop, produce, and implement role-play simulation case studies for Georgetown County citizens and leaders, with the goal of starting community discussions around climate adaptation and mitigation planning. The project team will develop the simulations based on localized climate information and data for temperature and precipitation. This will be combined with information gathered through key stakeholder interviews on their understanding of climate change, the climate-related risk factors that are of the greatest interest to them, and the social and political context in which decisions will be made. This information will then be used to create a scientific fact sheet for each case study, the roles within the case studies, risks that are present, and possible solutions based on sociopolitical context and scientific evidence. The project seeks to engage 150-200 participants in the role-playing simulations through a minimum of four community participation workshops throughout the county. The role-play will allow for collective community learning and engagement, and the potential for developing policy recommendations. It will help to incorporate climate risk management into local decision-making processes in the public and private sectors. This science transfer project was funded by NOAA through the National Estuarine Research Reserve System Science Collaborative to promote the use of science. It did not produce any new data.

A new tool has been developed, the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Tool for Coastal Habitats (CCVATCH), to help land managers, decision makers, and researchers develop conservation, management, and restoration plans for coastal habitats. This assessment tool identifies primary sources of vulnerability to assist with prioritizing coastal habitat management actions. As part of this project, four estuarine reserves in New England will conduct assessments of their areas, demonstrating the utility of the tool to support adaptive management in response to climate change. This science transfer project was funded by NOAA through the National Estuarine Research Reserve System Science Collaborative to promote the use of science. It did not produce any new data.

This dataset contains the spatial analysis workflow, data derived from the spatial analysis, and R code to identify the blue carbon restoration opportunity in three case study regions in Australia: 1) Fitzroy Basin, QLD; 2) Peel-Harvey and northern part of South West Catchments, WA; and 3) Ord River, WA. It uses a multi-stage approach to identify: 1) potential coastal wetland restoration sites across case study regions based on biophysical suitability; 2) their carbon abatement following the Australian Government Tidal restoration of blue carbon ecosystems method; 3) their economic feasibility under a carbon market using cost-benefit analysis with variations of carbon abatement, restoration cost, discount rate, carbon price, and farm gross margin; and 4) their co-benefits for biodiversity, fisheries, water quality, and coastal protection, and evaluation of their cost-effectiveness considering profitability, restoration feasibility, and provision of co-benefits. Potential cultural benefits were also evaluated. This work package supports the regional approach developed for selecting coastal wetland restoration sites for blue carbon and co-benefits in Australia (Hagger et al. 2024 Journal of Environmental Management). This work package utilises publicly-available spatial datasets from Geoscience Australia, the Queensland Government (QSpatial), the Western Australian Government (Landgate) and the National Native Title Tribunal to identify coastal wetland restoration sites in case study regions in Queensland and Western Australia. Spatial datasets were analysed across the sites in ArcMap 10.8 (ESRI, 2019) or QGIS (Open-source software, 2002) to extract data required to estimate carbon abatement, co-benefit indicators, cultural benefits, and restoration feasibility, and undertake the cost-benefit analysis, economic prioritisation analysis, and statistical analysis in R 4.0.2 (R Core Team, 2020). Methods: The methods to perform the analyses for each case study region are provided in Hagger et al. (2024). The approach integrates spatial analysis with R data analysis. The spatial analysis workflows provided in this work package provide details on the methodology for the extraction of data. The R scripts are annotated with methods for the data analysis. The methods to perform the analyses for each case study region are provided in Hagger et al. (2024). The approach integrates spatial analysis with R data analysis. The spatial analysis workflows provided in this work package provide details on the methodology for the extraction of data. The R scripts are annotated with methods for the data analysis. For example, the steps for Fitzroy Basin are: • Identify potential restoration sites (section 2.3): => Follow the spatial analysis workflow steps to map (1) the study area, (2) the restorable land-uses, (3) historic coastal wetlands, and (4) Highest Astronomical Tide impact area under (a) current sea-level and (b) sea-level rise scenarios. Intersect these data layers to identify (5) potential restoration sites under current sea-level, (6) potential restoration sites with sea-level rise scenarios. • Estimate carbon abatement (section 2.4): => Follow the spatial analysis workflow to perform intersections of spatial data required to inform the carbon abatement calculations, including: - (8) land-uses, pre-clear regional ecosystems, intertidal zone, drainage basins to inform CO2 removals and CH4 and N2O emissions from restoration scenario; - (9) hydrologically modified wetlands, (10) water storage points and reservoirs, and (11) soil carbon stocks to inform avoided CO2, CH4, and N2O emissions from ceasing baseline scenario; - (12) existing wetlands to inform CO2 removals and CH4 and N2O emissions from baseline scenario. => Follow the R script “1_wetland_restoration_bluecarbon”. • Undertake the cost-benefit analysis (section 2.5): => Follow the spatial analysis workflow to perform intersections of spatial data required to inform the calculation of

Through the current project, the Chesapeake Bay-Virginia Reserve is building on the strengths of the previous years of CECB to extend the reach into Middlesex County, while developing an alumni program to support the program in Gloucester and Mathews. All three counties lie within a region experiencing relative rates of sea level rise greater than the global average. This science transfer project was funded by NOAA through the National Estuarine Research Reserve System Science Collaborative to promote the use of science. It did not produce any new data.

Several reserves collaborated to develop the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Tool for Coastal Habitats. The tool helps decision makers evaluate a habitat’s vulnerability to climate change and prioritize it for conservation or restoration. South Carolina’s North Inlet-Winyah Bay Reserve and the Chesapeake Bay Virginia Reserve worked with local partners to refine and pilot this tool and share it with the national reserve system.

Along the coast of southern Maine, the need to conserve natural buffers in order to protect rivers and wetlands has become a focal point for tensions between development and conservation interests. In this rapidly developing landscape, decision-makers often feel they must choose development over conservation or restoration to support local economies. While there is scientific evidence that underscores the value of protecting natural buffers around sensitive water bodies, local decision-makers need additional place-based, economic information about the ecosystem services that these lands provide and the range of tradeoffs that are implied in related land use decisions.

Healthy estuaries are vital to the economy of the Texas central coast, supporting the region’s multibillion-dollar fishing industry and growing tourist trade. Adequate supplies of freshwater are key to the productivity of these estuaries. However, as the regional population grew and the recent drought deepened, estuaries were receiving less freshwater.

This project synthesized Sentinel Site data for four New England National Estuarine Research Reserves (Great Bay, Narragansett, Waquoit Bay, and Wells), which have been individually monitoring salt marsh vegetation and elevation changes since at least 2011. The project team developed statistics-ready data packages linking vegetation change with surface elevation and other data, including output from an inundation tool. This project equipped New England reserves and coastal managers with new information to inform and improve the management, protection, and restoration of salt marshes. It produced an improved Sentinel Site monitoring protocol and established a methodology for analysis of marsh condition that can be used across the reserve system and by coastal managers nationwide. This catalyst project was funded by NOAA through the National Estuarine Research Reserve System Science Collaborative to advance collaborative science. It did not produce any new data.