The National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS) is a network of protected areas established for long-term research, education and stewardship. This partnership program between NOAA and the coastal states protects more than one million acres of estuarine land and water, which provides essential habitat for wildlife; offers educational opportunities for students, teachers and the public; and serves as living laboratories for scientists.

The National Estuarine Research Reserve System is a network of 30 coastal sites designated to protect and study estuarine systems. Established through the Coastal Zone Management Act, the reserves represent a partnership program between NOAA and the coastal states. NOAA provides funding and national guidance, and each site is managed on a daily basis by a lead state agency or university with input from local partners.

There are 28 National Estuary Programs (NEPs) in the U.S.that implement habitat protection and restoration projects with their partners. This work takes place within their study area boundaries. NEPmap contains that data from 2009 to the present.

This dataset describes the areas of research activities for the 38 National Environmental Research Program Tropical Ecosystem (NERP TE) Hub projects. It represents the areas that have field work being conducted, where measurements have been taken and where modelling or analysis is being done. It consists of three master shapefiles (points, lines and polygons) that capture the regions that are being studied by all these projects. These master shapefiles are also made available split by project. The data contained in this dataset was compiled from June 2013 submissions from each of the NERP TE projects asking them to describe their areas being researched. They submitted this information in a range of formats including spreadsheet tables for site information (points) and bounding boxes, KMLs for study areas, transects and animal tracks (lines and polygons), raster files and for some simply a description of the region. All of these formats were converted, digitised or drawn into three shapefiles: one for points, one for polygons and one for lines. Each feature was given a description of the type of research or measurement that was being under taken at that location and a link to the associated project pages. Features were also classified to roughly group the type of research work being done at each location. This data was originally intended to be part of the creation of detailed spatial data for the creation of metadata records describing each of the projects. It was also used for creating maps for each project. These maps are available for download and are available as WMS layers from the eAtlas. The polygon features from the various projects overlap significantly and thus many boundaries are hidden with default styling. The order of the features within the shapefile has been chosen so that at least some part of each polygon is visible when all polygons are shown. This dataset is not a complete representation of the work being done by the NERP TE projects as it was collected only 2 years into a 3.5 year program. In addition to this some project have chosen to protect the exact location of sensitive sites and so have only provided coarse spatial information about the project. This dataset is finished. Location of the data: This dataset is filed in the eAtlas enduring data repository at: data\custodian\2011-2014-NERP-TE\13.1_eAtlas\QLD_NERP-TE-13-1_eAtlas_Project-maps_2013 Change log: 2024-05-27 - Eric Lawrey: Marked this dataset as finished and added a reference to where it is stored in the eAtlas data repository. 2025-01-16 - Jared Johnston: Created polygons representing the spatial extents of the datasets.

This project will provide research staff members from the mid-Atlantic reserves with targeted tools, graphical support, and training to facilitate the use of reserve monitoring data. The project team will focus on deciphering trends in water quality parameters, which are related to management issues such as storm surge mitigation. Through workshops and the development of statistical applications, this project will increase capacity to distill monitoring data into a format that resource managers can use. The project team will share their approach and project outputs with the larger reserve system, and collectively, these efforts will demonstrate the value of the reserve monitoring program. 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 layer represents the boundaries of all of the reserves in the National Estuarine Reserve System.

The NEPmap is designed to provide information in context with National Estuary Program Study Areas. There are 28 National Estuary Programs (NEPs) in the U.S.that implement habitat protection and restoration projects with their partners and submit their project data to the EPA annually. NEPmap contains that project data from 2009 to the present.

Meteorological data provide information on atmospheric conditions that can affect water quality and biological and physical processes. Core elements currently measured at each National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) include air temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed, wind direction, rainfall, and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). Optional parameters include total solar radiation.Each site maintains at least one meteorological station. Stations are placed at locations typical of local conditions or in areas where a specific need for weather data has been identified. Data are reported at 15 minute intervals. Prior to 2007, hourly and daily average data were also reported. The National Estuarine Research Reserves is a network of 30 reserves protected for long-term research, ecosystem monitoring, education, and coastal stewardship. Established by the Coastal Zone Management Act, the reserve system is a partnership program between NOAA and the coastal states. NOAA provides funding, national guidance, and technical assistance. Each reserve is managed on daily basis by a lead state agency or university with input from local partners. These data are collected as part of the NERRS System-Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP), which includes (1) abiotic indicators of water quality and weather, (2) biological monitoring, and (3) watershed, habitat, and land use mapping. Data were collected under individual Reserve NOAA grant/cooperative agreements and managed by the CDMO under NOAA grant/cooperative agreement #NA23NOS4200321 (2023) and prior grants. For more information on Reserve locations and programs, please visit www.nerrsdata.org or https://coast.noaa.gov/nerrs/.