KINGSTON – A project coordinated by the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Institute has been recognized by the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units National Network as the top cooperative ecosystem study unit in the country for 2008.
The North Atlantic Coast Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit – a collaboration that includes 30 individuals from 10 universities and nongovernmental agencies, and four agencies of the federal government – has been studying coastal geology and shoreline erosion issues in national parks in the Northeast for a decade, with a special focus on the Fire Island National Seashore off Long Island and the Gateway National Recreation Area in New Jersey and New York.
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“This award truly highlights the importance of engaging URI with national and regional partners for the management of coastal ecosystems,” said Peter August, director of the URI Coastal Institute and leader of the study.
“All of this work is aimed at examining the response of barrier islands to sea-level rise, climate change, major storm events and human activities,” said Charles Roman, a National Park Service biologist based at URI.
“The Park Service has to make a lot of management decisions in response to these events. We want those decisions to be science-based, so we rely on our academic and agency partners, who have done a tremendous job and worked well together over the years.”
College and research partners in the study along with URI are: the City University of New York, the College of the Atlantic, Rutgers University, Stony Brook University, the University of Maine–Orono, the University of Maryland–Eastern Shore, the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry and the Maryland Coastal Bays Program. Federal agencies taking part are the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Park Service, the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Institute is a division of the URI Graduate School of Oceanography. Its mission is to advance the knowledge of and develop solutions to environmental problems in coastal ecosystems. For more information, go to www.gso.uri.edu.
The Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU) National Network is a collection of academic institutions, federal agencies and non-governmental entities that provides research, technical assistance and education to resource and environmental managers. For more information, go to www.cesu.psu.edu.
The North Atlantic Coast Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit, or NAC-CESU, is a public-private environmental research, education and technical assistance program coordinated by the URI Coastal Institute. It is one of 16 regional programs in the nationwide CESU National Network. For more information, go to www.ci.uri.edu/naccesu/.
