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Sea Grant’s work addresses a range of coastal and marine challenges through four focus areas: healthy coastal ecosystems, sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, environmental literacy and
Sea Grant programs across the U.S. are scaling up capacity to support additional hands-on, collaborative engagement to advance the sustainability of coastal and Great Lakes communities. Sea Grant awarded $4 million in fiscal year 2023 funds to its grant-based programs nationwide to continue or expand ongoing work or address new opportunities for coastal climate adaptation and resilience for the communities that Sea Grant serves.
Sea Grant announces $19 million in federal funding opportunities to address the prevention and removal of marine debris. These opportunities are a component of nearly $3 billion in targeted investments for NOAA in the areas of habitat restoration, coastal resilience and weather forecasting infrastructure through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
For the second time, NOAA’s National Sea Grant College Program and Office of Response and Restoration’s (OR&R) Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) have partnered to competitively solicit and select projects to support innovative all-hazard preparedness, response, and recovery initiatives for coastal communities.
NOAA’s National Sea Grant College Program (Sea Grant), in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office, is supporting three projects in Alaska, Guam, and Hawaiʻi that will examine how adoption of ocean renewable energy could support sustainable energy systems.
Today, the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) opened a competitive funding opportunity for the Climate Ready Workforce for Coastal States, Tribes, and Territories Initiative to connect people across the country to good-paying jobs, such as landscape technicians, heat health outreach specialists and climate equity officers, that tackle the climate crisis and boost local resilience. NOAA will invest $60 million total from the Inflation Reduction Act for the initiative — a $50 million competitive funding opportunity and $10 million for technical assistance to support applicants and grantees.
NOAA Sea Grant is pleased to announce $27 million in projects that will address the prevention and removal of debris in marine and Great Lakes environments throughout the U.S. Using Sea Grant’s partnered approach to bring science together with communities for solutions that work, the projects will support transformational research and the creation of local coalitions to address urgent marine debris prevention and removal needs.
Those interested in monitoring shoreline change in their communities have a new resource to help them get started – a web-based inventory of citizen science efforts to track coastal change in the U.S. The site, Communities Tracking Coastal Change, was created by NOAA Climate Program Office’s Coastal Inundation Risk Team and Woods Hole Sea Grant.
Georgia Sea Grant secured funding from the Department of Defense and the National Sea Grant College Program to hire Michelle Covi as the country’s first Coastal Resilience DOD Liaison in 2021. For the last year, Covi has created a suite of reports and resources that are now being used by Sea Grant programs, military installations, and coastal resilience specialists across the region to inform collaborative resilience projects.
Through a joint competition with the U.S. Coastal Research Program (USCRP), ten new projects were selected for a total of $3.9 million in funding to translate research into application for communities. Additionally, Sea Grant programs across the nation received an additional total of $4.2 million in NOAA Sea Grant funds to increase local capacity, engagement, research, and implementation for addressing resilience challenges.
Contaminants of emerging concern, like pharmaceuticals, cleaning products and microfibers, pose risks to the Nation’s drinking waters and aquatic life, but they are often excluded from monitoring programs and published water quality standards. Two new projects recently funded by Sea Grant aim to enhance research and monitoring efforts for this class of chemicals and materials while strengthening strategies to reduce their presence in aquatic environments.
Four Connecticut cities have joined a pilot project to boost community participation in climate change planning. Community activities in Bridgeport, New Haven, New London and Norwich are being led by Connecticut Sea Grant with support from NOAA, and will focus on climate risk communication and planning for community resilience.
Hurricanes. Flood events. Oil spills. When disaster strikes, communities come together to respond. NOAA Sea Grant and NOAA’s Disaster Preparedness Program are partnering to help communities respond to and recover from these occurrences through three projects that strengthen local preparedness measures.
Community planners and decision makers now have an application guide to help them plan for the significant sea level rise the United States is expected to see in the next 30 years. The guide is a response to the 2022 Interagency Sea Level Rise report, which projected about a foot of higher waters, on average, along U.S. coastlines by 2050.
The Northeast Sea Grant Consortium—in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Technologies Office and Water Power Technologies Office, and NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center—today announced six projects to advance social science and technology research on offshore renewable energy in the Northeast United States. This funding opportunity, which awarded over $1.1 million in federal funds, seeks to catalyze research for the coexistence of marine energy—including wind, current, tidal, and wave energies—with Northeast fishing and coastal communities.
In honor of Women’s History Month, get to know one of the many Women of Sea Grant, Renee Collini. Renee is a Coastal Climate Resilience Specialist with Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, Florida Sea Grant and Mississippi State University.
Questions poured in by the dozen after the morning session of the 2015 Adapt CT legal workshop—six pages worth, in fact. The workshop was part of a series on climate adaptation hosted by Connecticut Sea Grant and the UConn Center for Land Use Education and Research, known as CLEAR, through their joint organization Adapt CT. Legal issues had starkly emerged as another area being reshaped by the broad sweep of the changing climate, as effects are felt across fisheries, agriculture, health, infrastructure, wildlife and economies.
The Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium has announced a new two-year project that will develop a roadmap for Sea Grant water resources initiatives and improve communication and coordination on water resources efforts within the network and among key partners. Karen Bareford, of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium and The University of Alabama’s Alabama Water Institute, will serve as the Sea Grant Water Resources Lead.
Sea Grant announced three initiatives today, all of which focus on freshwater systems and management. Projects include examining contaminants of emerging concern along the East Coast, mitigating pollution resulting from runoff in the mid-Atlantic, and managing stormwater to reduce flooding in the Great Lakes.
NOAA Sea Grant, in collaboration with U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and U.S. Geological Survey, announces six new partnership positions. The Sea Grant Federal Partnership Liaisons will integrate Sea Grant extension expertise with science, products and services from NOAA labs and other publicly supported scientific research programs. These jointly-funded positions expand on a key component of Sea Grant’s work, extending science to end users and doing so through collaborative partnerships.
ECO Magazine’s Rising Seas explores sea level rise, its related challenges, and the solutions currently underway. In this special, digital publication, learn about NOAA’s efforts to help the country adapt to rising sea levels and see Sea Grant’s work in coastal resilience.
This summer on Bradford Beach in Milwaukee, swimmers might notice people in light blue T-shirts pushing an ice cream cart across the sand. Instead of frozen treats, the cart contains brochures and other information that beachgoers need to keep safe. The cart is part of a new Beach Ambassador Pilot Project run by Wisconsin Sea Grant, Milwaukee Water Commons, Milwaukee Riverkeeper, Coastline Services LLC and the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center.
Mona Behl, the Associate Director for Georgia Sea Grant and a co-lead in Sea Grant’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion community of practice is interviewed by 2021 Knauss Fellow, Amara Davis. Mona discusses her journey to Sea Grant, the important work Sea Grant is doing to make the sciences more equitable, and what we can all do to facilitate a more inclusive future.
New research, led by Minnesota Sea Grant Director John A. Downing, demonstrates why keeping local lakes and other waterbodies clean produces cost-effective benefits locally and globally. The authors found that adding up global financial benefits of clean water shows that keeping water clean can help slow climate change, saving trillions of dollars.
For Sea Grant, resilience is more than a buzzword. As a network of 34 university-based programs, Sea Grant brings together experts in coastal processes, hazards, climate change, and urban planning to support cutting-edge research and outreach. Sea Grant is involved in every aspect of climate resilience planning and implementation, from start to finish. Tour some of Sea Grant’s latest projects and on-going efforts to sustain diverse and vibrant coastal economies.
Research is an essential component of Sea Grant’s work in coastal and Great Lakes communities, supporting scientists from hundreds of institutions. Here are just a few of Sea Grant’s recent research publications that are making a splash.
As 2020 draws to a close, Sea Grant is reflecting on its best moments of what has been an especially challenging year. Several Sea Grant projects and people were recently recognized by the Sea Grant Association (SGA) for their exceptional work.
As the country adapts to changes necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, coastal and Great Lakes communities, too, are rethinking how to resume what were once normal activities. Sea Grant programs are leading efforts to provide relief to the communities they serve. Read about a few of the initiatives Sea Grant created or enhanced in recent months.
It’s almost time for summer fun outdoors and on the water, and that means it’s time to remember, safety first! Sea Grant programs across the nation share information and advice related to safe practices in coastal environments.
In a changing climate, sea-level rise, storm surge and erosion all threaten our coasts’ sandy beaches. Teams of volunteer citizen scientists from New Hampshire, Maine and California Sea Grant programs are helping researchers keep a finger on the pulse of the shifting sands.
Freshwater is a precious resource that requires conservation and protection. From water quality to water availability, Sea Grant is addressing key water issues and helping to enact sustainable water management practices throughout the country.
Georgia Sea Grant, in partnership with 12 other Sea Grant programs, was awarded a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study human displacement and relocation caused by climate change, and the societal and economic implications of such population shifts.
Sea Grant is funding new research aimed at understanding physical and chemical changes affecting American lobster (Homarus americanus) in the Gulf of Maine as well as a regional lobster extension program.
The Lake Erie Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) Seasonal Forecast, produced by NOAA and released with Ohio Sea Grant, gives coastal managers, lake users, and drinking water facility operators a general sense of the potential severity of the upcoming bloom season. NOAA is forecasting a large bloom for 2019, with a severity index greater than 7. The index is based on the bloom’s biomass – the amount of harmful or toxic algae – over a sustained period. Last year’s bloom had a severity of 3.6 and the 2017 bloom had a severity of 8.
Since the 1960s, surfers from the United States have been going to Rincón, Puerto Rico to catch the best waves of the winter season. The trend has been so consistent that the town has slowly built its economy along its approximate eight miles of beautiful coastline, now famous with tourists. Yet, as the surfing community continues to swell, the beaches get crowded, and the same waves that keep the local economy afloat also put tourists and locals at risk of losing their lives.
How do people prepare for hurricanes before the season begins? When a hurricane is looming, how do people receive warning, decide to take action, and prepare for the storm? As part of the National Weather Service’s Hurricane Preparedness Week, Sea Grant programs have been highlighting their work that aims to answer these questions. Resources developed by Sea Grant and partners can help communities and individuals prepare for storms well before hurricane season even approaches as well as when a storm is approaching.
Scientist Carrie Garrison-Laney, a coastal hazards specialist for Washington Sea Grant and liason to the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, pieces together stories of past tsunamis in the Pacific Northwest. Understanding the destruction caused by past tsunamis can prepare vulnerable coastal communities for future events.
A Wisconsin Sea Grant and National Weather Service collaborative project seeks to answer the question: Why are the economically disadvantaged more likely to be negatively affected by severe weather? It adds to the Weather Ready Nation initiative.
A new online aquaculture siting tool called MA-ShellfAST simplifies the process of selecting and establishing a shellfish farm for Massachusetts-based farmers using funding from the NOAA Sea Grant 2016 Aquaculture Extension and Technology Transfer program.
New year, same great Sea Grant work! Here’s a look back at some of Sea Grant highlights you may have missed from January.
With so much awesome work happening within Sea Grant, it can be hard to keep up! Here’s a look back at some of Sea Grant highlights you may have missed from this month.
In this installment of our continuing #SeafoodMonth festivities, we look at how Sea Grant investments in research have advanced the domestic aquaculture industry.
Sea Grant Celebrates Aquaculture Week October is Seafood Month, and Sea Grant is celebrating all month long by telling some of the inspiring (and tasty!)
During the second week of National Seafood Month, Sea Grant looks at efforts across the country to keep seafood, and the individuals who harvest it, safe.
Washington’s Bellingham SeaFeast (not “fest”, as I learned) was truly a feast of the ocean’s bounty.
Hawai’i Sea Grant’s Homeowner’s Handbook to Prepare for Natural Hazards has been helping homeowners on the islands and beyond prepare for disasters since 2007.
With hazardous weather approaching the southeastern US, Sea Grant programs throughout the region are providing contacts and resources to help their local communities stay safe.
Recent work from Washington and Hawai’i Sea Grant programs highlights Sea Grant’s role in preparing coastal communities across the country for rising sea levels.
Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Laboratory will host a media briefing to announce NOAA’s 2018 Harmful Algal Bloom forecast for Lake Erie on Thursday, July 12.
Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin Sea Grant programs along with NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management and many tribal and local partners are working together to increase community awareness about the cultural and ecological importance of native wild rice.
Sea Grant works with coastal communities across the U.S., Puerto Rico and Guam to improve community resilience to coastal storms. Sea Grant engages in vulnerability assessments, resilience planning and social science initiatives to learn from previous storms and better prepare for future storms.
Hurricane Irma displaced more than 150,000 spiny lobster traps in the Florida Keys last year, sometimes miles away from their original locations. But a novel eyes-in-the-sky solution developed with support from Florida Sea Grant has saved the industry nearly $4 million.
USC Sea Grant has worked with communities in southern California for over six years on climate adaptation planning. They analyzed their efforts and published the analysis in the Cities and the Environment Journal.
Sea Grant programs in the Gulf of Mexico and Georgia help communities better understand how to create a Program for Public Information (PPI) and earn outreach points under the National Flood Insurance Program’s Community Rating System (CRS). Points earned through the CRS help improve a community’s rating and can lead to discounted flood insurance premiums.
University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant is working with researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research to better understand how to communicate hurricane risks so that the public will take necessary precautions before a storm.
To fill a knowledge gap about the shallow seafloor right off Rhode Island’s coast, Rhode Island Sea Grant invested in the development of BayMap, a collection of marine habitat maps for Narragansett Bay and surrounding coastal ponds for use by resource managers and scientists.
Paul C. Focazio, New York Sea Grant Five years post-Sandy, Helen Cheng says the superstorm “still looms in the memories of our stakeholders, but I’m
Located at the NWC on the UA campus in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Bareford will work with community stakeholders and partners to understand what information they need to make the best decisions possible.
Wisconsin Sea Grant researcher quantifies the value of Lake Michigan sports fisheries
Researchers funded by N.H. Sea Grant describe the effects of rising groundwater levels from sea level rise on N.H.’s coastal roads.
The highest mean water levels ever recorded in Hawai'i occurred in April 2017. Scientists with the University of Hawaii and Sea Grant predict there is more to come and provide early notice to help communities prepare.
Working waterfronts in South Carolina are hotspots for tourists to enjoy the local seafood and immerse themselves in nature. This has not always been the case, however, with most waterfronts historically focused around commercial businesses and industry. While some communities embrace this change towards a more recreational focus, others fear that commercial fishing and the “traditional identity” of the town will suffer.
Washington Sea Grant and its partners LEED the way for waterfront dwellers trying to restore their shorelines.
As part of a growing effort for collaboration between the National Weather Service and Sea Grant, NOAA will hire an Integrated Water Extension Liaison housed at the National Water Center.
America’s first offshore wind farm will begin producing electricity in November. Sea Grant’s local leadership to guide the planning and community engagement process was vital to the project’s success.
Hawaii Sea Grant’s work featured in U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit
The website serves as a decision support tool. Connecticut Sea Grant announces a new website intended to assist coastal Connecticut beach property owners and beach
Sea Grant graduate student hopes his research will result in the creation of a viable tool to help make coastal communities and ecosystems more resilient to the effects of climate change.
S.C. Sea Grant Consortium leads mapping effort after October 2015 floods revealed need for better coordination of available data.
Recreational boating is a popular summertime activity in many states that can impact water quality. New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium works with boaters and marinas to minimize these impacts and assist businesses who wish to implement best management practices.
North Carolina Sea Grant’s Jessica Whitehead joins NOAA climate panel.
The mainland sea caves in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin are a big tourism draw, but they also can be dangerous. A real-time wave observation system project funded by Sea Grant is making the experience safer.
Sea Grant enhances the mission of the National Weather Service by informing communication and educating the public on weather hazards.
Hawai'i Sea Grant helps homeowners adapt and respond to coastal impacts.
Vermont communities were devastated by flooding during extreme storm events. The state has prioritized the use of green stormwater infrastructure. Lake Champlain Sea Grant is working with partners to help communities become more flood resilient.
New documentary short on Coastal Storm Awareness educates Emergency Managers, empowers Coastal Communities
Lake Champlain Sea Grant sponsored a trip to the University of New Hampshire Stormwater Research Center. The information being utilized by researchers and government agencies in Vermont, New York, and New Hampshire.
The National Sea Grant Law Center, Maine Sea Grant, and NOAA’s Office of Coastal Management received funding through the NOAA Preserve America Initiative to capture and preserve oral histories showcasing working waterfront preservation efforts.
In response to a record-breaking Pacific hurricane season, Hawai'i Sea Grant led a NOAA Coastal Storms Program project to assess the risk of urban Honolulu to coastal inundation.
Georgia Sea Grant, in partnership with organizations along the east coast, is piloting a sea level rise smartphone app to monitor local flooding and contribute to a database that will help cities better prepare for coastal hazards.
NOAA has released a Guidance for Considering the Use of Living Shorelines, which outlines how we promote living shorelines as a shoreline stabilization technique. Along sheltered coasts, living shorelines can preserve and improve habitats and the benefits they provide and promote resilient communities.
Sea Grant has extension agents at multiple NOAA laboratories across the country. Kodi Nemunaitis-Monroe is Sea Grant's Weather and Climate Extension Agent and is based at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Oklahoma.
Within a span of three days, Wisconsin Sea Grant-funded researchers found three shipwrecks in an area of Lake Michigan currently under consideration to become a NOAA National Marine Sanctuary.
Mussels dominate rocky coastlines and support aquaculture worldwide. Now Washington Sea Grant-supported researchers at the University of Washington are investigating climate-related threats to the amazingly tough mussel threads that anchor them to wave-pounded rocks and docks.
Virginia Sea Grant's Hampton Roads Adaptation Forum is a networking and educational meeting for professionals working on sea level rise adaptation. A recent survey of attendees indicates that 83% have built professional relationships through the Forum, leading to new opportunities.
South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium is based in Charleston, S.C., one of the U.S. cities most threatened by a rising global sea level. More intense rainstorms combined with unusually high tides have communities rethinking traditional flood control structures.
In the spirit of the collaborative nature of NOAA's Sentinal Site Program, Sea Grant provides coordinators to foster relationships among the various partners studying sea level rise and addressing community resilience.
An important part of coastal resilience is understanding the dynamics of the shoreline, particularly, “How has the shoreline changed?” With funding from NOAA and National Sea Grant, a team from Connecticut Sea Grant, UConn CLEAR, UConn Extension and Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection took on an ambitious project designed to understand and quantify shoreline change in Connecticut over the last 100 years.
Describes Hawai‘i’s water resources, identifies troubling trends (i.e., declining rainfall, reduced stream flow, increasing temperature, and rising sea level), and provides 12 potential adaptive tools for adaptive management of those water resources.
This report provides a basic summary of the observed and projected changes to Hawai‘i’s ecosystems and their resulting impacts for the state’s residents.
Using modeling techniques, students discover how coastal dunes form and how they can protect coastal areas from erosion and flooding during storms and harsh weather events. Students will make predictions and observations, then come to their own conclusions about the importance of dunes and how they can make coastal areas more resilient against storms.
In this activity students will build a model of a salt marsh and the land surrounding it out of clay. Students will use this model to see what happens to salt marshes when the sea level rises and how the slope of the land and the location affect the marshes survival.
Students study the essential parts of the Cape American Beach Grass Ammophila breviligulata and discover the basic necessities for plant survival.
The Dune It Right manual explains dune ecology. This tool is for anyone undertaking a dune restoration or rehabilitation project. It explains what species uses what parts of the beach, how to avoid damaging habitat and how to avoid creating a monoculture.
As part of the National Sea Grant Coastal Communities Climate Adaptation Initiative (CCCAI), NJSGC is developing and implementing an education and outreach campaign designed to promote long term planning that will educate waterfront property owners and associated businesses about the need to gain an understanding of climate change and consider the potential impacts associated with it when planning for the future.
Along much of the Mid-Atlantic coast, sea levels are rising faster than the global average. This trend has already been linked to intensifying storm surges, shoreline erosion, and the loss of wetlands in the Chesapeake Bay region. To educate residents of Maryland about the impacts of sea level rise and climate change in the Chesapeake region, Maryland Sea Grant formed a unique partnership with the regional news magazine, Bay Journal. This partnership resulted in a special issue of Maryland Sea Grant’s magazine, Chesapeake Quarterly, that was published in October 2014 and titled “Come High Water: Sea Level Rise and Chesapeake Bay.”
Woods Hole Sea Grant funded a climate adaptation project designed to provide regional and local predictions of future coastal storm activity and sea-level rise to user groups within the region and to promote wise utilization and conservation of resources.
“The Spectrum of Coastal Erosion Control Methods” provides information about the various methods of erosion control and compare their relative impacts.
Rhode Island’s Ocean Special Area Management Plan, developed in part by Rhode Island Sea Grant, helped identify areas suitable for offshore windfarm construction and expedited the permitting process, putting Rhode Island on a path to developing the first offshore wind farm in the U.S.
Maryland Sea Grant produced a nine-minute online video documentary that describes scientific research about the causes of rising seas in the Chesapeake Bay region.