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Two Florida Sea Grant agents are developing water quality monitoring projects in South Florida that enlist residents and volunteers on the front lines of citizen science.
Florida Sea Grant agent, Maia McGuire, receives NOAA grant to raise awareness about tiny pieces of plastic that are causing a big problem in Florida waters.
Florida Sea Grant's aquaculture specialist has been awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the US Aquaculture Society following years of work supporting fishers in the growing clam farming industry.
This website contains information, data, and tools that individuals, communities, and governments at all levels can use to develop, inform, and enhance their sustainable working waterfront initiatives.
Part of the Florida Water Access site, the Beaches Toolkit contains an outline of common law tools for addressing public beach access, as well as resources for public and private managers of beachfront property.
Part of the Florida Water Access site, the Boating Toolkit contains legal information about rights of navigation, anchoring and mooring, boating laws and regulations, derelict vessels and conservation.
This site discusses both the Florida Clean Marina Program, the Florida Clean Vessel Act Program and the available funding opportunities.
The Clam Farm Benefit Calculator allows Florida clam growers to make a simple estimation of the environmental benefits their farms provide annually to coastal waters.
This site provides answers for homeowners regarding flood insurance costs, purchasing flood insurance and ways to reduce insurance premiums.
The Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem Services Viewer shows, in an interactive format, the values people place on salt marshes, mangroves and oyster reefs in the Gulf of Mexico. Based on research results, this tool fills an informational gap in the Gulf.
Sea Grant works with coastal communities to ensure that boaters on the water for fun and for work are knowledgeable and out of harm's way.
Is there room on the water for everybody? If coastal communities are to remain sustainable, residents, visitors, policy makers, and regulators need new methods and information sources to harmonize the growing demand for access to their beaches and waterways. Researchers and extension specialists at Florida Sea Grant are making that challenge a priority.
In 2007 Dennis Hwang and Darren K. Okimoto of the University of Hawai'i Sea Grant co-authored a community specific Homeowner's Handbook to Prepare for Natural Hazards. The handbook targets the average homeowner and essentially does as much homework for the homeowner as possible in order for a homeowner to prepare for natural disasters. Since 2007, the Hawai'i Homeowners Handbook to Prepare for Natural Hazards has gone through 8 print runs with over 65,000 copies. The handbook has been adapted by 7 other Sea Grant programs.
Florida Sea Grant researcher Daniel Benetti is currently assessing the environmental impacts of open-ocean aquaculture on the marine ecosystem with funding from a National Sea Grant aquaculture research initiative grant.
Florida Sea Grant brought together a team of researchers, agency scientists and industry leaders to understand the decline of the Apalachicola oyster fishery and to identify a strategy for efficient recovery.
Dennis Hwang, Coastal Hazard Mitigation Specialist at University of Hawai’i Sea Grant developed the Hawai’i Coastal Hazard Mitigation Guidebook to address the lack of widely publicized, reliable guidance for building along the coast to reduce vulnerability. Due to the wide spread popularity, 7 states across the country developed similar books specific to their community.
Imagine Boston, Charleston, San Francisco or Seattle without fresh seafood, pleasure boats or shipping vessels. It is an impossible task. The history, culture and identity of these communities are inextricably linked to their “working waterfronts,” which are places for active, water-related commerce and desirable areas in which to live and work. Unfortunately, many of these working waterfronts face a growing number of challenges.
You can now count middle and high school students among the growing list of Floridians learning about aquaculture, a relatively new industry that already generates more than $70 million in farm-gate income annually.