This is a request for you and your colleagues to take a survey on nearshore habitat assessment tools. The Nearshore Submerged Aquatic Vegetation Evaluation (Nearshore SAVE) Project is a partnership between NOAA Fisheries, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation to enhance the science and collaborative decision-making tools, models, and approaches that support conservation and management of nearshore habitats. The overarching goal of this multi-year effort is to optimize conservation outcomes for nearshore habitats that support submerged aquatic vegetation (such as kelps and seagrasses) by improving the effectiveness and efficiency of mitigation and restoration decision-making tools. You can learn more about the Nearshore SAVE Project on our website.
In December 2022, we surveyed tools used throughout NOAA offices that assess and characterize impacts to nearshore habitats (estuaries, nearshore coastal). The next step in this effort is to understand the tools, e.g., models, calculators, functional assessments, and other analyses used by others (i.e., non-NOAA staff) to assess and characterize impacts to nearshore habitats. We would appreciate your input on the types of tools you use to determine impacts to nearshore ecosystem functions or changes in habitat suitability for species of interest. “Tools” are broadly defined here as models, spreadsheets, equivalency analyses, mitigation calculators and ratios, habitat suitability indices, or other functional assessments. For example, “tools'' may include systematic assessments of habitat impacts performed to determine mitigation and/or habitat benefits associated with mitigation, restoration, or conservation banks. Our project focus is on nearshore areas and we are most interested in tools applied to those habitats; in the event that a tool has been developed for use in a different habitat and is applicable to nearshore areas we want to hear about it! Our goal with this survey is to find opportunities to align our efforts by identifying common approaches, needs, and gaps.
We expect this survey to take 15-20 minutes to complete. Part 1 of the survey is intended to help us identify what "tools" are being used. Part 2 of the survey asks for more details on the top 3 tools that you use, and Part 3 will help guide our working group by identifying possible future directions. If you are willing, please provide this additional information, including suggestions for additional survey respondents in Part 3. If you have any questions about the survey, you can email us at nearshore.save@noaa.gov.