Description
The National Park Service intends to award a cooperative agreement to Point Blue Conservation Science for the project "Climate-smart Conservation of Snowy Plovers: A Spatial-Analytic Approach". The project aims to combine spatially explicit information on plover reproductive success, habitat characteristics, and disturbance, with newly available climate models to identify priority areas for future conservation enhancements. The project will utilize 20 years of long-term snowy plover monitoring data from Point Reyes and combine it with comparable data collected by Point Blue from Monterey Bay. The project will identify areas that are both resilient to sea level rise and have high value for plovers, and provide information for park interpreters to share with the public.
The key objectives of the project are:
* Combine spatially explicit information on plover reproductive success, physical and spatial habitat characteristics with newly available sea level rise and erosion models to identify areas that are both resilient to sea level rise and have high value for plovers.
* Utilize 20 years of long-term snowy plover monitoring data from Point Reyes and combine it with comparable data collected by Point Blue from Monterey Bay.
* Use sea level rise and coastal storm models to identify areas with positive plover productivity that are predicted to be permanently inundated by rising seas, vulnerable to increased wave run up during average conditions and during storms, and where coastal erosion could cause losses in productive plover habitat.
* Develop a final report and other deliverables, outlining the results of the analyses to the NPS that will assist with future planning and conservation of western snowy plovers at Point Reyes National Seashore and Monterey Bay.