Gulf of Mexico Alliance
ECOSYSTEM INTEGRATION AND ASSESSMENT PRIORITY ISSUE TEAM
Meeting Notes
March 5, 2014
Announcement
Larry McKinney (HRI) announced that as of this meeting the new EIA PIT lead is Sheri Land with the
Texas General Land Office. When Larry became the PIT lead he was with the Texas Parks and Wildlife
Department and was asked to continue in his role when he moved to HRI.
Sheri is the appropriate person to take over from Larry, who will still be involved with the EIA PIT. Sheri
is honored to have this new role and is catching up. She sees herself as a link between the PIT and the
RESTORE Act and can suggest how we can better use the information we have created to date.
Sheri, welcome to the EIA PIT!
EIA Action Item 1: Gulf of Mexico Master Mapping Plan update –Jennifer Wozencraft (USACE)
Work is in progress on getting federal plans for Gulf Mapping in 2015 and 2016. The USACE National
Coastal Mapping Program will be mapping the Gulf shorelines during that time, and the Interagency
working Group on Ocean and Coastal Mapping will have other activities in the Gulf as well. Throughout
the rest of this year, work will be carried out on identifying state, university, and local mapping
initiatives and requirements, to reduce duplication, and make sure the planned mapping efforts meet as
many requirements as possible within the allocated resources.
EIA Action Item 2: Data Access and Acquisition update – William Nichols and John Wood (HRI)
GOMAPortal
Continuing maintenance:
 Adding and updating datasets: adding mainly data products created in house to distribute; in the
past added some HCRT-created data sets, but nothing from the other PITs. If you know of any
GOMA dataset that needs to be included in GOMAportal, please, contact William
(William.Nichols@tamucc.edu).
 Identifying and removing datasets housed on other repositories due to updated geoportals by
the federal government.
Future activities:
 Migrate to new server: increased storage that will allow adding lidar data.
 Update to latest version of GeoPortal Server.
 Add Federated Search that will allow searching other geoportals through GOMAportal.
Gulf Ecological Management Sites (GEMS) and Restoration Portal
This is work in progress, there is still some clean-up to do and the Web site needs to be finished. When
the Web site is available online, I will send a link to all PIT members
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Continuing to gather restoration and conservation data sets; such as shoreline protection,
shoreline stabilization, oyster reef restoration, …
o Thousands of points, lines, polygons
o Welcome more data sets, additional funding opportunities (please contact
John.Wood@tamucc.edu)
Concentration/effort is on documenting ‘sites’ and ‘project sites’ to show where things have
been done.
Seeking additional data sources
Seeking additional funding sources
Gulf Data Atlas Update – Russ Beard (NOAA)
Currently developing a plan to go after data sets that have value for restoration
Upcoming briefing at the EIA meeting about the Atlas
EIA Action Item 3: Living Marine Resources update – Brad Ennis (FWC)
Since the last update in December 2013:
 Launched version 2.0 of the GAME web portal.
• 2500+ project records
• 1,400,000+ taxa records (these records include bot collections from museums and
observations)
• Now Mobil device compatible!
- iPhone
- Android
- Windows Phone
 Created an ESRI Rest Service for the GAME project footprints so other web services can connect.
 Re-formatted GAME record database to versioned SDE database for growth and improved query
services.
What’s Next?
• Add additional taxa databases (Florida Museum of Natural History?) Meeting scheduled for
March 10th.
• Establish data connection link between affiliated webpages GoMexSI, EOL)
• Continue to refine current data holdings for web distribution
• And of course….keep adding records.
EIA Action Item 4: Emergent Wetlands Status and Trends in the Northern Gulf of Mexico: 1950-2010
update – Kate Spear (USGS)
• Available at http://gom.usgs.gov
• Introduction, Methods, Study Area, comprehensive Literature Survey on Gulf of Mexico
emergent wetlands
• Statewide Summaries for Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida, plus vignettes for Mobile Bay,
Mississippi Sound, Tampa Bay, and Florida Panhandle
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Texas chapters – Spring 2014 (Statewide Wetland Summary for Texas received today; work is in
progress for Corpus Christi, Nueces, and Aransas Bays and Galveston Bay chapters)
Louisiana chapters – Summer/Fall 2014
Presenting at State of the Coast and Restore America’s Estuaries
Next: Mangrove Status & Trends (this might be included in the next GOMA Action Plan)
EIA Action Item 5: Ecosystem Services Valuation update – David Yozkowitz (HRI)
• Sea Grant project: in collaboration with Resources for the Future based in DC the wave 1 survey
was administered (FL, AL/MS, LA, TX) in late January/early February 2014. Preliminary results
available: 616 respondents. Edits to the survey have been made and will be coded by GfK
(survey company) prior to wave 2. Also, the ecosystem services online tool is currently under
development based upon users’ needs.
• “Gulf of Mexico offshore ecosystem services – Next steps” workshop to be held in Houston after
the Summit. 6/8 participants identified and invitation emails sent. This is a follow up to two
stakeholders’ workshops that were held in the fall. This workshop is a closed meeting and the
participants have been hand-picked because they are individuals that will help with the
identification of biophysical monitoring in the Gulf of Mexico to determine the health of the
provision of offshore ecosystem services.
• PIT collaborations with the Environmental Education PIT: completed translation of ecosystem
services videos (“Ecosystem services of the ocean” and “Servicios ecosistémicos, nuestra
conexión vital con la biodiversidad”); videos available on youtube (links provided in the GOMA
e-News Blast, February 24, 2014 pasted below)
New Animated Educational Ocean Video
Answers the Question: What Does the Ocean Do for Humans?
Want to learn more about the value of the Earth's ocean? It's easy with the new video titled "Ocean Ecosystem
Services." This smart new 4 minute film engages people and helps to teach them how to get involved in saving the
ocean habitat. To increase awareness and understanding of ocean ecosystem services, the Gulf of Mexico
Alliance's Ecosystems and Environmental Education Priority Issue Teams (PITs) joined forces in the development of
learning tools easily comprehensible by and accessible to educators and the general public alike.
The Socio-Economics Group (SEG) at the Harte Research Institute (HRI) was awarded a grant from the Dauphin
Island Sea Lab to make ecosystem services videos available in different languages for different ethnicities that live
on the Gulf of Mexico coast. Dr. David Yoskowitz, HRI Endowed Chair for Socio-Economics and member of the
Ecosystems PIT is very pleased to announce the release of these ecosystem services videos. Dr. Yoskowitz noted,
"The videos were devised to enhance the understanding of the importance of ecosystem services provided by our
regional natural resources."
Ocean ecosystem services are the contributions that directly and indirectly support, sustain, and enrich human life,
such as food, climate and gas regulation, scientific and educational opportunities and cultural services like
aesthetic beauty and recreational opportunities. "Ocean Ecosystem Services" explores the ecosystem services of
the ocean through the eyes of a shark and her friendly pilot fish companions. It was originally produced by HRI's
Lauren Hutchison and Brittany Blomberg in English and is now also available in Spanish.
View the English version of "Ocean Ecosystem Services"
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View the Spanish Version of "Ocean Ecosystem Services"
Additionally, the SEG translated a Spanish video "Servicios ecosistémicos, nuestra conexión vital con la
biodiversidad" into English and Vietnamese. The Spanish video was originally created by the Instituto de
Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander Von Humboldt, Colombia. This video highlights the importance of
biodiversity in affecting the well-being of society through the provision of ecosystem services. This video can be
easily shared among those who are not familiar with topics related to biodiversity because of its simple language
and its striking images.
View the English Version of the biodiversity video
View the Vietnamese Version of the biodiversity video
If you have questions and/or comments related to the videos, please, contact, Cristina Carollo Ecosystems PIT
coordinator at Cristina.Carollo@tamucc.edu.
GOMA AMT-funded Project Update – Chris Boyd (USM)
Living shoreline site suitability modeling for Mobile Bay: A GIS & remote sensing-based approach
Project Team: Steve Jones (GSA), Sandy Ebersole (GSA), Saranee Dutta (MSU), and Chris Boyd (MSU)
Purpose: Determine the most suitable shoreline to use “living shorelines” to control coastal erosion in
Mobile Bay, Alabama. A recommendation of the type of living shoreline to install will be
depicted on an interactive mapping interface.
Project Update:
- An initial meeting of the project team was conducted in January
- A webinar will be conducted with the project team and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science
(VIMS) on March 10
- The webinar will discuss VIMS Coastal Resource Management Portal
(http://ccrm.vims.edu/ccrmp/index.html) and how they created their model builder to calculate
the suggested “shoreline best management practices” for protecting their shorelines
- Current data layers for the LSL model builder for Mobile Bay: sediment, salinity, shoreline, land
use/land cover, hydrology, erosion rate, bathymetry, and shoreline armoring
- Potential layers needed: fetch, bank cover, marsh presence, beach presence, bank height
2014 PIT Meetings
2014 Priority Issue Team Meetings and 10-Year Celebration (Reception Tuesday night)
May 19-21, 2014 Renaissance Riverview Plaza Hotel - Mobile, AL
No registration fee. Please, register early!
http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e8u3lpao0cc03df3&llr=thgzaleab
**Remember that this year the GOMA plenaries will be in conjunction with the State of the Gulf of
Mexico Summit**
The PITs will meet
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Monday May 19 – afternoon
Tuesday May 20 – all day
Wednesday May 21 – morning
Here are some ideas for the EIA PIT meeting agenda:
• Focus Areas updates
• Presentation/Update on AMT-funded project (Living Shorelines modeling)
• Presentation/Update on applicable EPA-funded projects (we will know those soon)
• Discuss focus areas and projects for the next Action Plan (using both a top-down and bottom-up
approach)
• Exercise: (1) how has GOMA benefitted you? (2) what can GOMA do to help you in your
job? (This information is essential when we are trying to convince states/feds to invest in the
PITs.)
• Presentations from additional partners (Ocean Conservancy, SERPPAS, others?)
• **PIT Shuffle (feedback required):
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Just before lunch on Tuesday, to shake everyone up a little Laura Bowies is
suggesting to divide people into groups according to colored dots on the name
tags. Once everyone is in their color room, the people in the room should be a
balanced mixture of all the different PITs. At that time, the facilitator in the room
(PIT coordinator?) will ask someone from each PIT to give a brief description of
what their team is working on now and what their plans are going forward. This
might take 15-20 minutes.
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Attendees’ list
Becky Allee (Federal Co-facilitator) – NOAA CSC
Rene’ Baumstark – FWC/FWRI
Russ Beard – NOAA NCDDC
Julie Bosch – NOAA NCDDC
Chris Boyd – MSU
Mary Kate Brown - TNC
Cristina Carollo (EIA PIT Coordinator) – HRI
Todd Davidon – NOAA CSC
Brad Ennis – FWC/FWRI
Kathy Goodin – NatureServe
Steve Jones – AL GSA
Sarah Jonston – AL DCNR
Chris Kelble - NOAA
Syed Khalil – LA CPRA
Bill Kiene – NOAA
Ana Lara - Inecol
Sheri Land – TGLO (EIA PIT Lead)
Jeff Marx – LA WLF
Ted Mason - NASA
Larry McKinney - HRI
William Nichols - HRI
Dave Reed – FWC
Kate Rose – NOAA NCDDC
Tracie Sempier - GOMA
Kate Spear – USGS
Scott Wilson - USGS
John Wood - HRI
David Yoskowitz – HRI
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