Marshes for Maine's Future: USGS Marsh Migration Geospatial Tool Webinar

The Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve Training and Engagement Program is hosting this webinar as part of "Marshes for Maine's Future." Marshes for Maine's Future is a project developed by conservation leaders in Maine working together to protect and restore Maine's salt marshes so that they can continue to protect coastal communities, provide habitat for wildlife and fisheries, capture and store carbon and enrich our lives with their amazing beauty.

Marshes for Maine's Future began with a collaboration with US Geological Survey bringing a suite of innovative geospatial tools to Maine marsh managers. Maine marsh managers worked together for a year applying the tools in their work, identifying ways to conserve, manage and restore the state's marshes.

In this webinar, USGS will share a new tool that helps marsh managers plan for the changes that will come to Maine's marshes as a result of sea level. This marsh migration tool is designed for people with an Intermediate GIS skill level and is open to all salt marsh professionals.

Technical explanation of the tool: USGS has a new product for Maine that merges existing marsh unit datasets with NOAA and MNAP migration layers to help identify marsh units with the highest potential for migration. The dataset first uses National Hydrological Dataset high-resolution catchments to break migration areas into watershed units, then calculates the relative perimeter of each existing marsh unit with those migration units (and then weights the migration area as a fraction of perimeter). One of the interesting metrics is the ratio of existing wetland area in a unit to potential future migration area for that unit, which helps highlight marshes that may be small but have potential to expand in the future. In the webinar USGS Scientist, Neil Ganju will show the dataset to Marshes for Maine's Future partners and others working in Maine salt marshes to get feedback about different ways to visualize the results or recommend how to integrate with other datasets (e.g. land ownership, Phragmites presence, coastal change likelihood). 

After registering, you will receive the Zoom link to the webinar. Webinar will be recorded.

For more information, contact Chris Feurt, Coastal Resilience Scientist, Wells Reserve: cfeurt@wellsnerr.org

Learn more about Marshes for Maine’s Future.

Geospatial Tools Used in Marshes for Maine’s Future (2023-2025):
Coastal Wetland Geospatial Collection
Coastal Wetland Synthesis geonarrative