Community / Local

The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is one of the most floristically rich U.S. national parks, situated within a narrow band at the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Embedded within this unique national park is the Indiana Dunes State Park, which consists of 2,182 acres of similar primitive and exceptional landscape. A wide range of habitats and plant species are found in these parks, where a dune and swale succession progresses from the shore inland and habitats include abundant plant species, from boreal and prairie to Eastern deciduous forest.

This report contributes to a relatively new body of research by exploring three important but understudied challenges of cultural resources climate change adaptation: (1) barriers to current cultural resource management and historic preservation given climate change impacts together with needs for overcoming the identified barriers; (2) the importance of factors influencing climate adaptation prioritization; (3) the potential utility of a geovisualization decision support to provide site managers with experts’ recommendations for adaptation.

This report is the result of study and examination by the Neskowin Coastal Hazards Committee (NCHC). The NCHC is a Tillamook County ad hoc committee formed to respond to the present erosion threat from the ocean in the County and to the beach and community of Neskowin. Since its inception in Fall 2009, the committee has met monthly, with sub-committee meetings more frequently. There have been public meetings to garner feedback and many sessions with experts to gain input, all of which have contributed to this report.

Ocean acidification (OA) is rapidly emerging as a significant problem for organisms, ecosystems, and human societies. Globally, addressing OA and its impacts requires international agreements to reduce rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. However, the complex suite of drivers of changing carbonate chemistry in coastal environments also requires regional policy analysis, mitigation, and adaptation responses.

The Community-based Mangrove Rehabilitation Project of the Zoological Society of London ran from 2008 to 2012 with the aim of increasing coastal protection, food resources and livelihood income of coastal communities in Panayand Guimaras by rehabilitating abandoned government-leased fishponds to mangroves, re-establishing legally mandated coastal greenbelts, and securing tenure on coastal land through Community-based Forest Management Agreements (CBFMAs).

This solution aims to create a better governance (shared governance) of natural resources in the coastal zone of Soc Trang Province, Mekong Delta, Vietnam to protect its first line of coastal defense (mangroves) and to improve the livelihood of local communities through resource conservation.

Hoa Binh village - located along the coastline in central Vietnam - is seriously exposed to strong storms, sea encroachment, sand moving, drought and coastline erosion. In addition, the village has approximately 123ha of sandy protection forest areas along a 3.5km coastal stretch. The forest was degraded because of bombing in the war, serious storms and over-harvesting of trees for firewood by local people, making the communities more vulnerable to climate change and extreme weather impacts.

A coalition of government and non-profit groups today announced results from a 2014 vessel speed reduction trial incentive program in the Santa Barbara Channel to slow cargo ships down to reduce air pollution and increase protection of endangered whales.