Saltmarsh Habitat and Avian Research Program; Hurricane Sandy

This is an announcement for issuing a single source financial assistance award to the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware. This announcement is for notification purposes only. The intent of the award is to monitor the responses of breeding birds, vegetation metrics, and marsh elevation at tidal marsh restoration sites associated with impacts from Hurricane Sandy in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern States (Virginia to Maine) and undertakes other research and conservation actions to improve the status of tidal marsh avian and vegetation communities. This project is authorized by the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act 0f 2013, PL 113-02. This project will continue to evaluate the ecological integrity of coastal wetlands that have undergone marsh restoration activities following Hurricane Sandy (including thin layer sediment deposition and hydrologic modification techniques) and quantify the cost-effectiveness of these restoration techniques and of individual projects employing these techniques. Combing extensive baseline data, collected in the years immediately before and after Hurricane Sandy at marsh restoration sites and an extensive array of control sites, with additional monitoring data to be collected at these sites over the next six years (2017-2022), this project will assess the effects of restoration activities on (a) marsh vegetation, (b) marsh elevation, (c) wildlife responses at both site and population levels, (d) risk to wildlife populations across the region, and (e) cost-effectiveness of marsh restoration activities.