Implementing Nature Based Solutions in the Achugao, CNMI Watershed
A comprehensive watershed management plan (WMP) meeting the Environmental Protection Agency’s A – I Criteria was recently developed for Achugao, CNMI. Stormwater management issues were identified as key concerns by community members, local stakeholders, a...
Characterizing Shallow-water Benthic Habitats In Select Areas Around Saipan, Tinian, and Rota (CNMI)
The goal of this project is to characterize high-priority areas of interest between 0 - 40m identified during the Mapping Gap Analysis Project (FY 21-23) in coordination with CNMI jurisdictional leadership. NCCOS will develop high-quality benthic habitat ...
This project proposes to build upon the relative resilience assessment performed for Rota and Tinian in 2014 (published 2015 with Jeff Maynard), and the work performed around Saipan in 2012 and 2018. The resilience indicators and the relative weighting of...
Predicting coral morphology across space to inform the protective capacity of coral reefs in CNMI
Many organizations, including NOAA, need effective approaches to evaluate and predict changes in coral reefs at multiple, ecologically meaningful scales (i.e., centimeters to meters to kilometers). This ability requires the use of modeling approaches to i...
Saipan Coral Nursery Pilot Project Trees-2 & Tables-1
The Saipan Coral Nursery Pilot Project (SCNPP) is the first coral nursery in the CNMI and is intended as a pilot study to test and document various restoration approaches and species performance, and eventually provide practical regional guidance for upsc...
Comprehensive Watershed Management Plan for Achugao, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)
This project will develop a comprehensive Watershed Management Plan for Achugao, CNMI in collaboration with local partners and stakeholders. The watershed plan will propose a series of actions that can be taken to address known sources of land-based pollu...
Capacity building and sampling in the CNMI for microbial source tracking and metagenomics sequencing
The Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality (BECQ) for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) has identified and expressed a critical need for improved capacity in the detection and tracking of Land-Based Sources of Pollution (LBSP) i...
Biological and ecological assessment of juvenile humphead wrasse from fisheries independent and dependent surveys on Saipan
The Humphead Wrasse (HHW), Chelinus undulatus, is found in coral reef ecosystems throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Exhibiting a moderately long life span, low natural mortality rate and protogynous hermaphroditism, it is sensitive to unrestricted fishin...
The project will assist in reducing soil loss, identified as a priority need in the Talakhaya Conservation Action Plan. The existing re-vegetation efforts occurring in the watershed require continued data collection to quantify the effects they are having...
Estimating functional diversity and redundancy of reef communities to inform resilience-based management in the Marianas
Functional diversity represents the range of things that organisms "do" in communities that provide key ecosystem processes (e.g., herbivory, habitat provisioning), necessary to maintain healthy reef and sustainable nearshore fisheries. Species withi...
Implementing Nature Based Solutions in the Achugao, CNMI Watershed