Category: Featured

In a new study that is the first to explain what some have long suspected, researchers found that human activity helps sustain and intensify naturally occurring red tide blooms in Southwest Florida.

By Tom Ankersen, Legal Skills Professor & Legal Program Director, UF Law Students and faculty in the CCS Coastal Policy Lab (CPL) kicked off Spring Break with a field trip to Tampa Bay to get out on the water and meet the stakeholders where they work. The CPL is an experiential learning partnership between the […]

Students of CCS-affiliated faculty presented their research at the 2022 UF Water Institute Symposium Poster Session. Topics included macroalgae decay rates, impact of sea level rise on wave loads, morphodynamics of oyster reefs, crabs as ecosystem engineers, invasive species databases, tidal flows in fjords, sturgeon conservation, invasive hog impact on salt marshes, water modeling of […]

For the 8th UF Water Institute Symposium, the CCS has organized a program of sessions and panels that explore what the future of coastal water quality monitoring, modeling, management, and policy should/could look like from a technological, scientific and engineering perspective, as well as through a management and policy lens.

This project, funded through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering With Nature initiative, will advance understanding of how and why coastal landforms, including dunes, salt marshes, and oyster reefs, are evolving through innovative coastal sensing, modeling, and experimental research. A team of six Principal Investigators (PIs) from Civil and Coastal Engineering (Professor Alex Sheremet, […]

The inaugural semester of the CCS Coastal Policy Lab came to close in early December with a field trip to Sanibel Island to present the results of the students’ interdisciplinary projects. The Coastal Policy Lab (CPL) is a student-centered experiential learning collaboration between the University of Florida Colleges of Law and Engineering, and Florida Sea […]

CCS Associate Director Dr. David Kaplan, and a team of CCS-affiliated scientists and engineers from UF, the USF, NCSU, and the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation have received $2.3 million from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study how water and nutrients flowing from Lake Okeechobee and the Caloosahatchee River watershed interact with tides, currents, and waves at the coast to affect coastal water quality.

A post-doctoral associate fellowship and six graduate student research assistantships are available starting in August 2022 at the University of Florida for an interdisciplinary project, funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering With Nature initiative, based out in the UF Center for Coastal Solutions. A team of six PIs from the departments of […]

Salt marsh resilience compromised by crabs along tidal creek edges A long-term study in Elkhorn Slough revealed the impact of superabundant crabs on salt marsh vegetation and the vulnerability of tidal creek banks to erosion     Excerpt from press release by Tim Stephens / UC Santa Cruz News, August 09, 2021: Coastal marshes are […]

CCS Director Dr. Christine Angelini co-authored a recently published paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology titled Life cycle informed restoration: Engineering settlement substrate material characteristics and structural complexity for reef formation. The study defines and experimentally tests ‘life cycle informed restoration’, a restoration concept that focuses on overcoming multiple bottlenecks throughout the target species’ […]

A new fact sheet, Massive influxes of Pelagic Sargassum in the Wider Caribbean Region, describes the science, law and policy, and management challenges of Sargassum, a macroalgae that has become established and invasive in the Caribbean and parts of the Gulf, including Florida, with significant economic and social costs. The project was facilitated by the […]

The University of Florida Center for Coastal Solutions is collaborating with the GTM Research Reserve, City of St. Augustine, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Wood Engineering on a National Fish and Wildlife Federation grant. The project “Designing Innovative Saltmarsh Restoration and Protecting Coastal Community Infrastructure” will assess the potential of saltmarsh resilience implementation techniques […]

In a new paper in the Journal of Environmental Management, CCS affiliates Drs. John Jaeger, Mark Clark, Director Christine Angelini, and partners from across sectors in the entire region identify the greatest contemporary threats to coastal wetlands and oyster reefs across the southeastern United States (Mississippi to North Carolina), by summarizing recent population growth and […]

On June 24, 2021, Dr. Todd S. Bridges, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Senior Research Scientist & National Lead of Engineering With Nature® gave testimony to the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works during a hearing entitled “The Role of Natural and Nature-Based Features in Water Resources Projects.” The hearing was devoted […]

CCS’s summer student interns, Savannah Peltrau (B.S., Environmental Sciences) and Colson Douglas (J.D. Candidate, Law) are teaming up to support a project with Florida Sea Grant under a contract with the West Coast Inland Navigation District (WCIND) to update the District’s five year strategic plan.

The University of Florida’s Center for Coastal Solutions (CCS) and SAS Institute (SAS) entered a strategic partnership to develop tools, training programs, curriculum and research that will continue to trailblaze around the UF AI initiative and the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. The partnership began in January to integrate the center’s cutting-edge research and SAS’ […]

Hallie Fischman is an Environmental Engineering Sciences PhD student in the Angelini Ecology Lab studying the restoration of coastal ecosystems. She is currently researching how facilitation and mutualistic interactions can improve coastal restoration. Hallie’s been busy in the field recently, planting dune grasses as part of a restoration study, and she took a break from […]

Summary of bills and budget allocations passed during the 2021 legislative session of relevance to coastal stakeholders.

We are excited to announced that we have hired Matthew DePaolis as the Florida Sea Grant/Center for Coastal Solutions Coastal Policy Analyst Fellow for the 2021/2022 academic year.

Piney Point rapid response research is underway thanks to our partnership with Ocean Conservancy, Florida Sea Grant, and the Tampa Bay and Sarasota Bay Estuary Programs Check out this news video and article featuring our Director Dr. Christine Angelini. Excerpt from CBS article “Researchers Launch ‘Rapid-Response Team’ To Track Environmental Impacts Of Piney Point Leak” […]

Professor Tom Ankersen, CCS Affiliate Faculty and Director of the UF Conservation Clinic, wrote a fantastic article, Water as Freedom: Fluid Freedom, for the latest issue of Florida Humanities FORUM Magazine: Written in Water. Check it out!

CCS collaborates with Ocean Conservancy to track ecological effects of Piney Point reservoir leak into Tampa Bay. The first samples are now in hand.

Center for Coastal Solutions and Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation have entered into a strategic collaboration to address coastal water quality hazards.

Identifying the effects of chronic saltwater intrusion in coastal floodplain swamps using remote sensing