Category: News

Stakeholders committed to saltmarsh restoration kicked off a thin layer placement project at a planning workshop in St. Augustine last month, part of an Engineering with Nature Project led by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in the area. Thin layer placement is a green solution that involves the addition of several centimeters of sediment […]

Researchers may have unlocked a new key to predict ecosystem responses to environmental change – trait evolution. A team of researchers, including CCS affiliate Kathe Todd-Brown, Ph.D., studied how the differences in plant traits that are passed down and the way they evolve can forecast the future for coastal wetland ecosystems. The team examined sixteen […]

Five researchers from CCS were among more than 1,000 coastal restoration professionals, policy makers, and regulators who attended the 2022 RAE Coastal & Estuarine Summit in New Orleans in December to network and share insights for navigating and pursuing new, more robust strategies to protect and restore our coastal resources.   UF graduate students and postdoctoral […]

CCS kicked off the new year with a two-day participatory strategic planning retreat to envision our future and map out how we are going to get there over the next three years.   Sharon Ryan, CCS associate director of strategy and communications, and Dawn Newman of Blackhawk Facilitation facilitated the workshop, which brought together CCS faculty, […]

CCS warmly welcomes Stacey Dolan as our new administrative support assistant. Dolan will play a vital role in helping the CCS run smoothly on a day-to-day basis by supporting our leadership team, and special events. Stacey’s background is a unique blend of engineering and biology, which builds on the diverse expertise of our team at […]

CCS welcomes Andrew Altieri, Ph.D., as associate director. Altieri, who’s been involved in CCS projects for several years, will oversee the many moving parts and logistics of field operations, which are instrumental to the implementation and success of the Center’s 15 ongoing projects across the state. He will also help guide future CCS growth, including the […]

Congratulations to UF Emeritus Professor Tom Ankersen on winning the 2022 Nature Coast Champion Award from the IFAS Nature Coast Biological Station (NCBS) in December. The award recognizes his extensive work in supporting the conservation, restoration and management, protection of coastal and aquatic resources in Florida’s Nature Coast, an area that encompasses eight counties bordering […]

Small but mighty, oyster gardens enhance oyster recruitment, the process of incorporating new oysters into a population to maintain population sizes; improve water quality and have a valuable role to play in environmental education. Adrian Sakr, a graduate student in the Altieri and Angelini labs, is experimenting with five materials to determine which oyster garden […]

A team of 11 professional researchers and scientists from the University of South Florida (USF), University of Florida (UF), and South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) were awarded a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to support the development of new state-of-the-art water quality data and models to better predict and […]

A supercomputer that can predict climate change, natural infrastructure that slows flooding in coastal areas, and a highly maneuverable robotic fish for monitoring coastal waters were among the innovations shared by scientists and engineers at a summit hosted by the UF Center for Coastal Solutions (CCS) on December 2 at the Harn Museum of Art. […]

In October, Florida Sea Grant convened a small group of scientists, policy specialists, regulators, and stakeholders to discuss opportunities and challenges in the emerging field of restoration aquaculture. Restoration aquaculture is a relatively new area that merges the commodity-based production-oriented practices of aquaculture with an ecosystem services approach to environmental restoration. The goal is to […]

What can our robots learn from fish to do their job better? CCS affiliate professor Patrick Musgrave, Ph.D., and his Fluids & Adaptive Structures (FASt) lab have developed a soft robotic fish with the goal of creating Bio-inspired Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (BUUVs) that can effectively operate in the coastal environment. Musgrave and his students are […]

Among the most productive ecosystems on earth, seagrass communities use carbon, provide habitat and food, cycle nutrients, and anchor the sediment bottom, providing an extensive range of services. Regions with historically extensive seagrass cover have been experiencing ongoing die-offs in recent years, which have negative cascading effects on recreational fisheries, grazers such as manatees and […]

CCS’ contributions to the $1 billion invested in research to date by UF was highlighted in an article by the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. Projects led by Professors Christine Angelini and David Kaplan showcase how the CCS supports UF’s advancement as a top university with technological discoveries and innovation.   The College spotlighted a joint […]

The CCS is ecstatic to welcome Sharon Ryan as Associate Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives. Sharon will lead strategic planning, communications, and outreach for the Center, as well as support  its partnership and development initiatives.   Sharon is a facilitator, communicator, and strategist specializing in participatory strategic planning, action planning, stakeholder engagement, consensus building, […]

Two days after Hurricane Ian slammed into the Southwest Florida coast as a near Category 5 storm, SCCF Marine Lab Director Eric Milbrandt, Ph.D., began to mobilize a coordinated effort to assess water quality impacts.

“I reached out to our colleagues at University of Florida’s Center for Coastal Solutions (UF-CSS) who we’ve been working with on a current harmful algae bloom research project funded by EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,” said Milbrandt. “After seeing the devastation of the causeway and the islands, I knew that our routine monthly sampling from Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf of Mexico would not be possible with SCCF equipment.”

Even if you manage to tune out the constant media coverage of Hurricane Ian’s toll on human lives and property on Sanibel, the sensory reminders are everywhere: chainsaw whine, shattered homes, boarded stores, muck stink on the breeze.
But what about nature?

Welcome Dr. Tricia Kyzar!  Dr. Tricia Kyzar has been hanging around the Angelini lab for a few years now and officially joined the Center for Coastal Solutions in July 2022 as a Researcher and Project Manager. She earned her Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning with multiple certificates in GIS and Spatial Analysis. Tricia’s research […]

The University of Florida’s Center for Coastal Solutions, or CCS, and the SAS Institute, a global leader in data analytics software, are joining forces to study the factors that influence water quality and the connections between water quality and economic activity in southwest Florida.

New WATERSHED series investigating water quality and marking the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act launches with an article focusing on collaborative red tide research by CCS and the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation.

Coastal policy received a significant amount of attention in the Florida legislature this year, with several bills and budget items making their way to the Governor’s desk and others dying in committees. This update describes bills and projects of particular relevance to the CCS community and provides some context.

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.