Federal Partner: National Park Service

Research, Inventory, and Evaluate Cultural Landscape of Blow-Me- Down Farm, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site

Project Description: The project will provide research necessary to document and evaluate historic landscape resources to support a subsequent phase that will address their preservation and enhancement. The project will also assist in the promotion, facilitation, and improvement of peoples’ understanding of natural and cultural aspects of Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site. In addition, this project will provide the park with documentation needed to inform management decisions as it seeks partnerships to care for and use the property.

Lead Principal Investigator: Prof. John Auwaerter, SUNY, College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Co-Principal Investigator: Prof. George Curry, SUNY, College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Partner Institution: SUNY, College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Federal Agency Technical Contact: Robert Page

Federal Involvement: Bob Page, Director, NPS Olmsted Center, provided project guidance, assisted with meetings with park staff, and reviewed draft reports. James Mealey, Historical Landscape Architect with the Olmsted Center, worked with John Auwaerter to complete the analysis & evaluation portion of the project.

Project Type: Research

Project Discipline: Cultural Resources

Project Sub-Discipline(s): Cultural and Historic

Start Year: 2017

End Year: 2019

Initial Funding Amount: $65,000.00

Federal Grant Number: P17AC00513

Location: Cornish, New Hampshire (upper Connecticut River Valley)

National Park or Protected Area: Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park

State(s): New Hampshire

New Hampshire Counties: Grafton

Student and Other Involvement:

  • Masters Students: 1
  • Staff: 2

Summary of Student Involvement: Master of Landscape Architecture student Connor Neville was appointed as a research project assistant full-time in summer 2018 and 10/hr week during the academic year 2018-2019. Conner assisted with the site work, mapping, and inventory of landscape features.

Summary of Other Involvement: Sara French, Phd, Instructor, Department of Landscape Architecture, researched and wrote the social history of Blow-Me-Down Farm in AY 2018-2019 and also participated in field work in summer 2019.
John Auwaerter, PI, completed the site history and period plans, working with graduate student Connor Neville.
George Curry, Professor Emeritus (volunteer), assisted with field work, project advising, and mentoring Connor Neville.

Document and Evaluate the Cultural Landscape of Wilderness Battlefield, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park

Project Description: This project supports the documentation and evaluation of the historic landscape of the Wilderness Battlefield, a unit of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields National Military Park (FRSP) that encompasses 2,774 acres in Spotsylvania and Orange counties, Virginia. This project supports the documentation and evaluation of the historic Wilderness Battlefield landscape as phase 1 of research for a Cultural Landscape Report (CLR). The SUNY project team will work in close partnership with the NPS Olmsted Center and FRSP staff throughout this project. The scope of the project includes research, writing, and graphics for completion of the Site History, Existing Conditions, and Analysis & Evaluation components of CLR Part I, comprising Component A of PMIS statement 208243A. Research will incorporate or refer to findings from the Ellwood CLR completed under a prior task agreement. Recommendations for treatment of the cultural landscape (CLR Part II), which will be based on the research findings of phase 1, will be addressed in a second phase and separate task agreement (Component B of PMIS statement 208234).

Lead Principal Investigator: John Auwaerter, SUNY, College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Co-Principal Investigator: George Curry, SUNY, College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Partner Institution: SUNY, College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Federal Agency Technical Contact: Robert Page

Federal Involvement: John Auwaerter worked with James Mealey, NPS Historical Landscape Architect, in completing the analysis and evaluation of the Wilderness Battlefield cultural landscape. NPS Olmsted Center Director Bob and James Mealey assisted with project oversight, meetings with park staff, and in editing, layout, and printing of the final report.

Project Type: Research

Project Discipline: Cultural Resources

Project Sub-Discipline(s): Cultural and Historic

Start Year: 2016

End Year: 2018

Initial Funding Amount: $60,000.00

Federal Grant Number: P16AC01225

Location: Wilderness Battlefield, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park

State(s): Virginia

Virginia Counties: Orange

Student and Other Involvement:

  • Masters Students: 1
  • Interns: 1
  • Staff: 1

Summary of Student Involvement: Master of Landscape Architecture student Kyle Stillwell was the research project assistant full-time for summer 2017 and 10/hr week for AY 2017-2018. Kyle assisted with field work, inventory landscape characteristics and features, and preparation of existing conditions maps.

Summary of Other Involvement: John Auwaerter, PI, researched and wrote the site history, Co-PI George Curry assisted with field work and the landscape feature inventory, and both advised graduate assistant Kyle Stillwell.

Assessing the benthic community in a partially restored lagoon to improve management decision-making

Project Description: East Harbor is a back barrier marsh system/lagoon with an artificial tidal restriction that led to water quality degradation, algal blooms, insect outbreaks, and fish kills. To improve conditions, tidal flow was partially restored in 2002. Since that time, salinity increased, water quality improved, and the system was re-colonized by a variety of estuarine flora and fauna, in particular shellfish (e.g. quahog, soft shell clam, and oyster) and horseshoe crabs. Managers need scientific information to make sound decisions for East Harbor about further tidal restoration, culvert maintenance, and the initiation of shell fishing activities. This project will: 1) survey benthic invertebrates, including shellfish and other macro infauna, 2) assess population dynamics of selected shellfish including larval flux out of the lagoon into adjacent, unprotected waters, 3) identify significant fisheries habitat and 4) use surveys and mesocosms to evaluate impacts of a non-indigenous predator on shellfish. The baseline water quality and habitat data developed through these studies are critical for design and monitoring of the adaptive management approach to implementing restoration projects.

Data developed through this study plan will be integrated into and will be used to assess the suitability of habitats in East Harbor for different management scenarios. This data collection will provide the management team with an enhanced tool to aid science-based decision-making, thereby optimizing the public’s understanding of the response of the East Harbor system to tidal restoration and increased salinity for recolonization by salt marsh halophytes and fauna.

The primary purpose of this study is not the acquisition of property or services for the direct benefit or use by the Federal Government, but rather to accomplish a public purpose of support or stimulation.

Lead Principal Investigator: Owen Nichols, Center for Coastal Studies

Co-Principal Investigator: Dr. Mark Borelli, Center for Coastal Studies

Partner Institution: Center for Coastal Studies

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Federal Agency Technical Contact: Geoffrey Sanders

Federal Involvement: – Assign Dr. Sophia Fox (Aquatic Ecologist, CACO) as technical expert to collaborate on
all aspects of this project, including sample design, methodologies, and field and lab
work.

– Assign CACO staff or interns to support the project.

– Share lab equipment and supplies, as necessary to maintain efficiency and cost
effectiveness.

-Contribute to developing protocols for work related to invertebrate and sediment sample
collection and processing.

-Dr. Sophia Fox will collaborate with Dr. Mark Borrelli and Owen Nichols of Center for
Coastal Studies to share and interpret biological, chemical, and physical data from East
Harbor waters.

-Dr. Sophia Fox will collaborate with Dr. Mark Borrelli and Owen Nichols of Center for
Coastal Studies and other CACO staff and cooperators to develop publications from the
work laid out herein.

-Dr. Sophia Fox will collaborate with Dr. Mark Borrelli and Owen Nichols of Center for
Coastal Studies and other CACO staff and cooperators to develop outreach products from
the work laid out herein.

Project Type: Research

Project Discipline: Natural Resources

Project Sub-Discipline(s): Natural Hazards & Environmental Quality (NRDA)

Start Year: 2017

End Year: 2023

Initial Funding Amount: $96,195.00

Federal Grant Number: P17AC01525

Amendments

  • Amendment Number: 01, Year: 2018, Amount: $14,040.75
  • Amendment Number: 02, Year: 2020, Amount: $0.00

Location: East Harbor, Truro

National Park or Protected Area: Cape Cod (NPS)

State(s): Massachusetts

Massachusetts Counties: Barnstable

Student and Other Involvement:

  • Staff: 4

Summary of Other Involvement: AmeriCorps Cape Cod service members assisted with sample collection and processing

Building seagrass resilience through implementation of resilient genotype-driven seagrass restoration

Project Description: This task agreement under the MCA has been developed and funded under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which became law on August 16, 2022. IRA funds provide the National Park Service with a historic opportunity to address critical ecosystem resilience, restoration, and environmental planning needs. Guided by the Department’s Restoration and Resilience Framework, the IRA Restoration and Resilience projects in national parks represent broad-scale and impactful resource investments from Alaska to Florida to Maine. This restoration and resilience project, entails building resilience in seagrass
meadows across five national seashores along the Atlantic coast (Cape Cod, Fire Island, Assateague Island, Cape Hatteras, and Cape Lookout).

The objectives of this project are to develop an understanding through data analysis and spatial modeling of the current and projected distribution of
seagrass under different climate scenarios in order to aid in site selection for seagrass meadow restoration in five seashore parks from North Carolina to Massachusetts. Seed source meadows will also be identified for seed harvest and restoration planting. The project team from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science will also conduct post assessment monitoring of restored sites, along with other project participants from other Universities.

Lead Principal Investigator: Dr. Johnathan Lefcheck, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Partner Institution: University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Federal Agency Technical Contact: Holly Plaisted

Start Year: 2023

End Year: 2027

Initial Funding Amount: $85,131.00

Federal Grant Number: P24AC02360

IRA Funded-Building seagrass resilience at Assateague Island National Seashore through implementation of resilient genotype-driven seagrass restoration

Project Description: This project aims to reduce climate vulnerability of seagrass
meadows across multiple Northeast Coastal and Barrier Network (NCBN) parks through the application of innovative assisted gene flow approaches. The Objectives associated with the implementation of this project at ASIS include: Collection and storage of viable eelgrass seeds from local populations for field studies across multiple parks that will test the site/temperature compatibilities of local and outsourced eelgrass genotypes that showed evidence of strong adaptive capacity. In addition seeds from local and outsourced populations at two sites along a temperature gradient will be planted and monitored for the performance of each genotype along with abiotic conditions at each site to evaluate genotype performance – a necessary step towards future temperature-resilient eelgrass restoration

Lead Principal Investigator: Stephen Tomasetti, University of Maryland, Eastern Shore

Partner Institution: University of Maryland, Eastern Shore

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Federal Agency Technical Contact: Holly Plaisted

Start Year: 2024

End Year: 2027

Initial Funding Amount: $139,994.00

Federal Grant Number: P24AC02422

Northeast Temperate Network acoustic analyses in support of wildlife community monitoring

Project Description: Eastern forests face a range of interacting stressors:novel pests and pathogens, invasive plant dominance, over-abundant white-tailed deer populations, development of surrounding non-NPS lands, altered disturbance regimes, increasingly frequent extreme weather events, and changing climate conditions. Meanwhile, there is a diversity of wildlife inhabiting these forests that are also being impacted. The impacts of these stressors on wildlife may be negative, neutral, or positive depending on the specific
habitat requirements of these organisms. Collectively, these threats and stressors can result in changes to park biodiversity over time that may result in increased operational costs for parks to protect park habitats and wildlife populations

This project will support a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell
University’s bioacoustics lab to conduct analyses to improve acoustic monitoring of landbirds, which is being conducted to supplement Northeast Temperate Inventory and Monitoring Network’s (NETN) long-term monitoring forest bird monitoring program. The postdoc will process and analyze recordings from NETNís long term sites to assess and improve the accuracy of the classifiers (e.g., BirdNET) for detecting forest breeding species. The postdoc will also lead and contribute to the development of scientific
manuscripts and reports resulting from the work to improve our evaluation of the status and trends of breeding forest birds in NETN parks. The resulting analyses and products from this project will increase public and the scientific community’s knowledge of how avariety of local and regional stressors affect the condition of park wildlife and will provide
practical outcomes that parks and supporting programs can utilize in their planning and management of forest and wildlife resources.

Lead Principal Investigator: Dr. Laurel Symes, Cornell University

Partner Institution: Cornell University

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Federal Agency Technical Contact: Jim Comiskey

Start Year: 2024

End Year: 2026

Initial Funding Amount: $129,383.95

Federal Grant Number: P24AC02415

A manager-friendly model for sound propagation in air and underwater in Glacier Bay

Project Description: Motor vessels, such as those that bring 99% of visitors to Glacier Bay National Park, introduce noise pollution into the air and underwater. Vessel noise can interfere with visitor enjoyment of wilderness, disturb wildlife, and inhibit underwater communication among whales and other marine life. Park managers need to be able to predict where and when vessel noise may reach
levels that are of concern in either the above-water or underwater domain. Our goal is to create a manager-friendly model for the evaluation of vessel noise scenarios in coastal parks. The need for a dual-domain model was originally raised in the 2018 Glacier Bay Acoustic Resource Management Framework.

The first objective toward achieving this goal is to gather data on in-air and underwater vessel noise emissions and how they change with operational factors such as speed and orientation with respect to a listener. Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve (GBNPP) first needs to quantify above- and below-water sound levels of commercial and recreational vessels. This requires
measurement of terrestrial and aquatic absolute sound pressure levels of particular vessels and other sound sources at various locations throughout the park on calibrated or well-characterized recording devices. This objective will require a focused field effort to document noise emissions
for a variety of predominant vessel types, ranging from cruise ships to ‘six-pack’ charter boats. This would be done by conducting controlled noise-measurement trials, and by leveraging existing airborne and underwater sound datasets and vessel tracks with acoustic propagation models to estimate each vessel’s noise emissions.

The second objective is to develop sophisticated sound propagation models relating the characteristics of various sound sources to the resultant sound field throughout the park.

The third objective is to create a manager-friendly desktop application that allows Park staff to create scenarios with different vessels, locations, and other characteristics, and see in-air and underwater sound propagation models with user-friendly displays of the results.

Lead Principal Investigator: Dr. Aaron Rice, Cornell University

Partner Institution: Cornell University

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Federal Agency Technical Contact: Alexandra Gulick

Start Year: 2024

End Year: 2027

Initial Funding Amount: $440,537.00

Federal Grant Number: P24AC00464

Implementation of pilot seagrass restoration (FIIS), and NCBN Water Quality Monitoring

Project Description: This project aims to reduce climate vulnerability of seagrass meadows across
Fire Island National Seashore (FIIS) through the application of innovative assisted gene flow approaches. Collection and storage of viable seagrass seeds from local populations for field studies across multiple parks will test the site/temperature compatibilities of local and outsourced eelgrass genotypes that showed evidence of strong adaptive capacity. In addition, seeds from local and outsourced populations at three sites along a temperature gradient will be planted and monitored for the performance of each genotype along with abiotic conditions at each site to evaluate genotype performance – a necessary step towards future temperature-resilient eelgrass restoration.

The objectives of this task are to implement the Inventory and Monitoring
Program (I&M) estuarine water quality and seagrass monitoring protocols at Gateway National Recreation Area (GATE) and Fire Island National Seashore (FIIS) in alternate years. Monitoring of long term seagrass sites, established more than a decade ago, will also be included at FIIS. Monitoring will follow the standard methods described in the Northeast Coastal and Barrier Network (NCBN)Vital Signs protocols for monitoring estuarine nutrient enrichment. Seagrass condition indicators will be measured and the sampling approach is consistent with the global seagrass monitoring protocol described at http://www.SeagrassNet.org

Lead Principal Investigator: Bradley Peterson, SUNY, Stony Brook University

Partner Institution: SUNY, Stony Brook University

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Federal Agency Technical Contact: Holly Plaisted

Start Year: 2024

End Year: 2027

Initial Funding Amount: $210,476.00

Federal Grant Number: P24AC02248

Postdoctoral Fellowship for Jessica Scott

Project Description: The project aims to enhance public programming and community engagement for the Springfield Armory by providing research, technical assistance, and educational resources to the National Park Service (NPS). Key activities include gauging community interest to foster public support for Armory activities, developing ideas for utilizing historic archival resources in programming, and exploring potential grant funding opportunities. The initiative will also involve outreach through a compliant survey to gather feedback from Springfield residents about their desires for exhibits and programs. Additionally, an Indigenous history track will be developed in curation, programming, or archives. The project will support the Armory staff in creating original programming focused on Armory workers and their families, as well as collaborate with interpretive and cultural resources staff to plan and promote events that connect Armory stories to the community. This includes recruiting performers, scholars, and re-enactors, while ensuring effective marketing and social media outreach to maximize public participation.

The project involves developing a survey for local Springfield residents to gather insights about their relationships with the Springfield Armory, followed by obtaining necessary approvals and distributing the survey to collect results. Collaborating closely with the park Archivist, we will explore the Armory’s collections, including oral histories and records from the Northeast. Additionally, we will plan and promote a weekend of activities aimed at celebrating Armory workers, recruiting participants and designing thematic programs that engage both workers and their families.

Lead Principal Investigator: Alene Denson, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Partner Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Federal Agency Technical Contact: Amy Glowacki

Start Year: 2024

End Year: 2025

Initial Funding Amount: $24,000.00

Federal Grant Number: P24AC00862

Interactive Online Map for National Park Service Chesapeake Watershed Cooperative Ecosystem

Project Description: In 2020, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Appalachian Laboratory (UMCES-AL) as host institution of the Chesapeake Watershed Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CW CESU) developed a new Projects Database to track and administer all projects routed through the CW CESU (view active projects from database). In subsequent years, UMCES-AL and the CW CESU Research Coordinator were able to improve the accuracy of the database by referencing historical files and adding projects missing from the database or by updating projects with digital copies of the agreements or adding previously unrecorded modifications. This Projects Database could be of further benefit to managers and other stakeholders if the information from the database could be viewed spatially across the landscape on a map, allowing land managers across the National Park Service (NPS), as well as from other Federal agencies, to view and track activities in various locations within their own management units or within the region. We plan to leverage the information already available from the Projects Database to develop an interactive map that displays project locations. Users would be able to view additional information about each project by clicking on a project’s icon on the map. The project information displayed on the map would be filterable with conditions like year, discipline (natural, cultural, or social), NPS region/park, partner institution, principal investigator,
etc.

UMCES-AL will develop an interactive online map hosted on the CW CESU website
that queries the Projects Database and displays NPS project information dynamically across the landscape. It will also incorporate the ability to filter and color code the information by facets described above. Because geographic coordinates have not been recorded for CESU projects, the first phase will require review of NPS projects funded since January 2020 and any new projects initiated during the project term to derive geographic
coordinates for each project location and incorporate that information into the database along with any other filterable information not already recorded in the database (National Park, state). Following augmentation of the data, UMCES-AL will use R-Shiny and Leaflet to develop an embeddable map with dashboard. After this stage, UMCES-AL will solicit feedback from NPS stakeholders to improve the map. When it is ready to be deployed, it
will be embedded on the CW CESU website, which would be the final deliverable for the agreement.

Lead Principal Investigator: Katie Kline, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Partner Institution: University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Federal Agency Technical Contact: Danny Filer

Start Year: 2024

End Year: 2026

Initial Funding Amount: $20,108.00

Federal Grant Number: P24AC00740