NEARSHORE HABITAT RESTORATION STEERING COMMITTEE

Image Credit: Green Fin Studio

Restoration Resources

Resources for effective restoration in the Middle Peninsula

In an effort to help practitioners identify prime restoration areas in the Middle Peninsula and the funding sources with which to pursue related efforts, in addition to supporting strategic site selection, design and monitoring, the York River and Small Coastal Basin Roundtable’s Nearshore Habitat Steering Committee has consolidated relevant resources and tools for informed decision making.

Below, you’ll find these references, tools and contacts grouped by habitat, as well as topic.

Overall

ADAPTVA An information gateway on climate change adaptation for individuals, local programs, and agencies.
Center for Conservation Biology Mapping Portal An interactive map of bird locations
Centralized Data Management Office A comprehensive platform with CBNERR-VA data on estuarine water quality monitoring, biodiversity monitoring, and land-use and habitat change analysis.
Coastal GEMS A gateway to Virginia’s coastal resource data and maps; coastal laws and policies; facts on coastal resource values; and direct links to collaborating agencies responsible for current data.
Conserve Virginia Includes more than 6 million acres of lands representing top priority conservation values in the following categories: agriculture and forestry; natural habitat and ecosystem diversity; floodplains and flooding resilience; cultural and historic preservation; scenic preservation; protected landscapes resilience; water quality improvement
Digital Coast A suite of tools and data for informed decision-making.
SCHISM The Semi-implicit Cross-scale Hydroscience Integrated System Model is an open-source community-supported modeling system, designed for seamless simulation of 3D baroclinic circulation across creek-lake-river-estuary-shelf-ocean scales.
Tidal Marsh Model An advanced modeling framework that integrates the physical, biogeochemical, and human components needed to simulate and assess the evolution and persistence of tidal marshes under different sea-level rise scenarios.
Tidewatch Tidewatch Charts© provide an effective way to visualize and predict the magnitude and impacts of coastal flooding at specific locations within the Chesapeake Bay and along Virginia’s seaside Eastern Shore.
VECOS The Virginia Estuarine and Coastal Observing System is a platform designed to distribute the results of water quality and meteorological data monitoring efforts from the Chesapeake Bay and associated tributaries within Virginia.
Virginia Flood Risk Information System (VFRIS) allows users to quickly locate and see if property is within the Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA).

Oyster Reefs

Chesapeake Bay Daily:
- Chesapeake Bay Chlorophyll Simulates the growth and decay of phytoplankton and estimates the amount of chlorophyll in the water.
- Focused Salinity and Temperature Forecasts – maps of salinity and temperature focused on specific Bay locations
- Ocean Acidification – maps current, forecasted and trend data in York and Rappahannock rivers
Coordinator for the NOAA Subtidal Oyster Reef Geodatabase for Lower York and Piankatank rivers:
- David G. Bruce, NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, 443-258-6062, david.bruce@noaa.gov

SAV

VIMS SAV Monitoring and Restoration Program:
- Interactive SAV map As part of the Annual SAV Monitoring Program, VIMS has since 2001 been orthorectifying aerials images that cover SAV beds.
- Summary tables Here you can access interactive tables that organize annual seagrass coverage and density values within various combinations of these units. You can download these data for further analysis.
- GIS data downloads and related reports here

Shorelines

Chesapeake Bay Shoreline Evolution Reports – documentation of shoreline evolution by county
Historic T-Sheets These shoreline surveys provide the authoritative definition of the U.S. high-water line and may also include details such as roads, prominent buildings, and other features along the coast.
Marsh Analysis and Planning Tool Incorporating Tides and Elevations (MAPTITE) Aids in the selection of vegetation types for different restoration elevations based on a combination of a digital elevation model (DEM) derived from GPS observations, local tidal datums, and grass species tolerances.
Shoreline Decision Support Tool An interactive guidance system that provides the user with a recommended shoreline erosion control strategy. The recommendation is based on the user’s answers to a series of questions that help to characterize the shoreline condition.
Shoreline Evolution GIS Map An interactive data portal for viewing, planning and management.
Shoreline Inventories Digital Shoreline Inventories are available for coastal Virginia, Maryland, portions of Delaware, and the Chowan River Basin in North Carolina. Tidal Marsh Inventories are sometimes included with Shoreline Inventories. These wetland inventories map the locations and identify plant communities observed in tidal marshes.
Shoreline Management Handbook A go-to resource for shoreline management in Virginia
Shoreline Management Model A GIS model that predicts the best management practices for a shoreline and where living shorelines are suitable, using available map data and decision tree logic.
Wetland Condition Assessment Tool (WetCAT) A spatially-specific, interactive, online tool that provides a water quality and habitat condition assessment for each individually mapped nontidal wetland in Virginia (approximately 196,000 polygons and over 1.2 million acres), though it also includes some tidal marsh and shoreline condition information.
Design: see below
Technical Assistance:
- VA Shoreline Erosion Advisory Service. Established in 1980 to assist private landowners and localities in Virginia with erosion problems.

Funding

Building Coastal Resilience in Virginia. Data Needs Assessment and Funding Resources Review
Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund. Dedicated to protecting the bay by helping local communities clean up and restore their polluted rivers and streams.
Community Flood Preparedness Fund. Established to provide support for regions and localities across Virginia to reduce the impacts of flooding.
Fight the Flood. Connecting property owners facing rising flood waters with funding mechanisms to contract with specialized businesses who can help evaluate, design, and build solutions to Fight the Flood.
Threatened Sites Grant Program. Grants offering emergency funding for archaeological sites endangered by erosion, impending development, or vandalism.
Virginia Conservation Assistance Program. An urban cost-share program that provides financial incentives and technical and educational assistance to property owners installing eligible Best Management Practices (BMPs) in Virginia’s participating Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs).

Site Selection and Design

Google Earth Tools for Site Data Collection – Including those for Mean Tide Range, Spring Tide Range, and NAVD88 and MLW.kml
International Guidelines on Natural and Nature-Based Features for Flood Risk Management – Providing practitioners with the best available information concerning the conceptualization, planning, design, engineering, construction, and maintenance of NNBF to support resilience and flood risk reduction for coastlines, bays, and estuaries, as well as river and freshwater systems.
Living Shoreline Sea Level Resiliency: Performance and Adaptive Management of Existing Sites Year 3 Summary Report July 2021
Living Shoreline Sea-Level Resiliency: Performance and Adaptive Management of Existing Sites (Year 1)
Living Shoreline Sea Level Resiliency: Performance and Adaptive Management of Existing Breakwater Sites, Year 2 Summary Report
Living Shoreline Design Guidelines for Shore Protection in Virginia’s Estuarine Environments
Restoration Project Review and Selection Criteria Example criteria and considerations for site selection.

Plans and Projects in Place

Shore Zone Management Planning for Middle Peninsula Chesapeake Bay Public Access Authority Properties. Sites owned by the Middle Peninsula Public Access Authority with conceptual shoreline protection plans.
Accelerating the Scale and the Rate of Living Shoreline Implementation in Rural Coastal Virginia

Monitoring and Assessment

Case studies/Examples of successful restoration and Best Practices

Environmental Justice/Social/Cultural Considerations

Databases

EJ Screen Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool
Chesapeake Bay Environmental Justice and Equity Dashboard (Beta) Providing access to a variety of spatial data layers pertinent to addressing environmental issues in areas with underrepresented populations, which include communities of color, low income, and linguistically isolated communities.

Regarding Indigenous Local Knowledge / Traditional Ecological Knowledge

Indigenous Peoples of the Chesapeake. Learn about the culture and day-to-day life of the Chesapeake Bay region’s earliest human residents.
A Restoration Conversation with the Nansemond Indian Nation and the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe Recording from June 23, 2021
A Tribal Climate Adaptation Menu
Collaborative research to inform adaptive comanagement: a framework for the Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve
Indigenous Ethics guiding documents 32 Indigenous ethics documents developed by Indigenous Nations, communities, and working groups from around the world
Integration of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in Environmental Science, Policy and Decision-Making

Contacts

Regulations

Tidal Wetlands Guidelines

Professional Development

Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professionals Certification program promoting sustainable landscape practices in the Chesapeake Bay region.
Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner Program Encouraging a high professional standard for those who are designing, implementing, overseeing, and monitoring restoration projects throughout the world.
James River Watershed Living Shorelines Program Professionals page

This project, Task # 73 was funded by the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program led by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality through Grant #NA20NOS4190207 of the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, under the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, as amended