National Park Service And Stony Brook University Sign Cooperative Agreement To Study Coastal Issues

by | Nov 5, 2003 | GSB Project

$410,000 Award Will Focus on Great South Bay and Jamaica Bay

STONY BROOK, N.Y., November 5, 2003—Stony Brook and the National Park Service have entered into a long-term partnership to expand the University’s role in conducting and applying research to natural and cultural resource management issues at U.S. National Parks. To enable this alliance, SBU recently joined the North Atlantic Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (NAC-CESU), a collaboration of federal agencies and universities that provides research, technical assistance, and education to resource and environmental managers.

In one of the first projects to be conducted, scientists at the University’s Marine Sciences Research Center (MSRC) will study fisheries management issues along the Great South Bay shoreline of Fire Island National Seashore. In another project at the National Park Service’s Gateway National Recreation Area, MSRC geologists and modelers will determine the causes of salt marsh loss in Jamaica Bay. Stony Brook will receive over $410,000 from the National Park Service to conduct these important studies.

Stony Brook is one of the leading public research institutions in the nation and the MSRC has been ranked among the nation’s top ten Ph.D. programs in oceanography by the National Research Council. As a member of the NAC-CESU, it will supply state-of-the-art research to the National Park Service and develop innovative solutions to many of the complex environmental issues confronting barrier island and shallow marine environments that define Fire Island National Seashore and other National Seashores, Parks and Recreation Areas along the northeast coast from Maine to Virginia.

Congressman Tim Bishop, who has been instrumental in supporting this effort, stated: “This effort brings together two treasured resources on Long Island—the Fire Island National Seashore and the Marine Sciences program at Stony Brook University. This partnership is a positive step forward in studying, protecting and rejuvenating our area’s waters and applying good science to public policy decision making.”