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Monitoring & Understanding

Promoting Economic Vitality

Protecting Lives & Property

Conserving & Restoring

Miscellaneous Topics

 

Protecting Lives & Property

Bottle of pills

Pharmaceuticals in Coastal Waters

Coastal waters provide homes for an amazing array of plants and animals and are recreational havens for millions of visitors each year. But recently, scientists have raised concerns about pharmaceutical residues detected in rivers and coastal waters and their potential to cause adverse effects in humans and aquatic species. More...

A coastline

Coral Reefs Protect Coastlines

Healthy reefs have rough surfaces and complex structures that slow incoming waves — dissipating much of the force. Up to 90 percent of the energy from wind-generated waves is absorbed by reefs, based on the physical and ecological characteristics of the reef and the abundance of the adjacent seagrass and mangrove ecosystems. More...

Devastation of Bolivar Peninsula, Texas, following Hurricane Ike.

Effective Coastal Management

This past October, when Hurricane Ike roared out of the Gulf of Mexico and slammed the Texas coast, the nation was reminded of the damage that coastal storms can cause. More...

 

Subsidence marker shows how much the land has sunken.

Height Modernization - Leveling the Nation

The Earth’s surface is constantly changing, either rising or falling depending on a variety of geographical conditions. The result is that we may be more vulnerable to flooding and other natural disasters. More...

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