Understanding and protecting estuaries is at the heart of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System’s mission. Through science, outreach, and education, Reserves work to ensure that these cherished places, and the many benefits they provide for coastal communities, are enjoyed for generations to come.
Clean Water
Children playing in tide pools, fishermen landing their catch, kayakers exploring an inlet—the benefits of clean water connect all us of us who live and visit the coast. Good water quality protects public health, supports industries, and sustains fish and wildlife.
Reserves work for clean water by conserving valuable habitats, studying changes in water quality, testing cutting-edge approaches to pollution mitigation, and providing practical guidance and tools for coastal decision makers. The NERRS System-wide Monitoring Program operates 280 stations that track water quality, pollution, and weather across 1.3+ million acres of public land and water.
NERRS data is used to address hazardous spills, track nutrient piollution, manage shellfish industry operations, and more.
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Growing to Meet the Climate Challenge
As the federal government strives to slow climate change by conserving 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030, three new Reserves are under the designation process to protect America’s coasts.
Smart Sensors, Wise Decisions
Ohio’s Old Woman Creek Reserve partnered to help test new water quality monitoring smart sensors in Lake Erie. Their gold-standard data is paving the way for these new sensors at a fraction of legacy costs.
Restoring land, food, and people at Heʻeia
He’eia Reserve works with its partners to manage Indigenous wetland agro-ecology (loʻi kalo) and aquaculture systems (loko iʻa) to feed communities, restore land, support native species, and build climate resilience.
Healthy Habitats
The whooping cranes that winter at our Mission-Aransas Reserve are amoung the many rare and important species that rely on healthy estuaries and Reserves.
Reserves protect more than 1.3 million acres of coastal and estuarine habitats around the country. Healthy coastal habitats play a central role in the economies and well-being of coastal communities.
Reserves serve as living laboratories where scientists and stakeholders work together to understand how these habitats function and how they respond to the pressures of human activity and climate change.
Through monitoring, training and education, Reserves leverage this science to develop and share best management practices for sustaining healthy habitats nationwide.
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15 billion and counting
Although the Japanese mud snail (Batillaria attramentaria) has lived in Padilla Bay for nearly 100 years, its population has surged, and scientists at the Padilla Bay Reserve are trying to figure out why.
Aquatic Invasive Species Task Force
The round goby, an invasive fish originally from Central Eurasia, has been found not too far from the Hudson River Reserve—after making its way from the Great Lakes, across the Erie Canal, and down the Mohawk River.
Spreading the Word on Seagrass
Most people don’t know anything about these ecosystem superstars that grow on the bottoms of coastal waters, even though they support food security, mitigate climate change, promote biodiversity, and own the title of world’s largest plant.
Informed Citizens
Coastal areas are in a time of great change. Populations are growing, development is expanding, and sea levels are rising as the climate shifts. As a result, the management of coastal natural resources has become more complex and the need for solutions to problems is more urgent.
The decisions we make today are shaping the future of our coasts, and their ability to support us, for generations. These decisions are everyone’s business. Reserves work to engage all citizens in exploring, understanding, and supporting coastal environments through citizen outreach, volunteer initiatives, professional training, and educational programs.
The need to make informed decisions about our changing coasts affect everyone who lives there.
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Guide Helps Communities Plan for Rising Seas
Sea levels are projected to rise a foot along our nation’s coasts by 2050; on par with what the country experienced in the previous century. Every community will experience this differently, and thanks to a new Application Guide, they have the tools they need.
A Bird’s Eye View of the NERRS
The rufous-breasted red knot migrates more than 9,000 miles every year, wintering as far south as Tierra Del Fuego at the southernmost tip of South America. Along the way, many take a break at South Carolina’s ACE Basin Reserve.
Know Your Tides
Jacques Cousteau and the NJDEP have partnered up to raise awareness of tidal flooding risk in a new social media campaign.
Prepared Communities
Reserves help communities understand and act on the risks and challenges they face.
Super-sized storms, record floods and droughts, hazardous spills, declining fisheries—environmental disruption is the new normal for America’s coasts.
Reserves are dedciated to helping communities meet these challenges and emerge better positioned to manage the impacts of a changing coast.
The Reserve’s national network amplifies local science and expertise so it supports communities nationwide. As the challenges facing the coasts intensify, Reserves are committed to being more resilient and ready to be the partners coastal communities have relied on for more than 40 years.
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Updates on Hurricane Ian
Our hearts are with the communities in Florida currently impacted by Hurricane Ian.
Guide Helps Communities Plan for Rising Seas
Sea levels are projected to rise a foot along our nation’s coasts by 2050; on par with what the country experienced in the previous century. Every community will experience this differently, and thanks to a new Application Guide, they have the tools they need.
Coastal Resilience Yankee Style
Across New England, communities are struggling with the impacts of climate change, and the Coastal Training Programs (CTP) at the Great Bay, Wells, and Narragansett Bay Reserves are there to help.