CONTACT: Isobel C. Sheifer FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
7/17-20 --Hyatt Regency Hotel, Tampa 7/18/95
after --NOAA Coastal Ocean Office
301-713-3338
The federal government will step up its efforts to help Florida improve fisheries habitats as the state works to restore its ailing fisheries, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.
Florida's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will get the increased assistance through the Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP), administered through NOAA's Coastal Ocean Program.
The Florida Everglades and Florida Bay have been experiencing catastrophic ecosystem collapse. As a result, fisheries habitat has been changed and lost in Florida Bay. Habitat-dependent fisheries such as pink shrimp have declined, with associated economic loss.
C-CAP is working with Florida's environmental agency to map and provide information on changes in critical fisheries habitat. C-CAP is also working in support of the Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida to provide a map which will highlight coastal habitat important to fisheries populations of the regions. The Commission, through its Science Research Advisory Committee, and the Federal Task Force on South Florida Restoration are depending on C-CAP to assist in delineating the natural ecosystem boundaries for the region. Such information will assure that restoration and development in the region do not further negatively impact fisheries and, in fact, enhance them.
C-CAP is a remote-sensing program designed to monitor areal extent and change in location and acreage of the nation's coastal wetlands and adjacent uplands on a one-to-five-year cycle. It was developed through extensive support from the NOAA Coastal Ocean Program, a highly innovative program aimed at supporting scientific investigation that combines the best NOAA expertise with the best academic expertise to solve some of America's high-priority coastal ecosystem problems. C-CAP is managed by the Beaufort, N.C., laboratory of the National Marine Fisheries Service's Southeast Fisheries Science Center.
Changes in coastal wetlands and adjacent uplands are examined through satellite imagery, changes in seagrasses through aerial coastal photography. Most C-CAP projects are conducted cooperatively with a federal, regional, state or local resource agency for development of specific environmental information. Then, the satellite imagery, aerial photography, and field data are interpreted, classified, analyzed using a national protocol developed by C-CAP, and integrated with other digital data in a geographic information system with the objective of developing a nationally standardized data base on coastal land cover and habitat change. The DEP's Florida Marine Research Institute has adopted the C-CAP protocol for fisheries habitat mapping in the state. Additionally, C-CAP will be training DEP staff in the use of the protocol through the cooperative effort.
"NOAA has been working in Florida to help us with our problems in many ways and the NOAA Coastal Ocean Program's C-CAP is an outstanding example," said Ken Haddad, director of the Florida Marine Research Institute. "We in Florida are glad to be working with C-CAP in resolving our critical fisheries habitat problems. C-CAP has provided us with a standardized and cost- effective way of monitoring and delineating habitats, and with expertise to learn to use this tool to the advantage of Florida residents and visitors."