USGS National Wetlands Research Center

Director's Message

Phil Turnipseed, Director
USGS National Wetlands Research Center

"Our Nation’s wetlands, particularly the Louisiana coastal region, are National and global treasures," said Turnipseed. "The NWRC is devoted to the restoration and protection of that resource by providing unbiased, relevant, and timely data needed by decision makers and emergency managers to design, plan, and manage its future."

Welcome to the National Wetlands Research Center. Our Center has a talented staff of about 150 persons with a mix of scientific and technical skills, ranging from plant, wetland, and animal ecology to mapping, remote sensing, geographic information systems, computer and electronic technologies, information technologies, and water quality analysis. Our headquarters is located in Lafayette, Louisiana, where we are in a Federal facility nestled within the research park of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. We also have field stations and offices located in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana; Gulf Breeze, Florida; and Vicksburg, Mississippi.

The Center addresses emerging issues that are of concern to natural resource partners and the scientific community in thematic, geographic, and scientific areas where decision critical information is needed by the Nation’s environmental and water managers.

Initially our research served the needs of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other Federal and State agencies with issues within the coastal zone of the United States. In the last few years, we have expanded our client base to include specifically the needs of the National Park Service, Bureau of Reclamation, and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, all bureaus within the Department of the Interior. As a result, we have also expanded our research to address inland issues.

Many of our products and services are being used by other Federal and State agencies, such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, in the development and execution of plans to restore coastal systems.

Our future

The Center’s future will focus on several critical themes in ecosystem restoration and protection. Our unique and globally-renowned scientists have the ability to address a diverse set of parameters with regards to both basic research and application science. These include:

Wetlands ecosystem resilience and response;
Coastal monitoring of a holistic set of ecosystem parameters;
Climate and land use change detection and analysis;
Geospatial analysis and state-of-the-science graphical analysis and display;
Forest and wetland ecosystem research.

Our partners, stakeholders, and cooperative agencies, both public and private, must be engaged in concert with the future of the Center. And in that theme, the NWRC will focus basic research to address the difficult decisions that must be made regarding the landscape with respect to balancing the delicate and fragile nature of wetland system protection and restoration with the population that now lives, and is intrinsically tied, to that landscape.

Three overarching goals that guide the direction of the NWRC are:

Build Scientific Knowledge: Seek Discovery
Provide the scientific information to address current and future questions related to wetlands, watershed processes, coastal ecosystems, and Department of the Interior trust species. Invest in new scientific capabilities and technology development to ensure future challenges can be addressed.
Develop the Partnerships: Adaptive Science/Management
Build iterative research-management relationships with other DOI bureaus, other governmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and academia that ensure effective science information is provided, the NWRC’s products are used, and scientific capabilities are evolving to meet future biological needs.
Focus on Outcomes
Evaluate the effectiveness of NWRC’s science enterprise and continually seek to enhance the impact on resource management, regulations, and policy.

Browse our Web site to learn more and contact us at nwrcinfo@usgs.gov if you have any questions.