- Success Stories
- Environmental Resource Assessment & Management
Developing a Database for Ecosystem Service Models
CSS scientists have been major developers and contributors to the online U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s EcoService Models Library (ESML) database since its inception in 2012. The ESML database contains detailed but concise descriptions of ecosystem service models to facilitate the selection of models by ecosystem scientists for a variety of management and research applications. The database contains over 290 ecosystem service models, with additional entries for specific model runs. CSS employee owners helped design the database and the framework for summarizing models. In addition, CSS has selected models from the database for generating scenarios of remediation options for specific Superfund sites to identify the ecosystem services they could provide. Models that have been applied include pollinator (e.g., bumblebee), carbon sequestration, and bird ecosystem services. The database can be accessed at www.epa.gov/eco-research/ecoservice-models-library/.
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Expanding a Popular Flood Exposure Tool
We recently assisted our client, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office for Coastal Management, with updating one of their most popular tools, the Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper.
Training the Next Generation of Researchers
CSS staff support the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Division of Occupational Safety and Health by providing Safe Techniques Advance Research Science (STARS) training to summer interns. Following a pause during the pandemic, staff resumed training May 15, 2024. During the in-person STARS training, CSS staff cover key concepts from the pre-requisite NIH Lab Safety…
Studying Mesophotic Coral Health
Mesophotic coral can live at depths of 500 feet below the ocean surface. Even at this depth, some of the mesophotic corals in the Gulf of Mexico were affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Our coral scientists supporting NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science are studying the extent of this impact.…