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R/CE-1
Visioning for sustaining rural communities on Maryland's eastern shore
Principal Investigator:
Wayne H. BellStart/End Year:
2005 - 2007Institution:
Center for the Environment and Society, Washington CollegeCo-Principal Investigator:
Philip G. Favero, Institute for Governmental Service, University of Maryland, College Park; Wendy G. Miller, Washington CollegeTopic(s):
- Coastal Flooding
Description:
Objectives: Understand how social, political and economic forces for change can provide opportunities rather than threats for sustainable development of rural coastal communities. Translate the results into a CD-ROM and internet-based "Sustainability Tool Kit" of information, leadership methods, and user-friendly GIS resources to help these communities participate in visioning their future in relation to their surrounding working landscapes. Provide hands-on education opportunities through internships for Washington College undergraduate students. Methodology: Year1: Assemble and evaluate information on pro-active responses to forces for change through survey of print and electronic literature, personal interviews, and review of visioning exercises attempted or underway in Eastern Shore communities and counties. Develop a trial version of the "Sustainability Tool Kit". Rationale: Project will help rural communities help themselves respond more effectively to forces of change that are threatening the integrity of their working landscapes, eroding their sense of place, and degrading the quality of their environment.
Funding Start Year
2005
Funding End Year
2007
Program Announcements
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Featured Fellow
Nina Santos
Nina Santos is a Ph.D. student at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. For her dissertation, she is focused on small shrimp-like crustaceans called mysids – an understudied yet important part of many estuarine and coastal food webs.
Featured Research Project
Developing a habitat model for mysids, an important link in Chesapeake Bay food webs
Mysids are important mesozooplankton prey for many species of fish in Chesapeake Bay and are an important link in transferring energy from lower to upper trophic levels. Mysids also serve as biological vectors for benthic-pelagic coupling due to their diel vertical migration and omnivorous prey-switching behavior, which makes mysids important regulators of food web architecture. Despite their central role in coastal food webs, surprisingly little is known about mysid ecology and dynamics in Chesapeake Bay.
