Lake Charles, LA - WORKSHOP - Building resilience through actionable science: New products to inform how and where land protection can increase coastal resiliency.

The Gears and Beers Ride is a collection of four bicycle rides and a street party that raises money to purchase and install bicycle amenities around Mobile, and it helps funds the various community-based programs for the Delta Bike Project. Since the first Gears & Beers in 2015, the Delta Bike Project has purchased and installed 15 bicycle repair stations and pumps, and enough bike parking to accommodate 56 bicycles.Riders can choose from four different distances – 10 miles, 30 miles, 63 miles and 100 miles.The Delta Bike Project believes that cycling and its benefits should be made equally accessible to people from all walks of life. We seek to minimize economic and educational barriers by providing the tools and knowledge for do- it-yourself bicycle repair and low-cost access to, or the ability to earn donated and recycled bicycles through sweat-equity.Visitwww.deltabikeproject.orgto learn more about our programs!

Delta Bike Project

<H3 CLASS="s4">Come join us as we work together with stakeholders to show new science products helpful for land use, conservation, and flood mitigation planning and solicit input on the customization and use of these products for decision making.</H3>
<H3 CLASS="s4">Workshop objectives:</H3>
• Share the Open Space and Tidal Saline Wetland Migration findings with a diverse group of end users and facilitate a discussion about how outputs can be used to increase coastal resilience.
• Review both datasets on Coastal Resilience 2.0 to generate discussion of local use of land protection for flood risk reduction and how wetland migration data could affect decision making.
• Solicit input from attendees on what planning processes or decisions could be impacted by the open space and wetland migration projects and what next steps or custom products would be most useful to support these efforts.
 
<H3>Open Space – The Nature Conservancy</H3>
TNC partnered with Dr. Sam Brody and Dr. Wes Highfield, both of Texas A&M University, to identify which watersheds across the Gulf coast are the best targets for strategic land conservation to both reduce flood risk and conserve biodiversity. The analysis identified 421 watersheds along the Gulf of Mexico that have both high likelihood of flood damages and high conservation value.  A selection of these watersheds is being targeted for workshops devoted to a discussion of open space protection as a flood risk reduction and conservation strategy.
 
<H3 CLASS="s4">Coastal Wetland Migration – USGS</H3>
In the 21st century, accelerated sea-level rise and continued coastal development are expected to greatly alter coastal landscapes across the globe. In a recent study, Dr. Michael Osland, Nicholas Enwright, and Kereen Griffith identified areas where tidal saline wetlands may adapt via landward migration along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast. These analyses provided information that can be used to identify migration corridors and develop future-focused sea-level rise adaptation strategies that will improve the potential that the ecosystem goods and services provided by these wetlands will continue to be available for future generations.
 
<H3 CLASS="s4">Agenda:</H3>
8:30 am Registration
9:00 am Welcome and Overview of Open Space Study (Dr. Christine Shepard, Director of Science, Gulf of Mexico Program, The Nature Conservancy)
10:00 am Overview of the Tidal Saline Wetland Migration Study (Sinead Borchert, Ecologist, USGS)
10:55 am Guest Speaker - Cynthia Edwards SECAS Coordinator for the Gulf Coast Prairie Landscape Conservation Cooperative - Landscape Conservation Cooperatives - collaborating to design a connected network of landscapes and seascapes across the southeast. 
11:20 am Demonstration of datasets on Coastal Resilience 2.0
11:35 am Lunch
12:15 am Facilitated discussion about strategic land conservation in the context of these studies and next steps and/or custom data products
2:00 pm Adjourn