The purpose of this project was to provide biologists and managers along the Atlantic coast with tools to predict the effects of accelerating sealevel rise on the distribution of piping plover breeding habitat, to test those predictions, and to feed results back into the modeling framework to improve predictive capabilities. Our goals were to provide short-term (i.e., over project life) results related to the effects of sea level rise on piping plover breeding habitat at Assateague Island and to use these results to ultimately (i.e., longer term, during and beyond project life) inform a coastwide assessment of threats from sea-level rise and related habitat conservation recommendations that can be implemented by land managers and inform recommendations to regulators. We also sought to test several case studies incorporating explicit measures to preserve resilience of piping plover habitat to sea level rise into management plans for Assateague Island National Seashore (ASIS) on Assateague Island.
