Overview

The Strategic Conservation Assessment of Gulf Coast Landscapes (SCA) Project, is intended to: 1) collate existing plans and priorities within an ecological and socio-economic framework proposed by the RESTORE Council’s initial comprehensive plan, 2) develop tools and templates that can evaluate and strengthen existing land conservation proposals, and 3) develop spatial data layers that can be used to identify potential areas for land conservation projects. To accomplish the three objectives, the SCA project is developing a suite of three tools where users can explore a catalog of existing conservation plans and projects across the GCR (Conservation Plan Inventory Tool), evaluate and strengthen conservation proposals (Conservation Prioritization Tool), and explore areas within the GCR based on conservation priorities (Conservation Visualization Tool). The SCA tool suite is available to individuals and organizations who are interested in maximizing conservation benefits across the GCR within an environmental, social, and economic context.

The SCA project has taken a collaborative approach in each stage of project development. In total, over 650 stakeholders across the five Gulf States (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida) worked together to identify conservation priorities in the Gulf Coast Region, and to test and give feedback on the functionality and design of the tools. The SCA tools were adjusted to incorporate the feedback of potential users and their priorities.

For more information regarding this project you can visit: SCA Project | Quantitative Ecology and Spatial Technologies Lab (QuEST) | Mississippi State University (msstate.edu)

Funding

The SCA project is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Interior and funded via the 2015 Funded Priorities List under RESTORE Bucket 2 (Council-Selected Restoration Component).

Period of Performance

July 2017 – July 2022