{"id":51722,"date":"2024-06-11T08:20:30","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T12:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/?p=51722"},"modified":"2024-06-11T10:39:52","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T14:39:52","slug":"for-the-love-of-salt-marshes-michelle-covi-fights-for-coastal-resiliency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/for-the-love-of-salt-marshes-michelle-covi-fights-for-coastal-resiliency\/","title":{"rendered":"For the love of salt marshes: Michelle Covi fights for coastal resiliency"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s not the pristine sandy beaches or kitschy seafood restaurants that draw Michelle Covi to the coast. Those are fine. Nice, even, on a warm summer day. She\u2019s drawn, instead, to something most vacationers don\u2019t consider.<\/p>\n

Salt marshes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are these incredible ecosystems and worlds that are unlike other environments,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

This love has driven much of Covi\u2019s career. It\u2019s vital in her role as the Department of Defense\u2019s (DoD\u2019s) coastal resilience liaison under the University of Georgia\u2019s Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Part of UGA\u2019s Public Service and Outreach<\/a> division, Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant provides coastal communities with education and assistance to foster responsible use of Georgia\u2019s coastal resources. The program is a partnership between UGA and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration\u2019s (NOAA) National Sea Grant College Program<\/a>, a national network of 34 Sea Grant programs in coastal and Great Lakes states and territories.<\/p>\n

Covi works with coastal military installations and surrounding communities, connecting them to programs and projects that help them thrive in the face of rising sea levels and increased flooding risks due to climate change. She focuses on infrastructure and ecosystems that affect military missions and communities, which often include salt marshes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always interested in the natural environment and ecosystems,\u201d Covi said. \u201cGrowing up in Baltimore, there would be these huge ravines with tall trees that I spent hours exploring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Covi attended UGA in the late 1980s to pursue a master\u2019s degree in zoology. As a graduate student, she travelled to Sapelo Island (home to the UGA Marine Institute<\/a>) to study food chains. There, she discovered her love for Georgia’s salt marshes.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorgia is a great place to study salt marshes. They\u2019re so much bigger here than the Chesapeake Bay \u2014I couldn\u2019t believe it when I first saw them,\u201d Covi said. \u201cThere\u2019s so much going on in these environments where fresh water meets salt water and the land is meeting the sea, creating this nutrient-rich mud for plants and animals to thrive in.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was working on her Ph.D. in coastal resources management at East Carolina University when Covi came across a calling that would occupy the rest of her career: communicating climate and environmental issues to the public.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAt the time, I resisted focusing on climate change, but it became increasingly clear that my line of work was pivoting to that issue,\u201d Covi said. \u201cSea level rise just kept coming up as an emerging issue in North Carolina, and people at the coast did not understand or want to plan for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her position with DoD allowed her to address this gap in public understanding while providing solutions to coastal communities\u2014solutions that become more necessary with every centimeter the water gains on the land.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people in DoD are very interested in working on nature-based solutions to climate adaptation and supporting natural resources,\u201d Covi said. \u201cWith that, we\u2019re looking at how we can restore salt marshes in coastal communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salt marshes play a vital role in coastal resiliency and sustainability. Covi described them as the \u201ckidneys of the earth\u201d that serve multiple purposes, including purifying water and providing nursery grounds for marine life. The marshes also serve as a buffer when large storms come through.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you live on the other side of the marsh and you\u2019re hit by a storm surge, the salt marsh actually slows all of that water down,\u201d Covi said.<\/p>\n

Some of the most common ways Covi said that project partners restore salt marshes is by using a technique called living shorelines. As opposed to hard structures like seawalls, living shorelines use vegetation and other natural resources to serve as barriers against shoreline erosion and flooding.<\/p>\n

Covi works closely with the DoD\u2019s Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration<\/a> (REPI) program to preserve natural resources in military installations and communities. In addition, she collaborates with Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability<\/a>, a regional organization that covers much of the Southeast from North Carolina to Mississippi.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat makes me different from a lot of the people in Sea Grant,\u201d Covi said. \u201cI work all over the Southeast and other parts of the country in a federal partnership with DoD.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_section css=”.vc_custom_1567710408463{background-color: #e4ddc7 !important;}” el_class=”fw-polygon”][vc_row equal_height=”yes” bg_type=”bg_color”][vc_column width=”1\/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1567710326062{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;}” el_class=”polygon-wrapper”][vc_raw_html css=”.vc_custom_1718041398944{background-image: url(https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2024\/06\/DSC08717-scaled.jpg?id=51752) !important;}” el_class=”polygon”]JTNDJTIxLS1sZWF2ZSUyMHRoaXMlMjBlbXB0eS0tJTNF[\/vc_raw_html][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″ el_class=”polygon-content”][vc_column_text css=”” el_class=”testimonial”]\u201cAt the time, I resisted focusing on climate change, but it became increasingly clear that my line of work was pivoting to that issue. Sea level rise just kept coming up as an emerging issue in North Carolina, and people at the coast did not understand or want to plan for it.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”” el_class=”credit”]<\/p>\n

\u2013 Michelle Covi, Coastal Resilience Department of Defense Liaison, UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant<\/p>\n

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At UGA, Covi often works with the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems<\/a>, the College of Engineering<\/a>, and the Carl Vinson Institute of Government<\/a> for nature-based infrastructure solutions to the issues she encounters in the various military communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sometimes bring projects to the units to work on. For example, I connected some folks from the UGA Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems in the College of Engineering with a natural resources manager at Fort Stewart to look at a salt marsh changing due to a tide gate \u00a0designed to protect a railroad bridge. An engineering student is now working on a nature-based alternative. ,\u201d Covi said.<\/p>\n

Although she enjoys opportunities to work with academic faculty, Covi loves working hands-on with communities and solving problems that have an immediate impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find that working with colleagues and communities fit my personality better and allow me to make that impact I want. In fact, a lot of what I do is connecting people and groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, as the coastal resiliency liaison, Covi\u2019s goal is to provide communities with sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions so that their ecosystems can flourish and their infrastructures can withstand what the Atlantic throws at them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the climate continuing to change and create these big storms, we\u2019re going to see disruptions, not only in the quality of life on these coastal military installations, but also how it affects their training,\u201d she said. \u201cBy preserving the existing ecosystems, we reduce the climate impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”” el_class=”text-container first-paragraph”] It\u2019s not the pristine sandy beaches or kitschy seafood restaurants that draw Michelle Covi to the coast. Those are fine. Nice, even, on a warm summer day. She\u2019s drawn, instead, to something most vacationers don\u2019t consider. Salt marshes. \u201cThey are these incredible ecosystems and worlds that are unlike other environments,\u201d she … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “For the love of salt marshes: Michelle Covi fights for coastal resiliency”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":51751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"feature-single.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[298],"tags":[],"post_medium":[691],"publications":[],"authors":[801],"photographers":[],"video_credit":[],"takeaways":[],"class_list":["post-51722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-science","post_medium-feature","authors-olivia-randall","entry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51722"},{"taxonomy":"post_medium","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_medium?post=51722"},{"taxonomy":"publications","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publications?post=51722"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=51722"},{"taxonomy":"photographers","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/photographers?post=51722"},{"taxonomy":"video_credit","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/video_credit?post=51722"},{"taxonomy":"takeaways","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/takeaways?post=51722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}