Coastal Resilience and Regional Adaptation

MCAS Cherry Point Future Mtg Living Shoreline Bogue Field

About

Coastal areas in the Southeast offer unique training and testing opportunities, provide critical access to the ocean for military operations and are also increasingly vulnerable to coastal hazards due to rising sea levels, frequent and intense storms, and shoreline erosion. Other challenges, such as drought, flooding, and extreme temperatures, connect across watersheds from inland to the coast throughout the region. These hazards are amplified when incompatible land uses such as urbanization are rapidly spreading across the landscape. To address these interconnected threats, the Coastal Resilience & Regional Adaptation Work Group (CRRAWG) fosters collaboration among partners to build capacity, develop plans, share resources, and implement projects that increase resilience across the defense landscape. By advancing regional solutions, CRRAWG helps safeguard critical infrastructure, sustain operational capabilities, and ensure long-term access to mission-essential coastal environments.

Strategic Objectives

Advance partnerships and capacity for joint installation and community planning to strengthen military readiness and resilience to natural hazards and address resource management challenges.
Explore how weather-related events and changing environmental conditions are influencing threats to military readiness and identify opportunities to collaborate across the SERPPAS network.
Assist in the improvement and use of geospatial tools that can advance military readiness and community resilience planning and actions.
Support the development, implementation, and evaluation of nature-based solutions for installation resilience projects benefiting military missions and communities in the southeast.
Facilitate the advancement of regulatory efficiency and consistencies for community-based projects that benefit military installations and missions.
Advance the goals of the South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative (SASMI) and the Marsh Forward Plan.

Work Group Lead

Michelle Covi

Coastal Resilience DoD Liaison
Georgia Sea Grant/SERPPAS
mcovi@uga.edu

Michelle Covi is the Coastal Resilience DoD Liaison at University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant working regionally in the Southeast to connect Sea Grant programs with military community coastal resilience projects through a partnership with SERPPAS and the Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) program.

Michelle comes to Georgia after six years as a coastal resilience lead in the Virginia Sea Grant extension program with Old Dominion University and six years with a coastal hazards center at East Carolina University where she also completed her Ph.D. in Coastal Resources Management. Michelle is a UGA alumna, having received her master’s degree in zoology (marine science) after completing research at the UGA Marine Institute. She lives on her husband’s family farm in Hartwell, Georgia, just a couple of miles from the Savannah River

Resources

News

Land in Collier, Hendry and Okeechobee counties part of more than 21,500 acres of strategic areas approved by the state

12/17/25

The State of Florida approved an investment of $27.4 million to protect over 21,500 acres of conservation and agricultural lands across the state. The land will be placed under a conservation easement and will provide a critical buffer for key military installations while protecting water quality and aquifer recharge in the Perdido and Escambia river watersheds. The property lies within the Northwest Florida Sentinel Landscape and Florida Wildlife Corridor The acquisitions will strengthen Florida’s conservation network, support military readiness through Sentinel Landscapes, and preserve family-owned agricultural lands, ensuring the state’s natural and rural landscapes remain intact for future generations.

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Conserving South Atlantic salt marsh through collective action

11/29/25

The South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative (SASMI) is a voluntary, non-regulatory partnership of individuals working together to protect and restore salt marshes across a four-state region from North Carolina to Florida. This regional initiative is coordinated by NRI’s Amanda Gobeli, who oversees federal, state, and local partner organizations and engagement for the implementation of their conservation plan. Medium recently sat down with Gobeli to discuss how her role within SASMI is shaping the defense against specific threats to our coastal salt marshes.

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A conservation milestone: 62,000 acres of South Carolina forestland protected through Walmart’s Acres for America

11/22/25

The Pee Dee Basin Initiative, a multi-agency partnership, will permanently conserve more than 62,000 acres of forestland, the largest conservation easement in South Carolina’s history. The conservation easement protects vital habitat for at least 115 plant and animal species, including migratory birds, rare mussels, and Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon. It also preserves 30,000 acres of bottomland hardwoods that absorb floodwater and buffer communities from severe weather events.

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Final resting place set for the historic SS United States to become an artificial reef off Florida

11/20/25

The historic ocean liner, the SS United States, is set to become the world’s largest artificial reef after it is sunk off the Florida Gulf Coast early next year. Okaloosa County officials announced that they expect to sink the SS United States about 22 nautical miles southwest of Destin and 32 nautical miles southeast of Pensacola. The nearly 1,000-foot vessel, which shattered the trans-Atlantic speed record on its maiden voyage in 1952, has spent most of this year at the Port of Mobile in Alabama being scoured to remove chemicals, wiring, plastic, and glass. The ship's final location was selected as part of an agreement with Pensacola tourism officials, who are contributing $1.5 million to the project, and Coastal Conservation Association Florida. The contributions will be used to transform the SS United States into an artificial reef and finance a multiyear marketing campaign. The deal is part of Okaloosa County's $10.1 million plan to purchase, move, clean, and sink the ship, which includes $1 million toward an onshore museum to promote the ship's history.

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2026 Longleaf Landscape Stewardship Fund RFP Released

11/19/25

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation released its 2026 Request for Proposals for the Longleaf Landscape Stewardship Fund. This funding supports projects that advance longleaf pine restoration to benefit wildlife, improve water quality, sequester carbon, and enhance forest resilience. Limited funding is also available for the restoration of bottomland hardwoods.

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Conserving the Gulf, creating jobs: Reflections on building GulfCorps as a landscape conservation and stewardship program that weaves together workforce development and ecological restoration

11/1/25

Launched as a collaborative effort in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010 between The Nature Conservancy and dozens of federal, state, and local partners, the GulfCorps program offers a chance for young adults in the Gulf states to be a professional in a field that manages their own environment. The GulfCorps represents a powerful approach to improving landscape resilience through a community-led restoration approach that recognizes workforce development as a long-term strategy for advancing better futures for our lands, waters, and communities.

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Events & Webinars

DoD Applied Innovation Workshop: March 2 - 6, 2026
Washington, DC
Spring 2026 SERPPAS Steering Committee Meeting: March 3 - 4, 2026
Atlanta, GA
Southeast & Caribbean Disaster Resilience Partnership 10th Annual Meeting: March 4 - 5, 2026
Charleston, SC
National Conference on Ecosystem Restoration: April 13 - 16, 2026
Omaha, NE
2026 SERPPAS Principals Meeting: April 27 - 28, 2026
Southern Pines/Pinehurst, NC
Gulf Conference 2026: The Annual Meeting of the Gulf of America Alliance: May 4 - 7, 2026
Mobile, AL
Association of Natural Resource Extension Professionals 15th Biennial Conference: May 12 - 15, 2026
Wilmington, NC
80th Annual SEAFWA Conference: October 26 - 30, 2026
Nashville, TN

SERPPAS Meetings

March 2026

Spring 2026 SERPPAS Steering Committee Meeting: March 3 - 4, 2026
Atlanta, GA

April 2026

2026 SERPPAS Principals Meeting: April 27 - 29, 2026
Pinehurst/Southern Pines, NC

Southeast Regional Partnership
for Planning and Sustainability

The Power of Unconventional Partnership

Coastal Resilience and Regional Adaptation

About

Strategic Objectives