Priority issues
Water Quality for Healthy Beaches & Seafood
Habitat Conservation & Restoration
Ecosystem Integration & Assessment
Reducing Nutrient Impacts to Coastal Ecosystems
Coastal Community Resilience
Environmental Education
Ecosystem Integration & Assessment
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When a natural disaster hits, the economic loss of homes, businesses and infrastructure is both significant and measurable. These events can have the same impact on natural resources, but the economic loss is much more difficult to assess. Since coastal ecosystems help sustain local economies and offer protection from tropical storms, finding ways to inventory the 
value of such systems is increasingly important. The Alliance is providing the structure for researchers, policy makers, and other active parties to share information and improve the accessibility of ecosystem information and data. The Gulf of Mexico Alliance is focusing on five ecosystem integration and assessment issues including the creation of a Gulf of Mexico Master Mapping plan, improving data access and acquisition, linking marine resource organizations, developing an Emergent Wetlands Status and Trends Report and determining the socioeconomic values of critical coastal ecosystem services in the Gulf region.
Gulf of Mexico Coastal Training Ecosystem Integration and Assessment workshops address this priority issue.