Maine Sea Grant

Building on several projects related to municipal management of extreme rainfall events (funded by National Sea Grant and NSF EPSCoR Sustainability Solutions Initiative), we are working with the City of Ellsworth to address increasing extreme rainfall conditions and prevent flooding and erosion. We have developed user-friendly models that use GIS and Google Earth to show […]

Changes in climate are placing pressure on Atlantic fisheries and the communities they support. Using a participatory modeling process, this project brings together local stakeholders in the town of South Thomaston, Maine, to characterize community vulnerability and identify actions intended to increase community resilience. The goals of this work are (1) to improve knowledge of […]

Marine Extension Team members are positioned to assist Maine’s fisheries and aquaculture stakeholders as they begin exploring issues related to ocean acidification and other climate-related changes in Maine’s coastal waters, including participation in the Northeast Coastal Acidification Network. The Northeast Coastal Acidification Network (NECAN) is a network of scientists, federal and state agency representatives, resource […]

Esperanza Stancioff is part of a team of NOAA and Sea Grant representatives targeting local municipal officials in the North Atlantic region to provide them with real-world examples from other towns and counties’ efforts to increase resilience to hazards, including sea-level rise, inundation, flooding, and storm surge. Four towns in each state from Maine to […]

Fishermen and women, by virtue of spending much of their time on the water with hooks, lines, traps, and nets, have intimate knowledge of coastal, marine, and freshwater ecosystems. They know, in detail, the local distribution, abundance, and behavior of the species they harvest, knowledge gained from years of first-hand observations and experimentation with different […]

Marine Extension Associate Keri Kaczor participates in the New England Sustainability Consortium’s Safe Beaches and Shellfish Project (NEST), working with a team of researchers across Maine and New Hampshire colleges and universities. As coordinator of the Maine Healthy Beaches Program, Kaczor has been a leader in engaging beach managers and volunteers in efforts to identify […]

Building on Promise: Continued investigation in using a 4-seam bottom trawl to improve escapement of small haddock and cod. This collaborative research project is a product of an idea from the late Stanley Coffin, a fisherman from Edgecomb, and Kelo Pinkham, a fisherman from Boothbay. The goal of the project is to modify a trawl […]

This project is a collaboration with Capt. Kelo Pinkham of Boothbay, and aims to modify a bottom trawl and associated gear to reduce the contact with the seabed, and to decrease the retention of flatfish in catches targeting cod and haddock. Dana Morse and the team will travel to the Flume Tank facility at Memorial […]

Signs of the Seasons is a citizen science environmental monitoring program which began in 2010. Participants help scientists document the local effects of global climate change by observing and recording the phenology (seasonal changes) of common plants and animals living in their own backyards and communities. The University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Maine Sea […]