Research and Development Plan: Decision Making to Co-Produce an Actionable Science Plan in Support of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama Coastal System Water Quality Management Research

The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (MDMR), Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and other state and federal agencies along the northern Gulf of Mexico have a shared goal to sustain and improve regional water quality and estuarine/marine habitat within the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama Coastal System (LMACS).

These entities must identify and implement opportunities that advance this goal but avoid negative impacts to other regional objectives such as flood risk management. Despite having shared needs in the LMACS region, there are limited mechanisms for interagency collaboration. Implementation is further complicated because the LMACS environmental system spans multiple political boundaries. In addition, there is considerable uncertainty in how the LMACS will respond to actions that could potentially improve water quality. A co-production effort of resource managers (RMs) and researchers, supported by 2021 NOAA Restore Science Program funding and executed through a series of workshops, was conducted to address these challenges by 1) identifying critical uncertainties that limit effective water quality management in the LMACS; 2) devising a Research and Development Plan (this document; hereafter, “Research Plan”) for reducing those uncertainties; and 3) formulating an application plan (Structured Decision Making to Co-Produce an Actionable Science Plan in Support of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama Coastal System Water Quality Management: Application Plan; hereafter, “Application Plan”) that establishes a framework for interagency collaboration and supports the integration of research results into management action.