Gulf Coast Vulnerability Assessment

The Gulf Coast Vulnerability Assessment (GCVA) used an expert opinion approach to qualitatively assess the vulnerability of four ecosystems: mangrove, oyster reef, tidal emergent marsh, and barrier islands, and a suite of wildlife species that depend on them. More than 50 individuals participated in the completion of the GCVA, facilitated via Ecosystem and Species Expert Teams. The GCVA made use of the Standardized Index of Vulnerability and Value Assessment (SIVVA) (Reece and Noss 2014) to provide an objective framework for evaluating vulnerability by guiding assessors through a series of questions related to the changes an ecosystem or species might experience due to climate change and other threats. Assessors used their best professional judgment, available empirical data, and numerical model outputs to complete the assessments for certain species and ecosystems. The SIVVA tool enabled the Assessment Team to then assess both the relative vulnerability of those ecosystems and species and identify the factors that most influence their vulnerability. This dataset shows the vulnerability scores of each GCVA subregion for each habitat and their associated species as well as the average vulnerability across each habitat and their associated species.