DISASTER RECOVERY ACT FUNDS: The USGS National Wetlands Research Center (NWRC) is offering a funding opportunity for research on the development of high resolution, process-driven, numerical models of wind, wave, storm surge, hydrodynamic and sediment transport in coastal regions. This project will develop an innovative approach to characterize flow resistance properties of tidal salt marshes and parameterize bottom resistance of marsh soils to examine the interaction between mineral sediment movement and vegetation growth and distribution. The research will provide critical water flow and sediment information to a wetland morphology model to form a hurricane-wetland modeling system that can be used to examine the impact of hurricanes on coastal wetland morphologic dynamics. This research is part of the USGS study funded through Hurricane Sandy Disaster Recovery Act (DRA) under 5th Theme: ¿Impacts to Coastal Ecosystems, Habitats, and Fish and Wildlife, Particularly for DOI Lands and Trust Resources¿. The long-term goal of the research is to improve USGS capabilities in rapid assessment and prediction of hurricane impacts on estuarine ecosystems to support planning, managing, protecting and restoring valuable coastal ecosystem components.