WCU gets $436K to protect coastal parks
The National Park Service has awarded a $436,000 grant to the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University to help produce strategies for the future preservation of infrastructure and resources at all U.S. coastal parks threatened by rising sea levels.
WCU’s program will be responsible for assessing the vulnerability of everything from the Statue of Liberty in New York to small roads in places such as Gulf Islands National Seashore in Florida and Mississippi, and then helping the National Park Service decide how to deal with threats that may be presented by coastal flooding.
“To no small degree, the protection of our nation’s coastal heritage is being guided from Cullowhee,” said Rob Young, director of PSDS.
The award is the latest in an ongoing partnership between the Program for the Study of Developed Shoreline and the NPS. The current project is funded by the agency’s Facilities Management Division in Washington, D.C.
