The overall goals of this project are to:

• Better understand coastal processes in terms of nearshore hydrodynamics, sediment transport, and coastal morphology under changing climate forcing in Lake Michigan
• Help effectively communicate to stakeholders, with the purpose of promoting sustainable shore protection, increasing the integrity of beaches; and stabilizing bluffs/dunes in Lake Michigan

• Develop a historical database of environmental processes and anthropogenic disturbances determined to have caused coastal geomorphic changes for Illinois Beach State Park and Waukegan Beach
• Produce list of probable future (within next 50 years) beach and dune changes for coastal managers
• Engage stakeholders in order to understand how data can be readily visualized and utilized in the planning and decision-making process

• Build a network (“PhragNet”) to serve as the foundation for an adaptive management framework focusing on reducing uncertainty associated with Phragmites management

• Define historical baselines for restoration of coastal Great Lakes pine forests
• Evaluate the necessity for restoration of composition and structure in modern coastal forests
• Assess the impact of historical legacies on modern composition and structure of coastal pine forest

• Assess how recreation influences the behavior of the endangered Karner blue butterfly at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore
• Identify and predict the implications of such disturbance-related behavior on oviposition rate and larval host plant selection by the Karner blue butterfly
• Identify and devise active management strategies and site designs minimizing recreational disturbance to the Karner blue butterfly at sites with existing populations and restored sites proposed for the species re-introduction

• To provide information on past low lake levels of Lake Michigan, to better
  understand why there have been lower lake levels in the past, and to better predict and thus prepare for future low lake levels