Contact: Tracy McIntosh, (212) 637-3633, mcintosh.tracy@epa.gov

NEW YORK (February 24, 2022) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it has awarded a grant for over $200,000 to the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources to update the United States Fish and Wildlife Service National Wetland Inventory maps for Puerto Rico.

“Wetlands in Puerto Rico are critical to supporting healthy aquatic ecosystems as well as providing flood and erosion control, stabilizing shorelines, and supplying food and habitat for fish and wildlife,” said EPA Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia. “These grants will help improve scientific understanding of wetlands in Puerto Rico .” 

With the grant, the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER) will generate updated National Wetland Inventory (NWI) spatial data for Puerto Rico, as current wetland inventories are decades out of date. As part of the update, DNER will use remote imagery to delineate the boundaries of wetlands and classify what type of wetland they are.  In Puerto Rico there are tidal, forested, and scrub-shrub wetlands, as well as other types of wetlands. The remote imaging will then be confirmed with field visits. This will improve knowledge of wetland distribution for regulators and the general public which will, in turn, improve the ability to monitor and assess wetlands in Puerto Rico. 

EPA’s Wetland Program Development Grants provide an opportunity to promote and accelerate research and improve the ability to investigate wetlands. The program also improves the capacity to train wetlands staff and conduct surveys and studies related to water pollution and its impacts on wetlands.

For more information on these grants, visit: https://www.epa.gov/wetlands/federal-funding-wetlands

Follow EPA Region 2 on Twitter at http://twitter.com/eparegion2 and visit our Facebook page, http://facebook.com/eparegion2

22-013