The Virginia Institute of Marine Science has received a major grant to maximize the future health of the Chesapeake Bay.

A $941,590 grant from the National Science Foundation will fund a four-year effort to identify how policymakers and coastal residents can best respond to rising seas in order to maximize human welfare and bay health, according to VIMS spokesperson David Malmquist.

VIMS researchers are teaming up with scientists from Old Dominion University and the University of Georgia for this project, Malmquist said.

“Our research will examine the potential for achieving sustainability in coastal systems where natural resources are impacted by both climate change and human responses to climate change,” said Dr. Carl Hershner, project leader and director of the center for Coastal Resources Management at VIMS’s Gloucester Point campus.

“We’re talking about managing a resource that we know is under significant pressure and probably destined to decline...