Theodore Shear

North Carolina has developed an innovative and successful environmental enhancement program over the last two decades based on measures to improve water quality throughout the state. In addition to continued water quality issues, the state is increasingly beset with vast problems of flooding and excess water quantities during major storm events. This project will focus on assessing means to use the existing practices and projects that have been employed by the North Carolina Environmental Enhancement Grant Program (EEG) and other state and federal conservation agencies and grants organizations can be used to provide co-benefits of water quantity and flood reduction or amelioration. Lead Partners for this project include NC State University’s College of Natural Resources (CNR) and College of Design (CoD), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and the NC Foundation for Soil and Water Conservation (S&W). The Project Partners will assess green infrastructure and natural resource mitigation solutions to determine if they can provide valuable co-benefits of flood reduction and disaster resilience, and cooperate with government and nongovernment organizations, agricultural producers, and community stakeholders to design and implement “FloodWise” programs. FloodWise will help develop programs for farms and agricultural communities in Eastern North Carolina (ENC), including Farm Demonstrations of best management practices for water quality and flood mitigation.

Although gender diversity in the natural resources profession has increased dramatically in the past twenty-five years, the field continues to lack adequate racial and ethnic diversity. We believe that diversification of the conservation workforce is essential for the long-term success of conservation science in our country. Diversification will bring important ideas and perspectives to natural resources decision-making that are currently absent. Moreover, in an increasingly diverse society, disciplines that attract a narrow ethnic and racial slice of the population are unlikely to be adequately valued by society. Given our changing demographics and the environmental challenges we face, it is important to foster expertise in conservation science and exposure to the conservation ethic across the breadth of society. A key bottleneck in efforts to diversify the conservation science workforce is recruitment and graduation of undergraduates. To address this issue, we propose to establish a national partnership to increase enrollment and graduation of students from under-represented groups in conservation science programs and to provide those students with the necessary training, research and workforce experiences, social and academic support, and mentorship to transition to successful leadership positions in the field. A secondary objective will be to document and disseminate our diversity recruitment model and success with the ultimate goal of expanding diversity recruitment efforts at undergraduate institutions across the US. Program objective: To develop long-term, sustainable educational programming to increase enrollment and retention of students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in conservation science undergraduate degree programs, and to create a pathway for employment in key positions in the conservation profession.

Evaluation of Terrestrial Vegetation Management Techniques, Piedmont Operations Project, Wilmington District

This proposal is to develop an operational regional data set for the hydrologic regime of a wetland community type that is commonly restored in compensatory. A reference data set has been recommended (Hobbs and Norton 1996, Brinson and Rheinhardt 1996) as a regional baseline for all elements that define success of a restoration project. A regional baseline describes a range of allowable variation around a yearly hydrograph characteristic of the wetland community.

This proposal is for the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department (BAE) and Soil Science Department of North Carolina State University to work with the North Carolina Ecosystem Enhancement Program (NCEEP), monitoring the restoration success at North River Farms (NRF) near Beaufort, NC. Agricultural drainage from NRF and Open Grounds Farm (OGF) drain into the North River, designated by the NCDWQ as high quality waters (HQW), shellfishing waters (SA) and primary fishery nursery areas. Transport of freshwater, nutrients, sediment, and bacteria in agricultural drainage from these farms has (in part) resulted in this estuarine system to be partially supporting of its designations. The extreme Northern areas of the river (closest to the proposed restoration site) have been closed to shellfishing. Nearby Ward?s Creek was also recently closed to shellfishing. A 111-acre section of North River Farms near Deep Creek that drains into North River is currently undergoing restoration (NRF restoration Phase II). This follows a Phase I 250-acre restoration of a non-riparian wet hardwood wetland completed in March 2003. Phase II includes 8600-ft. of freshwater stream and tidal creeks, 53-acres of non-riparian hardwood wetland, 23-acres of riparian freshwater wetlands, and 35- acres of tidal marsh. The goal of this restoration is to increase habitat function and improve water quality in the North River by ceasing farming operations on this land and re-routing a portion of drainage water from Open Grounds Farm for wetland treatment. EEP funding supported post-construction hydrologic and water quality research on Phase I and background water table, water quality, and tidal fluctuations at the Phase II site since March 2003. Phase II restoration presents an important opportunity to study the design techniques incorporated in this project on the basis of site stability, vegetation and habitat establishment, and water quality improvement. As the number of projects similar to this one in NC and the Southeast increase in the upcoming years, it will be important to utilize post-construction data on previous restorations. This will help to ensure success of future restorations, allowing the most efficient use of state and federal funds allocated to these endeavors. The purpose of this proposal is to monitor and evaluate the success of the Phase II site immediately following construction. Ultimately, the combination of the hydrologic, water quality, stream stability, vegetation establishment, and habitat expansion data will be used to asses the design of the restoration system. This will allow for recommendations for the design of future restoration projects in these areas.

Non-native invasive plant species (NIPS) competitively displace native flora and adversely affect ecosystem integrity and function by altering water, energy, nutrient and disturbance cycles, which in turn can cause loss of biodiversity, increased soil erosion, damage to culturally significant resources and degradation of threatened and endangered species habitat. These impacts violate numerous laws, statutes and regulations. The National Park Service Southeast Exotic Plant Management Team (SE-EPMT) has been working with the staff at Guilford Courthouse NMP (GUCO) to address the challenge NIPS pose for successful integrated resources management. The objective of this proposal is to produce a comprehensive inventory of non-native invasive plant species (NIPS) at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park (GUCO). Products are hardcopy and electronic maps with locations, coverage estimates, and site- and species-specific treatment prescriptions for control of all non-native invasive plant species identified. All components to be compiled into a Non-native Invasive Plant Management Plan for Guilford Courthouse National Military Park (GUCO).