Proposed amendments to the state’s official plan for protecting, restoring and conserving coastal habitats and fisheries drill in on newly specific priorities linked to water quality and climate change.
Featured
Lose the seagrass and lose the fisheries
Marine and estuary plant life on which North Carolina’s fish species depend are vulnerable to warming and rising seas, scientists say.
Holden Beach, Corps begin $3M storm risk planning study
The Holden Beach Coastal Storm Risk Management Project General Reevaluation Study is to consider feasibility and alternatives for federal participation in cost-shared management measures including beach nourishment for up to 50 years.
Guest commentary: Where plastic flows into the ocean
Kemp Burdette of Cape Fear River Watch and Ann Colley of the Moore Charitable Foundation write that there’s an overlooked connection in our own backyards that funnels plastics toward major bodies of water and eventually the world’s oceans.
Commentary: My firsthand experience with an algal bloom
Photographer Jared Lloyd, who recently captured images of an algal bloom in Edenton for Coastal Review, shares what exposure to the green slime’s toxic fumes is like. Spoiler alert: It’s no fun.
1913 storm thrashed ships, and a rescue led to accusations
The fourth Atlantic hurricane of the season this month 108 years ago resulted in a handful of ships lost or aground along the Outer Banks, including one daring rescue that led to allegations of piracy.
Montreal Protocol prevented carbon sink losses: study
The Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987, has not only helped protect Earth from ozone loss related to chlorofluorocarbons, researchers have found that it also prevented a significant loss of sequestered carbon.
Something is causing more algal blooms in more places
Algal blooms have been recurring problems in the Chowan River Basin, but excess nutrients have triggered more and more, including those deemed harmful or toxic, but scientists aren’t sure exactly why.
Transportation design with resilience in mind goal of effort
State transportation officials say they are collaborating with climate scientists to improve design standards for bridge and roadway projects that better anticipate the effects of climate change.
There’s consensus on resilience, but don’t say ‘climate’
Amid broad bipartisan agreement on resiliency, flood mitigation and land conservation policy and funding in Raleigh, there are certain terms that still raise suspicion among some in the legislature.
Our Coast’s History: Varnamtown’s Fishermen 1938
Photographer Charles Farrell captured how mullet fishermen in the fall of 1938 “made do,” as historian David Cecelski explains, on Bald Head Island during the Great Depression.
Study finds combined threats to water quality after flooding
Results from a recent NC State study highlight the double whammy of microbial contamination of surface waters posed by failing human wastewater infrastructure and animal agriculture after storm inundations.
Manteo museum a snapshot of Pea Island Station History
The tiny Pea Island Cookhouse Museum in Manteo tells the bigger picture of the Pea Island Life-Saving Station, manned by an all-Black crew from the 1880s to 1940s.
New Chafee map removes 2.5 acres in North Topsail Beach
Revised maps for the John H. Chafee Coastal Barrier Resources System currently awaiting congressional approval remove only a small portion of North Topsail Beach from environmental protections that restrict federal funding that encourages development.
An epic Outer Banks bike trip in 1971 changed teens’ lives
Inspired by a pirate movie and David Stick’s Outer Banks history book, Kevin Duffus and his friends Gary Snyder and Bob Thurber rolled out of Greenville 50 years ago on a biking expedition that was brutal, exhausting and transformative.
Geographer explains origins of Outer Banks place names
Roger Payne recently published his second reference guide to the names of places along North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
