Though parts of North Carolina saw rainfall over the weekend, it didn’t touch the extreme drought conditions the state has been experiencing for at least six months.

State Climate Office of North Carolina Assistant State Climatologist Corey Davis told Coastal Review Monday that, while eastern North Carolina fared better than the rest of the state this weekend with the rainfall totals outperforming the forecasts — with A few spots like Lumberton and Goldsboro had around an inch, and parts of the Crystal Coast had 2 to 3 inches — “I don’t expect that will bring any improvements on the drought map this week.”

He is referring to the U.S. Drought Monitor’s weekly assessment of drought conditions. The North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council, or DMAC, looks at data from Tuesday to Tuesday and submits its recommendations to the National Drought Mitigation Center. The center then publishes on that Thursday a map showing where conditions range from abnormally dry, or D1, to exceptional drought, or D4.

Often, Davis continued, the first rain event or two after a prolonged dry spell has little to no impact on things like soil moisture because the ground can hardened and then it becomes tough for water to infiltrate.

“Streamflow levels are also very low still, so it will take more rain to recharge those streams and their tributaries,” he said, calling the recent rain more of a “stop-the-bleeding kind of week.”

The state began moving toward these extreme drought conditions late last summer, the result of little rainfall overall, a quiet tropical storm season that did not contribute to the average precipitation numbers, and followed by a fairly dry fall and winter.

Since mid-March of this year, there has been a summer-like weather pattern with high pressure overhead, meaning unseasonably warm temperatures and little rainfall. That has helped drought intensify, and more than 40% of the state is now in extreme drought, which is considered the second most severe category in the U.S. Drought Monitor’s classification system, according to the climate office. Most of coastal North Carolina is in the severe drought category, the third category.

“The main hope is that this event is the start of a pattern change, and the forecast is promising for at least a couple more rain events through the end of the week,” Davis said Monday. “If we can pick up a few more inches of rain over the next week or two, then that could at least soften the edges of those Severe and Extreme Drought areas on the map and start bringing some gradual improvements.”

Davis made a similar point Thursday during a webinar “About Extreme Drought: What to know this spring and beyond.” He was joined by other members of DMAC, including its chair Klaus Albertin with the Division of Water Resources, N.C. Forest Service Forestry and Fire Environment Staff Forester Jamie Dunbar, and Senior Service Hydrologist Barrett Smith with the National Weather Service’s Raleigh office.

Davis said during the online presentation that the state had been experiencing a substantial drought for a while and will not be getting rid of the drought and its impacts with one event, or even in one month.

“Ideally, we would like to start seeing consistently at least 1 to 2 inches of rain per week,” Davis explained. “This time of the year, we tend to average between three-quarters of an inch to an inch of rain every week. We want at least to get that normal amount — an extra inch on top of that would be even better — and that would let us start chipping away at this drought and some of the ongoing impacts.”

In parts of northeastern North Carolina, “they are only, in quotes, in the moderate drought level, but that still means they are starting to see some crop stress and some low surface water levels,” Davis said.

The severe drought still prevalent across the coastal plain and central Piedmont means that it has been dry long enough that farmers are not going to see the yields that they expect if these conditions continue. And “at this point, that drought has been around long enough that it can start to take a toll on our water supplies.”

The final category, exceptional drought, “is reserved for the very rarest and the very driest events,” or “the most dire situation,” Davis said, which is “when water supplies are critically low, and you’ll see even more water restrictions implemented at even higher levels than what we’re seeing right now in extreme drought.”

Adding to the drought this winter was a La Niña pattern, which is where there tends to be cooler water out across the Pacific that weakens the jet stream, and ultimately shifting storms north, making it so places like the Great Lakes see more rain, while North Carolina usually experiences warmer and drier winter months.

The snowfall in late January and early February did not have much effect on the rain total deficits. “Even though we saw a foot of snow in some spots, that only amounted to about an inch of liquid, which is average per week at that time of the year,” he added.

Since the middle of March, there has been high pressure either just offshore or right over the Carolinas and has put the area in what Davis called a “heat dome” that is expected around June or July, not in April. “That’s why we’ve seen record high temperatures over the last few weeks and it has really blocked any sort of rai- making weather systems from moving through.” 

Impacts that most people are starting to notice as the drought lingers is that the soil moisture is extremely low right now.

“What that tells us is that the soil moisture is not in any shape for planting right now. There is just no moisture there, especially in the upper layers of the soil. And even if we were to get some decent rainfall over the next week, that does not necessarily mean it is time to start planting,” he said, because anything that’s planted will establish a very shallow root system.

“And if this drought continues, or if we get into some hot weather this summer, those shallow roots will dry out very easily, and that can kill the plant,” he said.

Davis mentioned Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network, or CoCoRaHs, a community science program that encourages people to make daily rainfall measurements and to submit condition monitoring reports that talk about the sort of dryness or impacts that they’re seeing around their home or in their neighborhood or in their community.

There was “a really interesting report from the northeastern part of the state,” Davis said about a submission from a farmer in Chowan County, which is in a moderate drought.

While farmers were able to get the corn in the fields, “the problem there is that a lot of those farmers will pull water directly from the Albemarle Sound, where it meets the Roanoke River, and use that to irrigate their farms,” Davis said. “Typically, in the upper levels of the sound there, you’re getting enough fresh water that’s being flushed down the river, then it’s not too much of a worry about saltiness.”

Because of the drought, water isn’t moving down the river, and salty water is pushing farther inland, which is too salty to use for irrigation. “That’s a very unique impact that we’ll see in that corner of the state during times of extreme drought like this one.”

Albertin with the Division of Water Resources explained that groundwater gives a good indication of the more extreme droughts.

“Surface water can fluctuate rapidly,” Albertin said. When there’s rainfall, groundwater is much more stable, but when there are low groundwater levels, widespread impacts to water resources across the state should be expected.

Another place drought presents itself is that the reservoirs are under more demand, and as the temperatures rise, evaporation is higher.

“When you have inflows that are below or well below the median,” he said, “it’s not surprising that we’ll start to see levels in the reservoirs drop fairly quickly.”

This has resulted in many areas implementing water restrictions, which may increase if conditions do not improve.

Common conservation guidelines are to limit outdoor watering to a couple of days a week and water by hand instead of using a sprinkler.

“It’s better to water heavier once a week versus lighter twice a week and try and water before 10 a.m. this results in less evaporation and reduces grass diseases,” Albertin said. Adding to avoid washing driveways and sidewalks, but repair leaking faucets and run full loads of dishwashers and washing machines.

Dunbar with the state Forest Service, said that as early as December, there have been abnormal load of wildfires.

The 10-year average for January was around 339 fires, but this year, there were more than 1,000 incidents that month across the state.

The coastal plain has a very pronounced spring fire season and if the drought gets worse, eastern North Carolina could very easily have a late spring and summer fire season, he added, and has an above-normal risk for significant wildfires next month.

When the burn ban was instituted on March 28 by the Commissioner of Agriculture, almost 18,000 online burn permits were canceled, noting that in the southeast, about 45% of wildfires are caused by debris burn escapes.

“Although the ban doesn’t prevent wildfire, it definitely reduces the number of new ignitions,” Smith said, allowing more local resources to be used to control complex fires, and allows firefighters to be able to move around more effectively around the state.

Smith with the National Weather Service said the next 30 days are critical for the state in terms of how much rainfall we get and how it impacts the drought.

The outlook for the coming weeks points to above-normal precipitation, and more rain through the summer months.

“As we head toward June, July and August, we come much more dependent on afternoon showers and thunderstorms,” which may help an individual community, farm, city, reservoir, but not always the entire state.

Forecasters are also keeping an eye on patterns in the pacific that could impact the 2026 tropical storm season.

Smith also plugged CoCoRaHS, which he said they are desperate for rainfall reports, “not just when it is raining, not just when it is flooding, but when we’re in these dry situations. We don’t have enough rainfall reports.” Adding that it does not take up much time. “We really need these reports, especially in these very dry situations.”

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s State Energy Office has released a plan that identifies ways to cut the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The North Carolina Comprehensive Climate Action Plan, or CCAP, includes resilience and carbon reduction measures to meet the goal of Executive Order 246, which was signed by former Gov. Roy Cooper in early 2022 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% below 2005 levels by 2030.

“The Comprehensive Climate Action Plan lays out a path for how North Carolina can successfully achieve its greenhouse gas reduction goals,” DEQ Secretary Reid Wilson stated in a release. “Investing in clean energy and energy efficiency will ensure that electricity supplies are reliable and affordable for families and businesses while driving down greenhouse gas pollution.”  

The plan targets six key areas, including electricity generation, industry, transportation, buildings, waste management and natural and working lands.

The state’s 2024 Greenhouse Gas Inventory forms the analytical foundation for the six key sectors by establishing a statewide baseline for past emissions and future emissions projections, allowing the state to evaluate the potential impact of future greenhouse gas reduction measures. 

Specific strategies such as increasing options for renewable electricity, improving energy efficiency in buildings, and expanding electric vehicle use and land-based carbon sequestration, will help the state reach this carbon reduction goal, according to state officials.

While a majority of the measures the plan identifies are already funded or anticipate funding, in order for the plan to be successfully long-term, continued and increased investments will need to be made to strengthen resilience and reduce climate pollution, support economic development and workforce readiness, and deliver cleaner air and healthier communities.

“Implementing projects to achieve the measures in this plan will result in significant energy savings in all sectors of the economy: electricity, industry, buildings, waste and more, which will help North Carolina keep energy costs down, reduce strain on the grid and help us meet our quickly growing energy demands,” State Energy Office Director Julie Woosley said in a release.

DEQ first published a Priority Climate Action Plan in 2024 after the agency received $3 million in Climate Pollution Reduction Grant planning funds. This plan identified the state’s highest priority greenhouse gas reduction measures.

The CCAP builds on that plan by updating and expanding greenhouse gas emission strategies through new data, modeling and stakeholder input, and identifying strategies that can be implemented and are feasible and measurable, according to a DEQ release.

“We have had nine 100-year storms in the last 20 years,” said Dr. Reide Corbett during a conference in Wilmington back in November. “Somebody said that math doesn’t math.”

Corbett is dean of the East Carolina University Coastal Studies Institute Campus in Wanchese and he was addressing the fourth annual Water Adaptations to Ensure Regional Success, or WATERS, Summit held Nov. 13. He said the statistical model used to predict precipitation frequency is no longer reliable.

The model, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Atlas 14 data server,  is widely used in infrastructure planning and flood risk assessments. Atlas 14 provides statistical modeling that is based on rainfall amounts and storm intensity for the 30 years leading up to the 21st century.

The server “contains precipitation frequency estimates for the United States and U.S. affiliated territories,” according to NOAA.

Corbett told those attending the summit that Atlas 14 “doesn’t hold any longer.”

In a follow-up interview with Coastal Review, Corbett said the problem with Atlas 14 is that it does not factor in how the climate has changed during this century.

“It does not take into account changes in the moisture that the atmosphere has, and it certainly doesn’t project forward,” Corbett said.

That’s why NOAA is developing an Atlas 15 model, which is to be rolled out in stages this year and 2027. When completed, “Atlas 15 will supersede NOAA Atlas 14 as the national standard and will become the authoritative source for precipitation frequency information across the United States.,” according to the NOAA website.

Dr. Jared Bowden, interim director of the North Carolina State Climate Office, agreed that, as a predictive model, Atlas 14 is flawed.

“It doesn’t use the most recent observations. (Atlas 14) hasn’t used any of the data in the past 20 or 25, years, really,” Bowden said.

Atlas 15 is expected to correct that shortcoming nationally, but in the meantime, the State Climate Office has developed a dataset that illustrates how precipitation patterns represented in Atlas 14 may evolve over time. 

RaInDROP, an acronym for the statistical information for the state model, Rainfall, Intensity, Duration and Return for Observations and Projections, is “a product that is tailored to North Carolina,” Bowden said. “Some things in the methodology that we do behind RaInDROP are very North Carolina specific.”

The datasets the State Climate Office developed use the Atlas 14 model as a baseline, but also predict what the future climate will look like. The modeling also takes into account North Carolina’s geography, Bowden said.

“There’s eight climate divisions across our state, and we use these climate divisions to help think about how we scale Atlas 14 values,” Bowden said. “We took climate change projections and tried to figure out how you would scale up based on the different climate divisions.”

The online RaInDROP tool maps show marked variations from Atlas 14 data. For instance, the southeast corner of the state, New Bern, Jacksonville and Wilmington, in particular, will experience significantly more rainfall and more intense events than previously modeled. Bordering the Atlantic Ocean, that output is consistent with climate change data that shows a warming atmosphere.

Climate change is not a linear increase with temperature and moisture, Bowden explained. Rather it’s an exponential increase and an exponential increase in moisture capacity.

“If you’re able to saturate the atmosphere and have a forcing mechanism to wring it out of the atmosphere, such as a hurricane, then you get these really big downpours. You get these really big flooding scenarios that will create just larger and larger problems for our infrastructure.”

The climate office tool is designed to have practical applications in designing infrastructure.

“If you’re looking out at midcentury, let’s say 2050- or 2060-time frame, and you were to design a culvert that’s supposed to last that period of time, how would your design criteria change based on using plausible future scenarios?” Bowden continued.

Public and private infrastructure rely upon reasonably accurate climate models to determine design criteria. Retention ponds, as an example, typically use a 4% annual chance of a 25-year storm as design criteria. Based on that assumption, a retention pond should perform as expected provided the storm events occur as predicted by Atlas 14.

However, climate events predicted by RaInDROP suggest that what is now thought of as a 25-year storm will be more frequent and more intense, and if that happens “it’s not going to perform as you expect, and it’s going to be overwhelmed more frequently, and it’s going to be become a problem,” Bowden said.

Environmental engineer George Wood, owner of Environmental Professionals of Kill Devil Hills for nearly 40 years, told Coastal Review that private infrastructure systems in particular would be overwhelmed by more frequent and increased storm intensity and rainfall. And, compounding the problem is less recovery time for the system between storms.

Wood was particularly critical of how private stormwater systems are maintained – or not — noting that private retention ponds are often overgrown with subaquatic vegetation and culverts are often clogged and incapable of even handling the rainfall amounts for which they were designed.

Third and final in a series on a recent visit to Louisiana’s bayous, a trip sponsored by the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, to start a conversation between people there who are being flooded out and those in the Down East communities of Carteret County who face similar threats.

GRAND BAYOU VILLAGE, La. – Home is where we feel we belong. Its mystic cords connect us to everything we know and cherish – our family, our friends, our culture, our past. Its hold on us is so complete that we must fight to save it, even as the water rises around our ankles.

Maybe, in the end, that’s the simple, but profound, lesson in all this.

 A group of North Carolinians had gone to the battered bayous of southern Louisiana to connect with those at the edge of the climate crisis. We found resilient people who have withstood numerous storms and the constant flooding that comes with living at ground zero for rising seas. We found a natural world that is changing so rapidly and so dramatically that those who live there barely recognize it anymore. We had hoped to return better prepared for what’s coming because our state’s uniformly flat coastal plain will be one of most-threatened landscapes in America.

The scientists, as they did there in Louisiana, will almost certainly advise us to surrender to the impending flood. But it’s never that simple. Like the survivors of the bayous, we will try to adapt, pick up the pieces and soldier on, many to the bitter end. This is home, after all, and retreat isn’t an option.

“Leaving would be almost like death,” said Rosina Philippe, before we boarded the small skiffs for the short trip to her village in the bayou. We can reach it only by boat. “For us, home is more than the building you live in.”

Philippe is an elder in the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha Tribe, one of the several small Native American groups we visited. They fled from Andrew Jackson in the 1830s and sought refuge along the remote, watery fringes of the continent. Her people settled here in south Plaquemines Parish, close to where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Here, they fished; they farmed; they survived.

But, then, the water started rising. Slowly, at first. Then, more rapidly. Now, acres of marsh disappear in what seems like a blink of an eye. (See a previous story for the reasons.)

The small squadron of skiffs glided through Grandpa Bayou to what remains of Grand Bayou Village. Fourteen houses, perched on wooden stilts pounded into small plots of squishy land, dotted the water. No road connects them. “When I was a girl, there were forests as far as you can see,” Philippe said, as she scanned the open waters of the Gulf. “You could walk for miles without boots on your feet.”

Her grandparents told of a time, back in the 1940s, when almost 1,000 tribal members lived in hundreds of houses that lined the high ground of the bayou for more than five miles. Each had a proper yard with enough land to raise goats and plant peach orchards. The surrounding waters provided their bounty of fish, shrimp, crabs and oysters. Now, the 50 or so remaining residents must plant portable gardens in canoes and small boats. They try to protect their burial grounds and other sacred sites with reefs made from oyster shells recycled from New Orleans restaurants, 40 miles away.

Most of the tribe’s 800 members have left, but those who remained, including Philippe and her brother Maurice, intend to stay. She already has a solution for when dry land completely disappears. She’ll live on a houseboat moored to her sunken home.

“Everything you see around us is in our DNA. We’re part of the land, the air, the water.” Philippe explained. “If you leave, you become someone else. You are no longer the same person. No longer the same people.”

A Homecoming

In Ironton, 20 miles to the north on Louisiana Highway 23, the Rev. Haywood Johnson Jr. is trying to bring his flock home after a series of devastating hurricanes scattered it to the wind. Most are descendants of the slaves who founded the settlement soon after emancipation, making Ironton one of the oldest Black communities in the state.

Being Black and poor in the Deep South during the reign of Jim Crow meant nothing was ever easy. Life was particularly onerous in Plaquemines Parish, where Leander Perez ruled with an iron fist for more than 40 years during the mid-20^th century. The Democratic Party boss, district attorney and head of the parish commission was a racist and an avowed segregationist in the old Dixiecrat mold. He cared nothing for the Black residents of the parish and made sure they were last in line for everything – voting rights, equal schooling, sewerage, even running water. The parish didn’t lay water lines to Ironton until 1980 and then only after “60 Minutes” made a big deal of it.

The same was true of flood protection. Ironton was excluded from the massive federal levee that Congress authorized after Hurricane Katrina inundated much of southern Louisiana in 2005. Had the wall been extended 10 miles south, hurricanes Issac in 2012 and Ida nine years later would likely have been less destructive. “Ida was the worst,” Johnson said. “It devastated our community. I had never seen anything like it.”

The eye of the Category 4 storm passed over the Ironton on Aug. 29, 2121, just months after Johnson and his congregation celebrated the 143rd anniversary of their St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church. The hurricane damaged or destroyed every building in the community. Even caskets floated out of their graves.

For the third time in 16 years, Johnson’s church was wrecked. “We weren’t going anywhere,” he said.  “We were going to come back and rebuild because this is our heritage. This is our identity. If you lose that, you cease to exist.”

It took four years, but Johnson was notified just before our visit in June that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had finally approved money to raise and rebuild the church. He hopes the reopening will reunite his congregation. “Many left after Ida,” he said. “Their hearts had been broken.”

He promised to invite us to the first Homecoming.

Staying Home

The bright orange globe of the setting sun was dipping into Terrebonne Bay when we came upon brothers Dominic and Levis Dardar sitting on a dilapidated dock sipping beers and admiring the sunset. They are the last members of their tribe living on their ancestral island.

The Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians have lived on a narrow ridge of high ground in the marsh in Terrebonne Parish for more than 170 years. Until the asphalt road was built in 1953, boats were the only reliable way to get home. Island Road today is often impassable because of high winds and tides. But few people use it now.

The amount of land that has been lost here is staggering, from 22,000 acres in 1955 to about 300 acres today. With the land went the people. Several hundred tribal members once lived in 60 or so homes. By the early 2000s, only 25 families remained on the island.

Chief Albert Naquin then began his tireless efforts to relocate the entire community to save the tribe’s culture and traditions. It took almost two decades, but the federal government In 2016 gave Louisiana $48 million to voluntarily move island residents to higher ground. It was the first federally funded climate migration program in the US.

The country’s relationship with its native peoples has been marked by disappointment and betrayal, and this deal was no different. Naquin had hoped that all his people would be reunited in one place, but only tribal members who left Isle de Jean Charles after 2012 were offered money to move. They could choose to live in a new, planned community, The New Isle, 40 miles to the north, or anywhere else in the state that was safe from flooding. Homes in the new community would eventually be available to anyone. “The plan was to reunite the tribe, and now it’s going to be destroyed,” a heart-broken Naquin told the Los Angeles Times in 2019. “Instead of fixing it, I broke it.”

Chris Brunet took the offer and left the island for the new community. “I can’t smell the water,” he told the BBC last year. “I can’t smell it, I can’t see it, I can’t sense it. And I miss it.”

As it dipped below the horizon that night, the sun cast its orange glow on the water, and the breeze carried a faint scent of the sea. “This is home,” Dominic told us. “I was born here, and this is where I will die.”

Guest Commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues.

Note: National Estuaries Week is Sept. 20-27

When most people think about fighting climate change, they think about cutting tailpipe emissions, swapping coal plants for solar panels, or driving electric cars. But there’s another powerful tool right in front of us: coastal habitats like salt marshes and submerged seagrass meadows. These living ecosystems are not just fish nurseries, wildlife havens and storm buffers — they are also massive storehouses for carbon, helping slow the pace of global warming.

Nature’s Carbon Vaults

Every blade of marsh grass and every seagrass frond pulls carbon dioxide out of the air and water through photosynthesis. Some of that carbon goes back into the atmosphere when plants die and decay — but much of it gets buried in the wet, oxygen-poor soils beneath. Think of these habitats as nature’s deep freezers: once carbon is locked in the muck, it can stay there for hundreds or even thousands of years.

This storage is so effective that acre-for-acre, coastal wetland ecosystems can hold several times more carbon than forests on land. That’s why scientists call this “blue carbon.”

Beyond Storage: The New Science of Carbon Flux

For years, we assumed the carbon benefits of these habitats came mostly from how much carbon they locked underground. But new research — including work my colleagues and I have been doing — shows that the story is bigger.

Wetlands and seagrass beds aren’t closed systems. They interact constantly with surrounding waters, exchanging organic matter and nutrients in what scientists call lateral flux. In plain English: tides, currents, and groundwater move carbon in and out of these habitats.

Here’s the exciting part: the more we study this flux, the more we see that coastal habitats are exporting “good carbon”— forms that stimulate carbon storage in seawater or reduce greenhouse gases in the water column. In other words, their climate benefit isn’t just what they store in their soils, but also how they influence the chemistry of surrounding waters.

Early estimates suggest this added benefit may be as large, or even larger, than the carbon stored directly in the soil. That means we’ve been dramatically underestimating how valuable these habitats are for slowing climate change.

Research Coming to North Carolina

This fall, I’ll be bringing this research to North Carolina, where salt marshes play a defining role in both the coastal landscape and economy. With support from the North Carolina Coastal Federation, my team and I will be monitoring marshes in the state to measure their carbon values. These field studies will help determine just how much carbon is being stored and exported — and how that compares with other places along the East Coast and nationwide.

By putting real numbers on the carbon services provided by North Carolina’s salt marshes, we can give policymakers, landowners, and communities the science they need to make smart investments in protecting and restoring them.

More Than Just Carbon

Of course, carbon storage is only one of many economic and ecological gifts coastal wetlands and seagrasses provide. They buffer shorelines from storms, filter pollutants, support fisheries, and provide nurseries for countless species. Protecting and restoring them is not just smart climate policy — it’s smart coastal policy, period.

A Call to Action

We’re still learning just how much carbon benefit these habitats provide, but one thing is clear: Every acre we lose is a lost opportunity to fight climate change and protect coastal communities. Protecting and restoring degraded marshes and seagrass meadows is one of the rare win-win strategies that helps people, wildlife, and the planet’s climate at the same time.

As new science on lateral flux continues to emerge — and as fresh fieldwork in North Carolina fills in key data gaps — we’ll have an even stronger case for investing in these natural climate powerhouses. Protecting coastal habitats isn’t just about saving pretty places — it’s about giving our coastal communities and working lands a fighting chance against rising seas and extreme storms.

Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

Second in a series on a recent visit to Louisiana’s bayous, a trip sponsored by the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, to start a conversation between people there who are being flooded out and those in the Down East communities of Carteret County who face similar threats.

BAYOU LAFOURCHE, La. – Eric Verdin clearly knew where he was going. These waters are like family, after all, but his GPS plotter was frantic. Using the latest marine charts, its line tracing our path on the screen in front of us blinked red, warning us that we were about to plow into dry land. It was a good time, it seemed to suggest, to ABANDON SHIP. But we had open seas ahead of us and 8 feet of water under our keel.

“There used to be an orange grove here,” our captain conceded with a shrug.

Not a hundred years ago. Not 50. Not even 20. “Not that long ago, really,” Verdin said, as he looked out the window of the shrimp boat’s pilot house across the placid water of the bayou to the glimmering Gulf of Mexico on the horizon. “Just about all that water you see in front of us was all marsh.”

His native people, the Biloxi-Chitimacha, have lived on the fringes of this watery world along the southwestern tip of Louisiana for many generations. Verdin, 58, has known these waters since boyhood. He makes his living here, first running big boats to supply the oil rigs out in the Gulf and now chasing brown and white shrimp. He’s witnessed changes he never thought possible. “I’ve seen the absolute devastation of our coast during my lifetime,” he said with a sigh. “Miles and miles of marsh are now open waters.”

Nowhere on Earth does land disappear as quickly as it does here in southern Louisiana. According to one fantastic estimate, the water covers, on average, a chunk of marsh the size of a football field every hour or so. Or is it 15 minutes? No matter. The change is so rapid that not even online navigation charts can keep up. Brought about by a catastrophic combination of human engineering, ignorance and hubris, it’s been going on, though more slowly, for at least a century. During that time, an area of marshland the size of Delaware vanished. Now, add another human-induced insult — rising seas triggered by the warming climate — and a similar-sized piece is expected to disappear in just 25 years.

This is ground zero for sea level rise and wetland loss in the world. We, of course, had to see it ourselves.

A group of North Carolinians, on a 10-day trip sponsored by Duke University, toured coastal Louisiana in June looking for connections, for people at the water’s edge who are facing the perils wrought by a rapidly changing environment. They have weathered the frequent storms, survived the destructive aftermaths, and found ways to accommodate the rising seas as the familiar natural world transforms in the blink of their lifetimes. Some of their communities have been displaced, and their cultures are threatened.

Coastal people back home will soon increasingly confront the same dangers, knows Karen Amspacher, a native of Harkers Island in Carteret County, the director of a cultural museum there and the group’s inspirational leader. “We’re all living on the edge,” she told Verdin after he welcomed us aboard his 55-foot shrimper, Lil’E. “I’ve been trying to find common ties with people who are going through what we will.”

After the bayous of Louisiana and Florida’s Gold Coast, the uniformly flat North Carolina coastal plain is the most-endangered landscape in America. The small fishing and farming villages of low-lying eastern Carteret County, Amspacher’s beloved Down East, face a grim future of increasing storms and flooding. Many of the homes will become uninhabitable by century’s end.

Jerrica Cheramie understands all too well the fears that the people there will have to confront. “I’m just 36 and I’ve seen all this change,” said the local high school teacher who joined us on the boat. “It’s terrifying.”

Taming A River

Since its beginning, the Mississippi River has deposited the silt of a continent to build the Louisiana coastline. Its delta, a water-logged labyrinth of bayous, marsh grasses and ancient cypress trees, fans out like a swampy snout into the Gulf. The first European settlers along the lower Mississippi in the 18^th century started throwing up dirt walls along the river’s banks to protect themselves from the frequent floods. The effort intensified a century later after a series of devastating deluges. Congress got involved after the Great Flood in 1927 killed 500 people and inundated 27,000 square miles. It authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to begin digging. That old river man, Mark Twain, once scoffed at the notion of containing the mighty Mississippi. “Ten thousand River Commissions …,” he wrote, “cannot tame that lawless stream … cannot say to it, ‘Go here,’ or ‘Go there,’ and make it obey.”

By God, they tried, and they came damn close. Close enough, anyway, to make southern Louisiana disappear.

Today, massive levees line the river for about half of its 2,400-mile-long route to the sea. Along the very southern leg of its journey, the Mississippi is little more than a big canal, hemmed in place by huge earthen walls.

We followed it one day for its last 75 miles. Down Louisiana Highway 23 we went, through Bohemia and Port Sulfur, past Home Place and Triumph, to Venice, population 164. It’s as far as you can go by car. The river was on our left the entire way, but it flowed unseen behind its wall. The smokestacks of the ships we passed were the only hints that the river was actually there. At the end of the road, we had hoped to watch the great Mississippi make its last, lumbering lurch to the Gulf. Alas, there was nothing to see but more marsh, the wall and assorted bits of industrial detritus – cranes, barges, pipes, barrels and such. More on that shortly.

As we stood at the end of the road expressing our disappointment, a set of eyes popped up through the murky water of a lagoon that wasn’t 20 feet away. Then, another. Soon, it was a dozen. Then, more. I had never seen so many alligators in one place at a time, and I once lived in Miami and fished the Everglades in a canoe. They all came toward us, gliding silently through the water, leaving gentle wakes behind them. Our presence clearly triggered this conclave. Other gawkers, we surmised, had also come this way and had fed the native wildlife. The approaching gators were expecting a handout. What tidbits do you toss to giant reptiles? I wondered as we quickly headed back to the cars. A bucket of Col. Sanders? A Big Mac? Chick-fil-A nuggets, we agreed. Everything likes them.

After that meander worthy of the old Mississippi, let’s get back on course. The point of all this is that the river now heads straight to the Gulf. No more oxbow cutoffs, no twists, no turns. With it, goes all that muck. Very little now leaks into the surrounding bays. Without sediment to nourish them, the marshes have been sinking for a long time. They are drowning more quickly now as sea level rise accelerates.

Big, Big Oil

Verdin killed the engine and dropped anchor. We bobbed under a scorching sun in languid Lake Raccourci. A lot of open water bodies on the Gulf’s fringes in Louisiana are called lakes because they were surrounded by marsh when the mapmakers named them. To Verdin, these are sacred waters. His son, Eric Jr., died in a car wreck five years ago. He was only 34. His family spread his ashes here, one of his “honey holes.” Verdin named his boat after Eric and put a picture of his smiling son in a frame on the bulkhead behind the ship’s wheel. “He always used to stand behind me and say go this way or that way,” his father explained. Verdin comes back often, especially on the anniversary of his son’s death in December when he places flowers in the water. He couldn’t think of a better place to take visitors. We were honored.

We were also surrounded by an odd array of pipes, pumps and iron platforms that rose out of the water everywhere. Rust was their primary color. Each one marked an oil or natural gas well, Verdin explained, and most are still producing, though some are approaching 100 years old. They are relics, really, of simpler times, when the Gulf was just becoming America’s great oilfield.

Like the deltas of many of the world’s great rivers, the Mississippi’s is full of oil and gas. All that muck that the river deposited for millions of years contained the organic ingredients — ancient plants, algae, bacteria – of oil and gas. They’re called fossil fuels for a reason. Time and heat did the rest.

I sat one night on the beach at Grand Isle, one of the few sandy beaches in the lower bayous, and counted the lights of 22 offshore oil rigs blinking on the horizon. There are more than 600 out there, making the Gulf of Mexico America’s primary source for offshore oil and natural gas.

Big Oil is really big here. Its presence is almost everywhere: Refineries with their fiery tails of methane, mountains of pipeline stacked in neat pyramids, natural gas liquification plants, petrochemical complexes, miles of storage tanks, acres of stacked barrels. All in industrial grimy gray with splashes of white. It ain’t pretty and there’s likely no way to make it so.

From Lake Raccourci, we could see the outline of Port Fourchon, maybe 8 miles away. It is Big Oil’s most important port. More than 400 ships leave it every day to supply the rigs. More than 15,000 people fly out of there every month to work on them. It’s the operational base for almost 300 companies. The port is perched at the tail end of LA1, a vital road so threatened that it’s being raised on a causeway to keep it from slipping under the Gulf.

Before all that, there were these pipes now sticking out of the water. The reservoirs closest to shore were, naturally, the first to be tapped, starting in the 1930s. The companies dug canals through the dense marshland to dig the wells. The channels ended up becoming pathways for water, accelerating the marsh’s demise. Many of the wells are now miles from the nearest dry land.

Everybody understands the role the oil and gas industry played in destroying the marshes, Verdin explained as the shrimp were almost ready for lunch. “In hindsight, it ruined our environment, but you won’t find fishermen around here who are anti-oil.” he said. “We know how much we’ve benefitted. When the fishing was good, we fished. When oil was booming, we worked in oil.”

The Diversion

Verdin spilled the pot of boiled shrimp, corn on the cob and potatoes onto one of the hatch covers, and we dug in. The lunchtime conversation turned to The Diversion, the first step of a grand ecosystem experiment that would have taken 50 years to complete and would have cost more than $50 billion. Officially known as the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, the controversial project intended to divert some of the Mississippi’s flow to allow sediment to once again nourish portions of the marsh. “We need to do something,” Verdin said. “This can’t go on.”

That was the state’s conclusion after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region 25 years ago last month. Healthy marshes, scientists said, would have lessened the damage. In response, the state legislature in 2007 passed the first coastal master plan, a 50-year initiative to blunt the forces eating away at the coastline: sinking land, rising seas, and the channels dug by the oil and gas industry. Barrier islands would be rebuilt, levees bulked up, and structures raised. The plan also endorsed 11 river-diversion projects. The biggest was in Barataria Bay, about 30 miles east of our lunchtime anchorage. Engineers planned to poke a hole into the levee near Ironton in Plaquemines Parish and release 75,000 cubic feet of sediment every second. They estimated that doing so every day for six months a year would create 21 square miles of new marsh in 50 years. “It gives us a fighting chance to win this battle,” Chip Kline, the chairman of the state authority charged with the task, said in 2021.

Others weren’t so sure. Fishermen worried that the sudden influx of freshwater would push oysters and brown shrimp, mainstays of the local fishing industry, out of their current ranges. Federal scientists feared that the salinity drop could cause skin diseases in the bay’s dolphins, killing maybe a third of them. Opponents noted that even if it completes everything in the plan, the state will still lose more wetlands – 2,300 square miles — than it saves or creates – 1,200 square miles.

The scheme went on life support the day voters sent Jeff Landry to the governor’s mansion in 2023. He had been a staunch opponent of the project as attorney general, questioning its ballooning cost — $3.1 billion — and claiming it would kill fisheries important to Cajun culture. A month after our visit, Landry canceled the project.

Its demise didn’t likely lessen Charamie’s resolve “People ask why do I live here?” she said before we said our goodbyes back at the dock. “Where am I to go? This is home.”

It would be a sentiment we would hear again and again.

Next: Life on the edge.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality is hosting a virtual public information session at 10 a.m. Thursday to provide updates and an overview of the draft North Carolina Comprehensive Climate Action Plan.

DEQ’s State Energy Office is accepting public input on the draft plan as part of the federal Climate Pollution Reduction Grant through Oct. 6. Comments may be submitted by using this form or by email to cprg@deq.nc.gov with “CPRG Input” in the subject line.

The grant program is part of the federal Inflation Reduction Act and provides funds to states, local governments, territories and tribes to develop and implement plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful air pollutants.

North Carolina was awarded $3 million for the planning phase of the grant and, last year, the state developed and submitted a Priority Climate Action Plan. That plan identified the state’s highest priority greenhouse gas reduction measures “and determined the methods for ensuring equitable implementation of these measures for the benefit of all North Carolinians,” according to a DEQ release.

The state is now developing a Comprehensive Climate Action Plan, which is due to the EPA in December. That plan builds upon the Priority Climate Action Plan and aims to update and expand on the state’s existing climate strategies.

The virtual session will be held via Webex at https://ncgov.webex.com/ncgov/j.php?MTID=m312ed6d07f15ed9e238e05dcbd2c37c2. The meeting number/access code is 2424 976 1867 with the password CCAP2025 (22272025 when dialing from a phone).

To join by phone dial +1-415-655-0003 U.S. toll, +1-904-900-2303 U.S. toll.

Plants on land are increasingly absorbing more carbon, while Earth’s oceans are taking in and storing less, according to a study released earlier this month.

The study published Aug. 1 in Nature Climate Change found a strong upward trend of global photosynthesis on land between 2003 and 2021.

That trend, however, is partially offset by a decline in photosynthesis occurring in oceans.

“At the global scale, if we put land and ocean together, it shows an enhanced photosynthesis, so that means, currently, our nature ecosystem is still showing an ability to absorb more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” said Yulong Zhang, a research scientist at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and primary author of the study. “Overall, this is encouraging news.”

That’s because, as the climate is warming, the system of plants, animals and microorganisms that referred to as the land ecosystem, still functions as a potential carbon sink to offset the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, he said.

Plants on land and algae in oceans absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, a crucial process that uses sunlight to create the base of the food chain.

But, it should be noted, Zhang said, that photosynthesis is a driver of carbon cycles because the ecosystem, like humans, can breathe out CO2.

Scientists have largely studied the net primary production, or the rate at which plants and phytoplankton store energy and make it available to animals, by focusing their research on either the land or sea.

Zhang primarily focused his research on the land until this study, one that treats both the land and ocean as two components of one global system and how those parts, together, are responding to climate warming through photosynthesis.

To conduct their study, the team of researchers used sets of data collected from satellites and large-scale climate information to create models to try and simulate various environmental factors, such as air and water-surface temperature, light and precipitation.

Scientists then compared year-to-year fluctuations in photosynthesis with the long-term trends on land and, separately, in oceans. The research team included scientists with the University of Iowa, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, University of New Hampshire, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and U.S. Forest Service.

“We found that, globally, the photosynthesis on land showing a strong increasing trend in the past 18 years from 2003 to 2021,” Zhang said. “But, by contrast, the ocean just shows a weak, declining trend.”

The rate at which plants on land store energy and make it available to animals during that 18-year span increased 0.2 billion metric tons of carbon per year, except in the tropics of South America.

During that same time, marine net primary production declined by about 0.1 billion metric tons of carbon per year, with strong declines occurring largely in tropical and subtropical seas, especially in the Pacific Ocean.

The trends show that during those 18 years global net primary production increased at an overall rate of 0.1 billion metric tons of carbon per year.

The changing trend of the land and the ocean are not uniform at the regional scale.

In tropical seas, scientists have found a large-scale decline in photosynthesis.

That’s a worrying pattern, Zhang said, because that decline equates to a decrease in energy that is provided to fish.

“So, the fishery in the tropical ocean may show a decline and it may particularly have influence on the local fisheries and also the economics for the tropical countries,” he said.

What remains unanswered is the question of what happens if this trend continues. Will the decline our oceans’ ability to absorb carbon continue and, if so, how long can the land ecosystem potentially make up for the declines?

To get answers, that will require “us to do long-term, coordinated monitoring of both land and ocean ecosystems as integrated components of our Earth,” Zhang said.

Guest Commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. 

From the inlets of Texas to the marsh creeks of North Carolina, the Southern flounder has been a coastal mainstay — a master of camouflage, a favorite of anglers, and a staple in commercial docks. But the fishery is in trouble, and the root cause is proving more stubborn than nets and lines: the water where these fish grow up is getting too warm for their biology to function as it should.

The Biology Behind the Problem

Southern flounder have a quirk that makes them unusually sensitive to climate change: their sex is not fixed at birth. Instead, juvenile flounder spend their first few months in shallow estuarine nursery creeks, and the water temperature during that period determines whether they develop as male or female.

In a balanced system, roughly half would be female — the egg-layers that drive reproduction. But warmer nursery waters skew this ratio heavily toward males. The difference isn’t subtle:

• North Carolina surveys (2014–2017) found that in cooler northern nurseries like the Pamlico River, about 60–67% of juveniles were male.
• In warmer southern creeks, like those in the New River, male proportions reached 81–94%, leaving only a sliver of females in the mix.

Lab experiments confirm the link: water temperatures of 80 °F or higher during early growth push most juveniles to become male, regardless of their genetic sex.

The implications are stark: fewer females, fewer eggs, fewer young fish entering the population. Without enough females, the stock’s recovery potential collapses.

Another aspect of Southern flounder biology that many fishermen don’t know is that females reach much larger adult sizes than males. The vast majority (80-90%) of males stop growing before reaching the minimum harvestable size (currently 15 inches in NC waters). That means that nearly all of the harvest (both recreational and commercial) targets females.

Fishing Pressure vs. Warming Water

Historical overfishing has contributed to the Southern flounder decline. The adult fish migrate offshore in the fall to spawn, making them easy targets as they leave the estuaries. In North Carolina, harvests were high for decades until a 2019 assessment confirmed the stock was overfished with overfishing occurring.

Since then, NC managers have imposed some of the strictest rules in state history, and throughout the species range — including a 72% cut in removals and, in 2024, the complete closure of the recreational season. These cuts have reduced fishing mortality, but the size of the population remains far below levels needed for a sustainable fishery.

What’s vexing managers is that even with drastically reduced catch, the warming-driven skewed sex ratios limit reproductive capacity and the total number of females available to harvest. In other words, fishing limits can protect adult females, but if the nurseries keep producing mostly males, there will never be enough females to rebuild the stock.

Habitat and Other Stressors

Habitat degradation — from shoreline hardening, dredging, and water pollution — has also reduced the quality of juvenile flounder habitat. Loss of vegetated marsh edges and shallow feeding flats means fewer places for young flounder to shelter and feed. But while habitat restoration can help in specific locations, it cannot offset the coastwide effects of rising water temperatures.

Not Just a North Carolina Story

From Texas to the Carolinas, Southern flounder numbers have declined in a synchronized pattern. That’s telling: historical fishing pressure as well as harvest rules vary widely, but the declines align closely with regional warming trends, pointing to climate as a coastwide driver.

Texas has invested heavily in hatchery enhancement, producing and releasing over 378,000 juvenile flounder so far, with plans to scale up. South Carolina began stocking trials in 2021. Past experiences with other coastal fisheries indicate that supplementing wild populations with hatchery fish may not solve the problem. So far, North Carolina has opted not to use hatcheries as part of Southern flounder management, focusing instead on catch reductions to rebuild the stock.

Hatcheries may provide some help in the short term, especially during years of poor natural reproduction, but they cannot solve the fundamental temperature problem that exists in wild nurseries.

The Overlooked Winter Challenge

Southern flounder spawn offshore in winter. Climate data show that ocean waters      throughout the species range are warmer now than in past decades. Key reproductive events      — egg fertilization, embryo development, and early larval growth — may be more sensitive to even modest winter warming than previously thought.

The poor recruitment in Southern flounder mirrors declining patterns observed. In other winter-spawning species, including members of the snapper-grouper complex, leading scientists to question whether we are witnessing a broader ecological regime shift toward lower productivity.

If Warming Continues

If summer and early fall estuarine temperatures keep rising:

• Sex ratios will remain heavily skewed toward males in many North Carolina nurseries.
• Even with strict fishing limits, the spawning stock will rebuild only slowly — or not at all.
• Commercial and recreational opportunities could remain severely restricted for several years.
• The fishery’s cultural and economic role in coastal NC could shrink dramatically.

Local habitat strategies — like protecting shaded, groundwater-fed creeks that stay cooler — could help maintain “female refuges” in certain areas. But these are stopgaps. Without broader climate action, the male-heavy trend will persist, limiting egg production and, ultimately, the number of flounder available to catch.

The Road Ahead

North Carolina’s current management plan aims to rebuild the stock to sustainable levels by 2028, but that target assumes average environmental conditions. If water temperatures continue to trend upward, managers may need to combine stricter harvest controls, targeted hatchery releases, and climate-resilient habitat protection just to stabilize the fishery.

For now, the Southern flounder is sending a clear signal: it’s not just about how many fish we take — it’s also about what’s happening in the water itself.

Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

A proposal to strengthen and expand building rules in Leland’s flood zone will not be indefinitely sidelined, proponents of the changes say.

“I’m not going to let this die,” said Leland Councilmember Veronica Carter. “I will bring this up at every single meeting until we get some sort of ordinance.”

Carter, who also sits on the board of directors of the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, and fellow Councilmember Bill McHugh in telephone interviews last week expressed disappointment after a majority of the council on July 17 voted to table proposed updates to the town’s flood damage prevention ordinance.

Suggested amendments to the ordinance included extending building regulations to land within the 500-year flood zone, which includes nearly 280 acres, restricting residential construction fill to elevate property out of a flood zone, limiting density in a flood zone to two units per acre, and increasing freeboard, or the height added to base flood elevation, from 2 to 4 feet.

The town’s planning board unanimously supported the amendments, but the proposed changes were met with fierce pushback from pro-development groups, including builders and real estate agents.

The nonprofit Business Alliance for a Sound Economy in a letter reported in Port City Daily last month argued the proposed ordinance amendments would undermine property values, limit homeowners from making improvements to their houses, and impose “major new costs to home ownership in Leland” while doing “virtually nothing to reduce the impact of flooding.”

“Were one of them (houses) to be significantly or completely destroyed for any reason, the homeowner would be personally responsible for the major added expense of elevating the home to the new standard,” the letter states.

But building in a flood zone is in and of itself an inherent risk, one that is being exacerbated by the strings of coastal storms in recent years that have dumped historic levels of rainfall in the area, proponents of the measure say.

Next month will be the one-year anniversary of the unnamed storm that dumped up to 20 inches or so of rainfall in southern portions of New Hanover County down through Brunswick County over a two-day period.

That storm, widely called Potential Tropical Cyclone 8, surprised the area with flash flooding that washed out roads and inundated homes.

The National Weather Service said the storm approached an event expected to occur, on average, once every 1,000 years.

“It was ugly and if we’re seeing that kind of catastrophic event happening outside of a major hurricane, just some random summer day, I think we need to take a serious look at where and how we’re building and developing in this zone because, let’s not kid ourselves, the more impervious (surface) that you’re building, the more you push that water out,” McHugh said. “Not taking any action to mitigate that risk, to me, is just wildly irresponsible. The idea that these events are remote and rare and some sort of lottery occurrence is just disingenuous.”

As a result of the unnamed storm, areas outside of Leland’s flood zones were swamped, including Stoney Creek Plantation.

“We all know that the bottom line is things are flooding that have never flooded before,” Carter said. “Our flood maps from the federal government are woefully inadequate and outdated.”

Amendments proposed for the town’s flood prevention ordinance do not halt building in flood zones, she said.

“We’re just saying if you’re going to do it, you’re going to take into account it’s going to flood,” she said.

The coastal storm has been just one of a seemingly growing number of significant rain events hitting the state in recent years and exposing more and more flood-vulnerable areas.

Brunswick County officials are also taking notice. The county is commissioning a study on whether to create a stormwater utility. More than 28,000 structures are within the county’s flood zones.

Strengthening building rules within flood zones, McHugh said, is a moral issue, one where elected officials must ensure they are not creating a situation that puts everyone from property owners to emergency personnel in danger.

“When things flood, when things get damaged, the cost of everyone’s insurance goes up. So, if we limit development in danger zones we limit the risk in an area from hurricanes,” he said. “I remain hopeful that we’re going to pass some sort of meaningful change to flood zone development and I think that this is a matter of critical importance to public safety, to the safety of our first responders, to the insurability of the region, and to these folks who are making the largest investment of their lives, which are their homes. You should be able to trust that a home you buy in Leland is built somewhere safe.”

Both councilmembers said the town might benefit from hosting a workshop, one where residents and special interest groups may come together and share their suggestions.

The council is expected to discuss next steps on the proposed amendments during its Aug. 18 agenda meeting. The council’s regular meeting is scheduled Aug. 21.

More than 30 North Carolina coastal communities have been awarded grants to boost their resilience to hazardous weather events.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management announced Thursday the award of nearly $6 million in Resilient Coastal Communities Program grants to 32 counties, cities and towns along the coast.

“Increasingly catastrophic storms like Helene and Chantal underscore how important it is for communities to take concrete steps to strengthen their resilience to hazardous weather events,” DEQ Secretary Reid Wilson said in a release. “These grants provide technical assistance and resources so that community leaders can identify the most important actions they can take to safeguard their residents, their infrastructure, and their economies.”

Of the grant money awarded, $1.9 million has been funneled for the completion of phases 1 and 2 of the Resilient Coastal Communities Program, or RCCP, which includes technical assistance in risk assessment and resilience planning and incorporating resiliency into Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, land use plans.

Those plans, which communities use to guide development and drive future public investments, will include resilience policies and projects that focus on highly vulnerable areas.

“Given that many existing land use plans are outdated and typically only designed to be relevant for up to 20 years, the RCCP aligns with the growing demand in North Carolina for updated land use plans to better anticipate future development and weather hazards,” according to a release.

During phases 1 and 2, the division contracts with third-party firms, which directly receive the funding, to provide technical assistance services to the local governments.

Funding for those phases is going toward technical assistance for Beaufort, Dare, Hyde, New Hanover, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Pender and Tyrrell counties.

Municipalities for those phases include: Carolina Beach, Wilmington, Colerain, Holden Beach, Elizabeth City, Jacksonville, Manteo, Murfreesboro, Newport, Oak Island, Shallotte, Southern Shores and Southport.

More than $4 million in grants have been awarded to communities for phases 3 and 4 of the program to assist with engineering, design, construction and implementation of projects.

Nearly $3 million of that is being passed to five counties, including Beaufort, Carteret, Dare, Hyde and Pasquotank for the engineering and design of projects that will incorporate natural and nature-based elements like wetland restoration and living shoreline design. Municipalities receiving funding for engineering and design projects include Aulander, Belhaven, New Bern, Edenton, Elizabeth City, Holly Ridge, Plymouth and Washington Park.

Burgaw, Nags Head and Vandemere have been awarded a total of more than $1.2 million to complete phase 4 projects for stormwater management and flood mitigation. Those projects include building rain gardens and living shorelines to mitigate flooding and erosion.

The RCCP has awarded a total of about $16 million through 108 grants to 56 coastal communities.

More than 20% of the world’s wetlands have vanished since 1970, according to a report by the Convention on Wetlands.

The loss of wetlands, including freshwater and coastal marine systems, may equate to a $39 trillion loss in economic benefits by 2050, according to the intergovernmental report released last week.

The Global Wetland Outlook 2025 is based on current publications and information of inland, coastal and marine wetlands and global databases. Wetlands evaluated in the report include seagrass, estuarine waters, salt marshes, mangroves, tidal flats, kelp forests, coral reefs, peatlands, inland marshes and swamps, and lakes, rivers and streams.

“Wetlands are vital to water and food security, and human well-being, so recognising the links between global biodiversity, climate, and water targets and wetland conservation and restoration is critical,” the report states.

The report measures the globe’s wetlands in hectares, a metric unit that is the equivalent to about 2½ acres, where one acre is defined as 100 square meters.

Since 1970, an estimated 177 million hectares of inland marshes and swamps have disappeared, according to the report. And, indications are that the ecological character of wetlands in most regions, including North America, continue to deteriorate.

Declines in wetlands in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa are “notable,” according to the report, “however, the extent of degradation also increased in Europe, North America, and Oceania,” which is the cluster of Pacific islands that includes Australia and New Zealand.

Agriculture and urbanization are the lead contributors to the disappearance and degradation of wetlands on a global scale.

“Agricultural activities remain the largest driver of global wetland loss through conversion to cropland along with other industrial activities, and have resulted in stressed global water resources,” according to the report.

Pollution, invasive species, and climate change-related extreme weather events, including floods, fires, drought, and sea level rise, are also negatively impacting wetlands.

“Wetlands are a high-value resource and an asset to society. When we degrade or destroy wetlands, we reduce the ecosystem services and benefits they provide to people,” the report states.

Annually, the 1,425 million hectares of remaining wetlands across the world give an estimated $7.98 trillion to $39.01 trillion to people, according to the report.

If the world’s remaining wetlands are effectively managed through the next 25 years, they will provide a net present value greater than $205.25 trillion over that time.

The report calls for annual investments of between $275 billion and $550 billion to reverse threats to the remaining wetlands.

The Convention on Wetlands is also known as the Ramsar Convention and is an international treaty focused on wetlands conservation.

There was a time when the distinctive “kiki-do” call of eastern black rails were a common sound rising up from North Carolina marshes.

Masters of secrecy, these little birds are rarely, if ever, seen.

They prefer to skirt through the marsh using tunnels dug by rabbits and other small mammals rather than take to the sky. Their nests are typically well concealed close to the ground in the highest part of brackish, saltwater and inland freshwater marshes.

But the habitat that eastern black rails so skillfully use to maintain their privacy is under growing threat from rising ocean waters, more powerful storms, and development and, if their numbers continue to decline, projections are they’ll disappear altogether within 35 years.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission aims to help these birds, putting forth a management plan to improve the black rails’ habitat by permanently protecting coastal marshes and assisting private landowners with potential habitat creation.

That’s going to take hundreds of acres of additional inland, shallow marsh and high-elevation coastal marsh.

“We think there’s probably less than 40 breeding pairs in North Carolina right now,” said Kacy Cook, a coastal waterbird biologist with the Wildlife Resources Commission.

The commission is accepting public comment on the Black Rail Management Plan through July 11.

The eastern black rail was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2020. The commission lists it as a species of greatest conservation need.

Long gone are the days when eastern black rails were documented in freshwater marshes in the North Carolina mountains and Piedmont. No one has heard their “kiki-do” in the interior part of the state since 2005, Cook said.

Once abundant black rail habitat along the North Carolina has been crowded out by houses, roads and farmed land.

The last remaining pockets of coastal areas where the birds are heard in some places in the Outer Banks (exact locations are kept under wraps to prevent human disturbance) and Cedar Island, an unincorporated area of Carteret County. Even there, surveys reveal a dramatic population decline.

Surveys are conducted throughout the black rails’ breeding cycle by using something called a targeted call-response where biologists play a recording of the “kiki-do” sound and wait for a response from black rails in the survey area.

“You used to be able to hear 70 black rail calling from the causeway,” at Cedar Island, Cook said.

Now, fewer than 10 respond at any given time, she said.

And while that’s not good for the eastern black rail, it’s also indicative of a wider coastal problem.

“Black rails are our signal that our coastal marshes and freshwater wetlands are in trouble, and that makes a difference for a lot of species, and our own wellbeing,” Cook said.

Eastern black rails rely on very shallow water levels in marshes. They have legs that are typically just over one inch long. Their fledglings, roughly the size of cotton balls, are out of the nest within 24 hours of hatching, but they’re not able to fly until about 40 days later.

This is why coastal storm flooding, exacerbated by sea level rise, is a particular threat, because flood waters can wash away the nests, eggs and chicks. One big storm could wipe out the remaining population in North Carolina.

“Those are happening at a rate that is too high for their population to grow,” Cook said.

Lack of fire, which is crucial to maintaining that type of habitat, and agricultural practices that include cutting field borders where black rails like to settle among wet, tall, grassy habitat, are further degrading the birds’ habitat.

“I’m only finding black rails where we have high herbaceous plant diversity. They only use habitats that are very dense herbaceous cover, grasses and flowers with few shrubs and no trees,” Cook said.

The commission’s management plan for black rails includes the creation and restoration of 600 acres of freshwater marsh and 600 acres of additional high-elevation coastal march by 2056.

“What we do for black rails will benefit all of the marsh birds that we have now, including the egrets and the herons and the wood storks. So, working on restoring black rail habitat is going to benefit all of our coastal birds in some way and our seafood. Seventy-five percent of our seafood comes from coastal marshes,” Cook said.

Shades of color are deepening in ocean waters, where water is getting greener in the polar regions, and turning bluer at the equator. A change that could have an effect on fisheries, according to a newly released study.

The changing colors indicate that concentrations of chlorophyll in the blue waters of the tropics and subtropics are declining while simultaneously increasing in the green-colored ocean waters at the Earth’s poles, the authors explain in the paper published Thursday in Science journal.

Chlorophyll is the green pigment that give things like plants and algae their color. In the ocean, chlorophyll concentrations are a measure of phytoplankton, or microscopic plants that are the base of the ocean food chain and convert sunlight into energy through photosynthesis.

“This is the first time that we say, okay, if we look at our ocean globally, we would say see, we have high chlorophyll concentration in the north high latitude, but we have low chlorophyll concentration in the subtropical and tropical region,” Dr. Haipeng Zhao said. Zhao is first author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher who worked with Dr. Nicolas Cassar, a professor of biogeochemistry at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, and Dr. Susan Lozier, a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Georgia Tech.

Why this is happening will take further investigation, as does how it may impact coastal fisheries.

For this study, researchers analyzed two decades’ worth of satellite data collected by a NASA instrument that scans the globe every two days.

The team focused on the open ocean.

“There’s still a lot of limitation by using satellite data to observe the coastal change of phytoplankton because, in the coastal border, the sediments, a lot of minerals, they just come to the surface of the ocean and that makes it difficult for the satellite to detect whether it’s the phytoplankton blooms or something else,” Zhao said. “But we think (these areas) are very important.”

More than half of the world’s fish catch comes from tropical and subtropical regions, according to the study. A significant amount of that catch comes from coastal fisheries within those regions.

“Although our study focuses on open ocean waters, any persistent changes in these areas could profoundly affect low- and middle-income nations, such as Pacific Island nations, that rely on fisheries for sustenance and economic development,” the study states. “Future investigations should focus on these regions to provide a more comprehensive understanding.”

The authors note that it will be particularly important to study how climate change may be affecting these changes.  

This study does not correlate the changes in chlorophyll concentrations with climate change.

The satellite records researchers analyzed go back no more than 20 to 25 years, Zhao said. That’s a relatively short amount of time in terms of changes in the ocean process.

Researchers looked at different variables, such as wind speed, water surface temperature, and sunlight, to see how those may be affecting the changes they noted in chlorophyll concentrations.

“But we did find that the water is getting warmer, which is widespread increase in the temperature in the global ocean,” he noted.

The global ocean is complicated to study, he said. It involves currents and the moving of a lot of materials, like sediments, through the water.

“I think we need to get a lot of support to continue the research,” Zhao said.

That will entail getting away from solely relying on satellite observation and physically traveling to the open ocean to collect more data, he said.

“That will increase our confidence and I think that will generate more evidence to support our conclusion,” Zhao said. “At least we have already observed and what has been striking to tell people is our oceans are changing and it has potential impacts to everywhere.”

As the weather and water warm, beachgoers will flock to the North Carolina coast just as many of the native shorebirds and seagoing avian residents begin to nest.

Piping plovers skittering up and down the sand with the surf, gulls loitering for picnic castoffs and tossed fish bait and pelicans soaring overhead or skimming the swells are all well-known and welcome sights for tourists to the North Carolina coast.

The annual nesting sanctuary closure window from March 1 to Sept. 15 helps both early and late-season nesters like brown pelicans and black skimmers. Least terns have already begun their courting and nesting rituals and American oystercatchers have started hatching chicks.

While almost any sandcastle builder, surfer or fisherman can expect to share the shore with these birds, almost all of them are in steep decline from habitat loss, rising sea levels, pollution and other threats, a new study led by the Audubon Society shows.

The 2025 State of the Birds Report shows sharp declines in shorebirds and other species along the Atlantic Coast, including least terns, American oystercatchers and piping plovers. In North Carolina, black skimmers have also seen a drop in documented nests, leading to their designation as a state-threatened species.

“The issues facing shorebirds are complex,” Audubon North Carolina spokesperson Brittany Salmons told Coastal Review. “The combined effects of sea level rise due to climate change and how we respond to that by choosing natural solutions versus shoreline hardening play a central role in the long-term hope for these species. Development brings more people and more alterations — like dredging, beach nourishment, terminal groins — to the habitats birds need. For shorebirds in particular this can be catastrophic. Having inlets with natural oscillation and broad flats are critical, along with water quality and prey abundance.”

If shorebirds can rise above all of that, many species also have to endure lengthy, challenging migrations from their nests on the Arctic tundra to wintering grounds in South America and places in between. The quality of each of the habitats they will encounter on their multi-thousand-mile annual odysseys is critical to their survival and ability to return to their nesting grounds to breed once more, Salmons said.

Nationally, about a third of all bird species – Audubon kept count of 229 individual species from coast to coast – are considered of high or moderate concern because of declining populations.

Of those, 42 species are listed as red-alert tipping point species, or “birds with perilously low populations and steep declining trends.” Another 37 species are considered orange-alert, populations that show long-term population losses and accelerated declines within the past decade. Thirty-three species qualify for yellow-alert status, showing long-term population losses that have stabilized in recent years yet still require conservation to sustain that tenuous recovery, Audubon said.

All of those species, regardless of their color coding, have one thing in common: They have each lost more than half of their measurable populations in the past 50 years.

“Some of these species lack sufficient monitoring to thoroughly investigate losses,” states the report. “Tipping point species require focused scientific research to pinpoint drivers of declines, paired with fast action on conservation measures to bring these birds back.”

As a group, shorebirds fared worst among the bird populations outlined in the report. Since 1980, shorebirds have suffered a 33% decline in overall population, which the report characterizes as “widespread declines with accelerating losses.”

Of 28 species of shorebirds measured, 19 showed “definitive negative population trends,” with 18 of those showing accelerated losses in recent years. Shorebirds are most heavily represented among the species listed as at a tipping point.

“Surveys show steep shorebird declines at migratory staging sites along the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to Nova Scotia, as well as the Gulf Coast,” the report says. “Conservation actions to restore these critical coastal habitats will protect shorebirds, people and property from storms, flooding and sea level rise.”

Targeted efforts needed

Targeted conservation efforts are needed to protect shorebirds along the North Carolina coast and elsewhere along the Eastern Flyway, Audubon said. The report highlights efforts to protect the American oystercatcher, the black, white and brown shorebird notable for its thick, sturdy orange bill.

Fifteen years ago, the oystercatcher was in serious decline throughout its Atlantic Coast range. In 2009, Manomet Conservation Sciences, in partnership with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, launched the American Oystercatcher Recovery Initiative composed of state, federal and private groups across 16 states all along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The coordinated conservation effort has resulted in a 43% increase in oystercatcher populations, from about 10,000 individuals in 2009 to nearly 15,000 in 2023, according to the report.

Targeted management and monitoring along the coast, including protecting areas for oystercatcher use paid off, the report says. Remote islands and portions of public beaches were also roped off to keep the public from interfering with the birds’ natural behavior and reproduction.

“This coordinated, multi-state effort saved this iconic, orange-billed bird from irreversible loss,” Audubon Coastal Biologist Lindsay Addison said. “People visiting the coast this summer can do their part by respecting posted sanctuaries and keeping a safe distance from beach-nesting birds. We’ve already limited available habitat with development, the least we can do is share the shore.”

Seabirds – gulls and similar species that spend much of their time soaring over ocean waves – were also found to be in freefall. Audubon characterized seabird populations as suffering “cascading declines, but recovery efforts show great promise.”

Seabirds face numerous threats

Rising sea levels coupled with booming coastal development have wreaked havoc on natural seabird habitat and roosting sites, the report says. Seabird colonies on low-lying islands, like North Carolina’s barrier islands, are flooding more often. Marine heat waves are shocking their food sources.

Ravenous invasive species consume seabirds and their eggs in many coastal areas. They also become bycatch in many coastal fisheries and fall prey to plastic pollution and infectious disease, Audubon says.

“Protected nesting colonies and marine foraging areas can provide refuges for seabirds during extreme storm events,” the report says. “Policies that reduce fishing bycatch and plastics pollution can help mitigate direct human-caused stressors.

Most of the shorebird species highlighted in the report are long-distance migrants, which face a somewhat different set of challenges than temperate-nesting, shorter distance migrants like the American oystercatcher, Salmons said.

“To get between breeding and wintering grounds, these long-distance migrants must navigate a series of steppingstone sites where they stopover before continuing on,” Salmons wrote in an email. “Many of these are impacted by human presence on the coast, be it from beach renourishment or other coastal engineering projects that degrade habitat quality and prey availability.”

Waterfowl and waterbirds — ducks, rails, egrets, heron and the like — showed some of their long-term population gains level off but have fared better than their seaside cousins, according to the report.

In general, duck populations have grown 24% in the past half century and waterfowl were the only group of birds in the report that showed population gains. Of 20 species of duck measured, 14 were found to be increasing in population while one was stable and just five are declining.

Large-scale conservation policies and efforts from legislation like the North American Wetlands Conservation Act and the Duck Stamp program are partially responsible for the health of duck species in particular.

“But today, this legacy is in jeopardy,” the report said. “Loss of wetlands and grasslands is accelerating in key regions for waterfowl and wetland protections are being weakened. Environmental land-use changes are driving recent duck and marsh bird declines in many areas.”

Declining bird populations were laid bare in a 2019 study published in the journal Science that showed a net loss of 3 billion birds in North America over the past half-century. The 2025 State of the Birds report shows those losses are continuing.

But, Audubon stresses, conservation works. Coastal restoration, conservation ranching, forest renewal and seabird translocations “show how proactive, concerted efforts and strategic investments can recover bird populations,” the report says.

“The science is solid on how to bring birds back,” according to the report. “Private lands conservation programs, and voluntary conservation partnerships for working lands, hold some of the best opportunities for sparking immediate turnarounds for birds.”

Share their habitats

Policies aimed at reversing bird population decline can also benefit humans who share their habitats by creating healthier agricultural land, cleaner water and natural landscapes that better resist flooding, wildfire and drought, Audubon says.

Birds are also the natural foundation for a soaring outdoors industry. Around 100 million Americans are avid birdwatchers, not to mention hunters and anglers, all activities to which healthy bird populations are a keystone feature, Salmons said. Audubon puts the total economic impact of birding activity at $279 billion annually.

Regular folks can help support healthy bird populations by giving them room this summer, as they roost and lay their eggs along the North Carolina coast. Getting too close to a nest can scare parents away from eggs or hatchlings, Salmons said.

Human disturbance, in which recreational or other activities disrupt shorebirds’ survival behaviors, she said.

Such activities include people walking through resting or foraging flocks and allowing dogs or children to chase birds which wastes their energy and makes otherwise suitable habitat unavailable for their use. Repeated disturbance has a cumulative impact on birds at the coast.

“Just as running once to catch the mailman won’t cause a person to be too exhausted to cook dinner and clean the house but doing it all day can, being repeatedly disturbed over and over impacts the health of shorebirds,” Salmons said. “Compounding these challenges which relate to the heavy development and recreational use of coastal sites are issues related to climate change, such as impacts to Arctic nesting grounds, timing of resource availability, and other factors.”

Hear from flood managers, hazard mitigation leaders and scientists during a 60-minute interactive webinar on planning for and addressing the aftermath of flooding from king tides, storm surge and heavy rains.

Titled “How Communities Are Fast-Tracking Flood Readiness — and What You Can Learn,” the webinar starts at 3 p.m. June 11. Register for a link to watch the discussion live via Zoom or to receive the recording and resources afterward.

Woods Hole Group Senior Climate Scientist Chris Gloninger has been invited to moderate the panel discussion with American Shore and Beach Preservation Association Executive Director Nicole Elko, Mērak Labs Urban Planning and Climate Tech Innovator Erin Rothman, and Lee County, Florida, Public Safety Director Benjamin Abes.

Designed for professionals working in flood preparedness, response and recovery, the panel is expected to discuss share why this work is important to them, flood protection strategies based on data, and real-world case studies. There will be time for questions and peer discussion.

Hohonu Inc. is hosting the webinar. The Hawaii-based environmental water data company has deployed and collects data from water level monitoring instruments at more than 100 locations across more than a dozen states.

Guest Commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. 

Life along the North Carolina coast is steeped in saltwater – but the future seems to be drowning in it. With 1 meter of sea level rise expected by 2100, rising waters are already encroaching on low-lying coastal communities. Chronic flooding and intense storm damage have become the new normal. Stands of ghost forests, stressed to death by saltwater in the soil, announce a clear message: Move, adapt, or drown.

Folks who live here are figuring out how to trade resistance for resilience. Coexistence with the sea could become a bridge to the future. Bulkheads attempt to enforce a static line on a dynamic shore. The ocean continues to defy this hard boundary. The soft boundary of a living shoreline ensures connection doesn’t transform into fear, cooperation doesn’t sink into combativeness. Where do we start to build a future that works with the shorelines of North Carolina?

A rising crisis 

The issue of sea level rise is urgent and unavoidable on NC coasts. Where roads keep flooding from higher tides and ditches don’t drain anymore, “you’re seeing it. This is sea level rise,” says Christine Voss, retired research associate at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Institute of Marine Sciences based in Morehead City. Even if they don’t use the phrase “sea level rise,” she says “people are noticing changes.”

Voss likens the situation to the health of a patient: “Sea level rise, that might be like your allergies… and then comes a hurricane. And because you may have been worn down by your allergies, when the cold or the pneumonia or the flu comes by, you’re actually more susceptible.”

She says that it’s easier for us to notice the big events like hurricanes, but really what we’re seeing with sea level rise is a cumulative effect of both hurricanes and a higher water table. Higher groundwater levels decrease soil’s ability to absorb floodwaters. The constant stress of waterlogged existence makes the coastal ecosystem immunocompromised. 

For properties that border the ocean, a range of options exist to “hold the line.” Traditional gray infrastructure manages the coastline with solely hard materials. This includes concrete seawalls and fiberglass bulkheads that act as armor against constant wave action. Fully natural, or green shorelines, include sandy beaches and salt marshes that fluctuate with the tides. There are also shoreline management strategies that combine gray and green elements, such as sills with planted vegetation or oyster reef breakwaters. 

Walling ourselves off

When threats loom, we resort to division, installing walls to armor ourselves against a fight with the waves. “We’re still pretending like we can hold it all in place for forever, everywhere…from Maine all the way around to Padre Island, Texas,” says Rob Young, geologist and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University. Fighting the ocean is a losing battle.

“Seawalls don’t stop the shoreline from moving,” he says. “It just sort of draws a line in the sand. Eventually the beach disappears in front of the seawall, because the seawall isn’t halting erosion.” 

This combative approach against the sea is destructive to the very ecosystems that would protect us. The erosion of beaches amplified by seawalls is paralleled by the undoing of marsh by estuarine bulkheads. North Carolina has restricted the building of new seawalls since 2003 to protect beaches, but bulkheads against estuarine waters are ubiquitous, and the salt marshes they neighbor are in danger. 

When a bulkhead is built, “the marsh is going to drown in front of it over time,” says Young. The waves bounce off the bulkhead and “tear up that marsh.” The impulse to protect our properties threatens the protection of our collective future.

Waves deflected by a bulkhead eat away at the land beside it, prompting another bulkhead to be constructed. Alyson Flynn, environmental economist at the North Carolina Coastal Federation, describes this hardening cascade: “it got to the point where people had no choice, because their neighbors’ property was causing their property to erode so much faster, because they had a seawall up, that they felt like the only way to protect their property was to also put up a seawall. And so then it had this barricading effect across the whole shoreline.” 

A wall necessitates more walls until we’ve replaced the breathing border of marsh. Eight percent of NC’s coastline is hardened through bulkheads, groins, and jetties. A survey in North Carolina found that waterfront homeowners perceived bulkheads as the most effective shoreline protection, even though properties with bulkheads reported twice the cost of repairing hurricane damage as properties with natural shorelines. Yet permitting processes and homeowners still favor hardened infrastructure in pursuit of shoreline preservation.

“There’s this tendency to think that a seawall is easier and less expensive, and that’s not the case,” says Flynn. “Especially when it comes to some of the maintenance costs with living shorelines, it can actually be quite a bit cheaper, especially after storm events.” 

Adding life to the line

Living shorelines, which replace the hard line of a bulkhead with opportunities for vegetation and wave attenuation, are a step in the right direction.

When Havelock homeowner Vernon Kelly looked out at the bulkhead on his property, worn down by years of storms, he had a decision to make: “Do I just replace it back with another and better bulkhead, or do I really look at creating another alternative?” 

Kelly recognizes the value of nature that he witnessed as a state land surveyor. “I was out in the coasts, in the swamp…everywhere from Jacksonville to Down East,” he says.

He has seen his North Carolina change, witnessed the bulkheads of his neighbors fail to block the oncoming ocean. With assistance from the Coastal Federation, he installed a living shoreline and has since seen “a world of a difference.” 

The nature Kelly treasures has become part of his backyard, complete with new saltwater neighbors. “Minnows seem to have figured out, ‘Hey, we’ve got a sort of a haven here.’ I’ve seen an increase of blue crabs in that sill area. And I actually had one oyster starting to grow,” he says.

The living shoreline didn’t just protect as a bulkhead would, it created space for life on that section of shore.

“What we’ve done, it’ll save it for my lifetime, maybe my kids,” says Kelly. “But if Mother Nature really decides she wants to do something, we can’t stop her.” 

Not a solution, but a start

Living shorelines can’t stop the ocean from rising, can’t stop seawater from creeping inwards from the shore and raising the water table from below. Development on the precarious line between land and sea is built on the assumption that the line can be held with stronger armor. The coastline is not a property line to be guarded but a continually negotiated convergence of ocean and land. 

The sea has sustained community here since the Coree fished the Core Banks and the Neusiok harvested along the Neuse River. Yet these life-giving waters are now described using language of wars and monsters. Framing storms and floods as opponents sinks us deeper into a combative mindset. We can’t hold the battleline if the ground itself is transforming beneath our feet. The coasts as we know them will not be the coasts of our future. 

Embracing change might be the only way to navigate the changes we fear. “People are adaptable,” says Voss. “Enough people have to decide that things have to change.”

The salt marsh has a lesson to teach about handling change. Many shoots rooted in the soil, united in density and scope, can diffuse the force of oncoming waves. As the saltwater rises, the marsh travels. 

Marshes migrate landwards, racing against sea level rise toward safety. Responding to change allows for a chance of survival. Marshes might not keep up with dire projections of sea level rise, but hardened shores don’t even give them a chance in the race.

When a migrating marsh hits a bulkhead, a line that refuses to budge until a storm forces collapse, the marsh is made static. Trapped between wall and rising water, the marsh suffers from “coastal squeeze” until it drowns. Confronting an inundated future, those on the coasts can choose to heed the lesson of the moving marsh or drown with the walls.

Living shorelines are not the answer to save the coasts but they are a potential action toward reimagining future coastal resilience. Relinquishing the ideal of a manicured waterfront is the start of embracing an alliance with the ecosystems we inhabit. Starting in backyards like Kelly’s, there is an opportunity to recognize the value of wetlands and begin to dissolve the walls, physical and philosophical, built between humans and the sea. 

Note from Kocher: This article was reported, photographed, and written in partnership with the Pulitzer Center and the science journalism course at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort.

Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

With national forecasters expecting above-normal activity for the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, officials are reminding the public to prepare now before a storm hits.

Meteorologists are predicting a 60% chance of an above-normal season, 30% chance of a near-normal season, and only a 10% chance to be below normal, National Weather Service Director Ken Graham said during a news conference held Thursday morning at Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Center in Gretna, Louisiana.

Graham was joined by Acting National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Laura Grimm and Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee-Sheng to announce the season that begins June 1 and ends Nov. 30.

“We’re really looking at an above-normal season once again,” Graham said, explaining that the forecast is between 13 to 19 named storms. Storms are named when they reach 39 mph. In 2024, there were 18 named storms.

Of those 13 to 19 storms expected this year, six to 10 are forecast to become hurricanes, which is when winds reach 74 mph, and forecasters expect three to five major hurricanes, or Category 3 and above, with maximum sustained winds of 111 miles an hour or greater, Graham said.

“The average: 14 named storms, seven hurricanes, three major (hurricanes), so above the average,” Graham said.

Hurricane categories are ranked from 1 to 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Category 5 is the strongest with winds greater than 157 mph.

Hurricanes are not just about the category, Graham said, adding that only 1 mile an hour separates the different categories. “You’ve got to focus on the impacts,” particularly the dangers of water such as storm surge and flooding.

Graham explained that the strongest hurricanes are the ones that develop the fastest.

“Every Category 5 storm that’s ever hit this country was a tropical storm or less three days prior,” Graham said. “The big ones that hit this country are fast,” and you have to plan early.

“Everything’s in place for an above average season,” Graham explained, including warmer surface temperatures.

With some of the factors associated with hurricane season, “we’re not really seeing any changes in the numbers or even the strengths when it comes to the warming of the planet,” but “we’re seeing heavier rainfall rates,” he said.

“That’s the biggest evidence that we see associated with the tropical season,” Graham continued about the heavy rainfall. “We’ve got to be really prepared for that,” especially as more people move to the coast.

In response to questions from reporters Thursday morning about staff changes at NOAA, Grimm explained that “weather prediction modeling and protecting human lives and property is our top priority.”

She added that “we are fully staffed at the hurricane center” and “we are really making this a top priority for this administration, for NOAA, for the Department of Commerce. We are very supportive of our national weather staff.”

Though Graham reiterated Grimm’s statement about staffing, he later said the administration “had some folks go, but we’re going to make sure that we have everything that we have on the front lines. Every warning is going to go out.”

Graham said that budget cuts at NOAA are not going to affect hurricane forecasting this year and that the center is working on some long-term solutions for staffing.

In North Carolina

Dare County Emergency Management Director Drew Pearson told Coastal Review in an email Thursday that he echoed “Ken Graham’s statement in the NOAA release where he says ‘This outlook is a call to action: be prepared. Take proactive steps now to make a plan and gather supplies to ensure you’re ready before a storm threatens’.”

Graham’s “words are true even when the predictions are for a less active season. No matter how many storms are being predicted, everyone needs to be prepared for that one storm that will put them in harm’s way,” Pearson continued.

“I would be remiss if I didn’t encourage everyone to never focus on just the category of a tropical storm,” he said. “Any storm system is dangerous and can bring life threatening impacts from storm surge, rainfall flooding, wind, tornadoes and rip currents. Just the other afternoon we had a tornado in Wanchese during a severe thunderstorm.”

North Carolina Emergency Management’s Chief of External Affairs and Communications Justin Graney also pointed out that it only takes one storm.

“We really want North Carolinians to know that it doesn’t matter if they’re calling for one storm this season or 45 storms, it only takes one to impact our state and only one storm to impact your community and your home. We want everybody to be prepared for hurricanes,” he said in an interview.

Graney said in coastal North Carolina, “storm surge is the number one killer” in tropical storms and hurricanes, “because the water levels will rise very rapidly.” Wind damage is also a concern, depending on the strength of the hurricane.

“It’s important to note, too, that the category of storm is misleading. People find a false sense of security” in the storm category, which is only based on the wind speed. “The storm may have substantial impacts beyond that,” he said.

Graney pointed to Hurricane Florence in 2018, a Category 1 storm when it impacted North and South Carolina. “But because of the rainfall amounts, we saw significant flooding, same with Hurricane Matthew. There shouldn’t be a sense of security with people when they say, ‘that’s just a Category 1 hurricane, we’ll be fine.’ They need to take them seriously, no matter what it is.”

Another concern for eastern North Carolina is inland flooding.

Residents need to be aware of what is happening to the streams and rivers in their area, adding that the region could see the same areas flood twice. The initial flooding from storm surge, rainfall and runoff, and, depending on the track of the storm, “you may see additional flooding several days after the storm, so it’s important to make sure you’re aware of those hazards,” he said.

Graney urged residents to make sure the information they rely on is coming from local media, the newspaper, National Weather Service and other trusted sources to make the best decisions to protect themselves and their loved ones.

“The next thing you want to do after being informed is, we want to make sure that you have a plan and that you’re prepared,” Graney said. “We want everyone that lives in coastal North Carolina to be familiar with the Know Your Zone Initiative, which is a storm surge-based evacuation map that is used by local emergency management to facilitate evacuation.”

He said to visit the website, type in the address and it will show your zone for if you need to evacuate.

Grady said that putting together a disaster kit at home is also extremely important. “We need to make sure North Carolinians are prepared to self-sustain for three to seven days per person in their home.”

There’s some resources at readync.gov “to help you and your family prepare at home, because it’s important, and it doesn’t have to be a huge financial undertaking. It can be done gradually. Right now, we have time. We can do this in parts, to build a disaster kit at home. So that’s not a huge financial hit to you and your family,” he added.

Warning Coordination Meteorologist Erik Heden at the National Weather Service office in Morehead City said in a telephone interview that coastal North Carolina is “one of the higher risk areas in the country. We never want to scare people, but we do live right by the ocean, and it’s beautiful most of the time of the year, but it’s just something we need to be prepared for when you live in an area like this.”

Heden also stressed that residents shouldn’t focus on the category but on the impacts, which include wind, storm surge, inland flooding, rip currents and tornadoes.

He said Thursday now is a good time to make that hurricane plan and stock up because there’s plenty of supplies available. “If you’re researching (your plan) on a beautiful May day like today, you’re going to make really good decisions where, if you’re trying to scramble at the last minute, you’re not going to make as good of a decision while being under stress.”

National Weather Service Meteorologist-in-Charge for the Wilmington office Steven Pfaff said that while there have been numerous hurricanes over the decades that have caused serious flooding, the coast is overdue for a high-impact, wind storm.

“When you look at statistics, every 23 years, Cape Fear should see a Category 3 or 4,” he said in a phone interview, “And here we are coming up on 29 years since Fran,” referencing Hurricane Fran that hit in 1996.

“You’ve got a segment of the population that has been through a lot of hurricanes, but not the wind aspect of it,” Pfaff said, referring to storms with winds over 100 mph. “We have a lot of people who’ve lived in the area since Fran that haven’t been through something like Fran, so it’s going to be new to them as well.”

Coastal Review will not publish on Monday, May 26.

Ocracoke is celebrating the planet April 11-13 with its family friendly Earth Day Weekend Celebration.

In its second year, organizers said there will be a variety of indoor and outdoor activities designed for all ages, including nature walks, history talks, nature crafts, live music, stargazing, a beach cleanup, stargazing, music and storytelling, a fish house tour and a traditional square dance.

Attendees can listen in on discussions about fireflies, dark skies designation, composting and organic farming, trash survey, invasive plants, and climate change.

The event will conclude with a community beach bonfire at Ocracoke’s lifeguard beach.

The full, detailed schedule for the festival is online.

The Ocracoke Earth Day Weekend Celebration is sponsored by Ocracoke Alive, with financial support from Ocracoke occupancy tax revenues, the North Carolina Art Council, Pony Island Inn, and John and Sarah Saunders, longtime supporters from the Charlotte area.

The N.C. Division of Coastal Management is taking applications from local coastal-based governments to participate in the state Resilient Coastal Communities Program’s phases 1-4.

Phase 3 is designed to provide funding to assist coastal communities in the engineering and design of a project identified by an applicant in phases 1 and 2 of the program.

Phase 4 provides funding to assist with the implementation of previously identified and prioritized resilience projects  and supported by engineered site plans developed in phase 3.

Other eligible projects not identified in phases 1-2 may be eligible if a community has completed an evaluation to bypass those phases. Examples of eligible projects include wetland and stream restoration, flood mitigation, living shoreline stabilization, and infrastructure to improve stormwater management.

An estimated $2 million will be available for phases 1 and 2 and about $6 million available for phase 3 and phase 4 projects in fiscal 2025-26, according to a N.C. Department of Environmental Quality release.

The Resilient Coastal Communities Program aids communities in getting a better understanding of and enhancing coastal resilience at the local level. Phases within the program guide communities in assessing local risks and vulnerabilities, engaging representative stakeholders, and collaborating to identify and prioritize projects and actions to enhance resilience and protect critical assets.

County and municipal governments within the 20 Coastal Area Manage Act, or CAMA, counties and contractors who provide technical assistance to the localities selected may apply.

Eligible contracts include private planning and engineering firms, Councils of Government, nongovernment organizations and public and private academic institutions.

Applications are also being taken from coastal communities to be matched with a contractor to fully update local CAMA land use plans that will integrate core elements developed through the program’s resilience strategies.

Communities that are selected will work to incorporate resilience into land use planning and support proactive risk-reduction measures. This work may be done in conjunction with phases 1 and 2 for new communities accepted into the program or independently completed in communities that have completed those phases.

An informational webinar about the application process will be held 2-3:30 p.m. March 21. Register online.

Phases 1-4 community application materials are available online.

Applications will be accepted until 5 p.m. April 25.

Questions about the new Resilient Coastal Communities Program and completed applications may be sent to RCCP@deq.nc.gov.

The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s State Energy Office has announced two additional public meetings to discuss state efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

An in-person meeting has been set for 6 p.m. March 20 in Roanoke Rapids at the Center for Energy Education, 460 Airport Road.

There will also be a meeting at 6 p.m. March 27 in Wilmington at the New Hanover County Arboretum, 6206 Oleander Drive.

Participants will be provided information and may give feedback on DEQ’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction initiatives that will be part of the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant’s Comprehensive Climate Action Plan.

The state received a $3 million Environmental Protection Agency grant for the planning phase of the plan to target reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful air pollutants.

A series of public meetings kicked off earlier this month and will be held through March.

The state’s Priority Climate Action Plan identified North Carolina’s highest priority greenhouse gas reduction measures. Discussion at the meetings will be based on the measures identified in that plan, which is due to the EPA later this year.

A public comment period on the draft Comprehensive Climate Action Plan will open in August.

The public may also submit input via email to cprg@deq.nc.gov with “CPRG Comment” in the subject line, or by voicemail by calling 919-707-8757.

The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s State Energy Office wants to hear your ideas on how the state can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Beginning later this month, the department will kick off a series of public engagement meetings where participants will be provided information and may give feedback on DEQ’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction initiatives.

Those initiatives are going to be part of the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant’s Comprehensive Climate Action Plan.

The state received a $3 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency for the planning phase of the plan, which will target reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful air pollutants.

North Carolina’s planning project is a collective effort being led by DEQ that also includes the Department of Transportation, Department of Commerce and Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Last year, the state submitted its Priority Climate Action Plan in which it identified North Carolina’s highest priority greenhouse gas reduction measures. Discussion at the upcoming meetings will be based on the measures identified in that plan.

The plan is to be used in updating and expanding existing climate strategies in the state, “ensuring that these policies align with the latest available science, modeling and best practices,” according to a DEQ release.

That plan is due to the EPA later this year.

Public engagement meetings will run through March and will be provided both in-person and virtually.

Register for the sessions using this form.

The first meeting will be held virtually on Feb. 25 at 6 p.m. To join online go to: https://ncgov.webex.com/ncgov/j.php?MTID=ma5fde5df2dec2c062946bf9fc374d93a

The meeting number is 2432 204 2273 and the password is CPRG2025.

To join by telephone dial +1-415-655-0003 or U.S. toll +1-904-900-2303 and enter access code 2432 204 2273

The first in-person meeting will be hosted Feb. 27 at 6 p.m. at the Lumbee River Electric Membership Corporation, 6090 NC Hwy 711, Pembroke.

The following meetings will be held next month:

• 5 p.m. March 6 at the Cumberland County North Regional Public Library, 855 Mcarthur Road, Fayetteville.
• 6 p.m. March 13 at Western Piedmont Community College, 1001 Burkemont Ave., Morganton.

Meetings in northeastern and southeastern North Carolina are also planned, but dates were not announced.

A formal public comment period on the draft plan will open in August.

Members of the public may also provide feedback via email to cprg@deq.nc.gov with “CPRG Comment” in the subject line, or via voicemail by calling (919) 707-8672.

For additional information about the grant program and to view previous public information sessions visit the CPRG webpage.

Registration is open now for the daylong “Adaptation Planning for Coastal Communities” course being offered in April through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The class is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 2, at the NOAA Beaufort Lab Auditorium, 101 Pivers Island Road, Beaufort. Being offered at no charge, registration is required to attend.

“Coastal communities increasingly realize the need for adaptation strategies, but many are unsure where to begin. Attend this course to gain a thorough grounding and practical skills for incorporating adaptation strategies into planning processes,” organizers said.

Planners, public works staff, floodplain managers, hazard mitigation planners, sustainability managers, emergency managers, community groups, members of civic organizations, and coastal resource managers are encouraged to attend.

Trainers from NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management will lead the course that has the following learning objectives:

• Apply the basic elements of an adaptation planning framework to organize future preparedness efforts.
• Translate climate science into impacts on local community assets.
• Determine local vulnerabilities based on an existing assessment or hazard visualization tool.
• Interpret and apply results of a vulnerability assessment to inform adaptation priorities.
• Identify, compare and prioritize locally relevant adaptation strategies and actions.
• Organize adaptation options into a cohesive long-term strategy using an adaptation pathways approach.

American Institute of Certified Planners and Association of State Floodplain Managers can earn continuing education credits by attending this course.

Heat researchers at Duke University will spend the next two years developing an interactive, web-based tool to help policymakers plan for extreme heat, especially in rural and coastal communities.

The U.S. Department of Commerce and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced earlier this month that $500,000 was awarded to the university’s Heat Policy Innovation Hub on the campus in Durham.

“Over the last 30 years, heat exposure has killed more people in the United States than any other weather-related phenomenon. The combined economic impacts of labor loss, hospital visits, and reduced agricultural yield — along with the health impacts of exposure — make heat among the most significant consequences of climate change for humanity,” according to the hub.

Funded through the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act signed in 2022, the hub is partnering on the project with the National Integrated Heat Health Information System, or NIHHIS. Under NOAA’s climate office, the system is a collaboration of 25 federal entities working to reduce heat impacts across the country.

“The economies of rural communities often rely on agriculture and other outdoor industries, while coastal communities exposed to high humidity tend to rely on hospitality, tourism and recreation,” hub Director Ashley Ward said in a release. “Extreme heat poses health and economic hazards in both types of communities, but the risks are different and require targeted solutions.”

Ward said in an interview that while there’s been a lot of research on how heat affects human health, there has been much less work on how it affects the economy.

“We have been so focused, and for good reason, on the health impacts of heat,” but heat’s impact on the economy is “going to have much bigger consequences than we’ve appreciated so far,” she said.

The World Economic Forum for the first time released in December its assessment of what climate change will mean for businesses globally. The report, Business on the Edge, predicts a 70% global loss in fixed assets from heat over the next decade.

That’s hundreds of billions of dollars, Ward said.

“They determined that most of that loss will occur in the communication sector and the utilities, and it will happen because of labor wage loss, labor productivity loss, and damage to hard infrastructure,” she said. “Personally, I think that we have not even begun to understand the catastrophic economic impact that heat will bring in the next 10 to 20 years.”

Ward explained the innovation hub is “very early” in the planning process and that researchers are thinking about what the web-based tool will look like.

The tool’s interactive map is expected to focus on localized heat impacts, offer guidance on developing heat policies, assess heat risks in rural and coastal communities, and facilitate private sector collaboration. The research team plans to work with policymakers to ensure the tool meets their needs.

“A good chunk of this work is going to be quantifying and looking at what the economic impacts of heat will be across six sectors, which are agriculture, transportation, health, energy, housing and labor,” she said.

While researchers won’t be able to cover the entire scope of heat-related impacts in this two-year period, the plan is to establish “the foundation for some really innovative work on pushing people to think about heat differently,” she added.

Ward said the researchers plan to take an in-depth look at extreme heat in rural and coastal communities.

A lot of research has been done on how heat impacts urban places, but “we have growing and greater vulnerability in rural areas, with fewer tools in the toolbox to address it,” she said.

In North Carolina, heat-related illness rates in rural areas are many times greater than in urban areas, and most of the solutions, like cooling centers or tree planting campaigns, don’t really translate into rural environments very well.

The same can be applies to coastal areas that are “plagued by some of the same challenges that rural communities are plagued with — real threats to their livelihoods — but also challenges with solutions,” she said. “We’re seeing a combination of increasing temperatures also destroying some of the economic backbone of coastal communities.”

Oyster farms, for example, are highly vulnerable, with some U.S. shellfish growers reporting 100% crop losses in the last couple of years, Ward added.

Ward’s work on extreme heat can be traced back to her days with NOAA, where she focused on the impacts of climate extremes in the coastal plains of the Carolinas.

In 2015, she was sent into coastal communities to talk to residents about issues of which they were particularly concerned.

“I thought that we would be talking about hurricanes. But when we showed up, a lot of the community partners basically said, we know a lot about hurricanes, we don’t know a lot about heat, and heat is really starting to show up in our communities. It was really the communities that started my interest and work in that topic,” Ward said.

When she arrived at Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability in 2019, Ward said she noticed that researchers had done great work in identifying populations that are vulnerable to extreme heat and communities have responded by thinking about ways to mitigate the impacts of rising temperatures.

But, she said, those conversations were not being carried over to policymakers.

The heat hub was launched in 2023, “with the mission of bringing together a real cross-sector collaboration to try and think about ways to address heat and inform better policy, and sometimes that policy is public policy, but sometimes it’s also thinking about industry and the role that they play,” Ward said.

The hub’s researchers have worked with the state to develop a heat alert system and helped with county-level heat action plans. Last June, the hub held the HeatWise Policy Partnership Summit.

The hub is currently working with faith-based leaders in the Carolinas, exploring private sector and community-based solutions for heat and energy affordability. The hub is also working with the United Nations to develop a heat management system and is assessing readiness among UN agencies to deal with heat globally.

Guest commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. 

Each winter, as lights and decorations are packed away, holiday trees are typically discarded or sent to landfills in most areas. But in the Wilmington region of North Carolina, the Cape Fear Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation has been doing something different.

For the past 11 years and this past Saturday, this chapter has led the community in repurposing Christmas trees to rebuild dunes in critically eroded stretches of the coastline. These efforts not only help restore the natural landscape, but also educate the community about one of North Carolina’s most pressing challenges: protecting our coastline in the face of sea-level rise and intensifying storms.

The threats facing Cape Fear’s beaches are not unique. Across North Carolina, rising seas and worsening coastal erosion jeopardize the Tar Heel State’s ecosystems, communities, infrastructure, and economies. Climate change has led to higher tides, more frequent flooding, and even homes collapsing into the ocean due to severe erosion and storm damage.

North Carolina’s coastal property owners and communities have typically addressed chronic erosion and storm damage through beach renourishment or replenishment. This short-sighted “solution” disrupts natural sand movement and processes, frequently smother adjacent ecosystems and wildlife, and can cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, or more, to maintain in the long term. One storm event can easily wipe out a multimillion dollar project in a matter of a few hours, leaving North Carolina’s coastal habitats at risk of permanent loss due to sea level rise and flooding.

This is where nature-based solutions come in.

Nature-based solutions restore and conserve ecosystems by leveraging natural processes and resources to enhance biodiversity, protect habitats, and promote resilient communities. They also help mitigate disaster risk, including the effects of sea level rise, flooding, and storm surge.

In the case of the Cape Fear Chapter’s annual dune restoration event, volunteers place Christmas trees collected by the city along coastal areas in need of protection and rebuilding. Working closely with local government, community members, and wildlife advocacy groups, Surfrider ensures the trees are positioned to maximize sand capture while avoiding harm to wildlife. Once staked in place, the trees act as natural dune infrastructure, capturing sand and fostering the regrowth of critical dune plants and ecosystems.

In 2024, the Surfrider Foundation launched its Climate Action Program to focus on implementing nature-based solutions for climate impacts in coastal areas from Cape Fear to Hawaii, and everywhere in between. While the official program is new, volunteers across the country have long been leading efforts to address these challenges in their communities through the Surfrider Foundation. The Cape Fear Chapter exemplifies this approach, demonstrating how grassroots action can drive meaningful coastal change.

Across Surfrider’s network, volunteers are championing local initiatives to combat the impacts of climate change. From advocating for living shorelines and marsh restoration to promoting managed retreat, Surfrider’s activists are showing how nature-based solutions can address erosion and flooding sustainably.

The annual Christmas tree dune restoration event in Cape Fear serves as an entry point to educate the community on how nature-based solutions can mitigate climate-driven impacts. Through hands-on volunteer opportunities, Surfrider emphasizes the need for widespread adoption of sustainable practices along our coasts. These efforts empower community members to advocate for long-term, science-based policies, calling on decision-makers to prioritize the resilience of their communities.

As we welcome 2025, let’s make this the year we reimagine our relationship with North Carolina’s coast. By embracing nature-based solutions and working together to protect what we love, we can create a thriving, resilient coastline for generations to come.

To get involved with the Cape Fear Chapter’s dune restoration event next year — or to find volunteer opportunities with other Surfrider chapters along the coast — visit surfrider.org/volunteer.

Let’s make the health of our coasts a shared New Year’s resolution.

Surfrider Southeast Regional Manager Kayla Huff contributed to this piece.

Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation. See our guidelines for submitting guest columns.

Coastal communities along the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf coasts can now better assess changing flood risks using a newly released model created by the National Ocean Service.

The service, which falls under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, on Monday launched Coastal Ocean Reanalysis, or CORA, a dataset that includes more than four decades of modeled and historical water level and wave information roughly every quarter mile along the U.S. coastline.

CORA closes what have been in some areas of the coast huge gaps in water level data collection that left some coastal communities without such information. That’s because historical data was until today available at NOAA’s tide gauge locations, which can be hundreds of miles apart along some areas of the coast.

“Historical coastal water level information is necessary to assess changing flood risks to communities and to predict the likelihood of flooding,” National Ocean Service Director Nicole LeBoeuf said in a release. “This new dataset will improve NOAA’s current flood-risk assessment tools and help scientists develop new coastal flood products and services for the nation.” 

The information provided in CORA can help advance coastal flood planning for everyone from local government planners, engineers, and flood management professionals.

“CORA provides coastal communities with new insights into how their flood risk has changed over time,” Analise Keeney, project lead and oceanographer at NOAA’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services, stated in a release. “In Charleston, South Carolina, for example, CORA shows the full extent of the devastating inland flooding caused by Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Combined with NOAA’s long-term tide gauge data, the data enables more coastal communities to understand their past flood risks so they can better prepare and respond to future events.”

CORA’s historical datasets will be merged into tools including the Sea Level Calculator and High Tide Flooding Outlooks, and used by NOAA scientists to model monthly high tide flooding predictions every 500 meters along the coast to provide more communities with timely information about their flood risks. 

NOAA’s Office of Water Prediction is also collaborating with NOS to pair CORA dataset with the National Water Model to help make coastal flood inundation mapping more robust.

CORA datasets for the West Coast, Hawaii and Alaska are expected to be released in late 2026.

CORA is available for public download through NOAA’s Open Data Dissemination platform. Additional information, maps, and related resources are available on NOAA’s Tides and Currents website.

CORA was made possible through collaboration with the University of North Carolina’s Renaissance Computing Institute. The model was validated by the University of Hawaii’s Sea Level Center.

CORA is a community-based modeling effort made possible through collaboration with the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Renaissance Computing Institute. Modeling validation was conducted by the University of Hawaii’s Sea Level Center.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation has been awarded more than $1 million to create a drone program that officials say will improve response to natural disasters like hurricanes Florence and Helene.

NCDOT’s Division of Aviation was awarded a $1.1 million grant Monday from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the state announced Tuesday.

NCDOT is one of 47 recipients nationwide to be selected for funding from the Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation Grants, or SMART, program. The SMART program is part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and has awarded around $200 million between 2022 and this year for planning and protype projects in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

“We are thrilled,” Nick Short, interim director of NCDOT’s Aviation Division said in a statement. “This will make us better prepared for natural disasters. With what we saw during Helene, Florence and other natural disasters, when you’re not able to use highway infrastructure to get goods and assets to an area, it seriously limits your ability to provide life-saving care and quick response to people in need.”

Aviation staff are to develop a program using drone-in-a-box technology. The secure boxes containing autonomous drones act as a charging station, storage and place from which to launch and land. These boxes can be placed in a community ahead of a natural disaster and then deployed remotely to start collecting images of damage and deliver emergency supplies.

“With the ‘drone in a box,’ we can place a drone with medicine like insulin on the side of a road and then those supplies are there and ready to be deployed right away,” Short explained. “We will be able to deploy the drone remotely, so we can begin collecting data and delivering supplies without having to wait on someone to respond by driving into the area. In doing so, we’re also removing the risk of putting people in further danger during a natural disaster.”

Staff will pilot the project in Lumberton, which was hit particularly hard by hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Florence in 2018.

“These storms tend to impact people in historically disadvantaged communities where roads and other infrastructure become inundated faster and for longer periods of time than many other communities,” Short said. “That was true in Lumberton during Hurricane Florence and is one of the main reasons we’re piloting this program there.”

The Division of Aviation will work closely with the town and surrounding communities because public feedback will be important as the agency studies the issue and develops a better response program, Short said.

While this program will be conducted in Lumberton, state aviation officials expect to evaluate the technology for disaster response deployment at other locations.

“This grant covers all the studies we’ll have to do, from researching the environment at these locations as well as all the community involvement we’ll be doing and feedback we’ll be seeking,” he said.

Short said expediting disaster response comes at a crucial time as scientists predict that climate change is expected to continue delivering storms that are more severe and more frequent.

Warming sea temperatures fueled significantly more intense hurricanes between 2019 and 2023 and force-fed nearly a half-dozen storms into Category 5 strength, including two this current season, according to a newly released climate study.

Human-caused climate change has, on average, boosted peak, pre-landfall Atlantic hurricane wind speeds by 18 mph over the last six years, said Dr. Daniel Gilford, lead author of the study published in the journal Environmental Research: Climate.

“Every single storm we studied in 2024 had an intensity increase of these warmer sea surface temperatures by something between 9 and 28 miles per hour,” Gilford said during a webinar Tuesday afternoon.

A total of 11 storms have churned over warming waters this Atlantic hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30.

Gilford, a climate scientist at Climate Central, a nonpartisan, nonprofit independent group of scientists who research and report the effects of climate change, said that between 2019 and 2023 and over the course of this hurricane season, storms have strengthened over waters as much as 2.5 degrees warmer because of global warming.

Scientists found the faster rate at which hurricanes are spinning equates to an average of about one category higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. This scale does not measure hurricanes’ other potential destructive factors, including storm surge, which is also being exacerbated by rising seas, and rainfall.

A companion study also released Wednesday by Climate Central found that Hurricane Helene’s peak wind speeds were made about 13 mph more intense because of climate change.

The difference is a “tiny bit lower” than Gilford’s findings, “but very much in the same ballpark,” said Dr. Friederike “Fredi” Otto, a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London and lead of World Weather Attribution, a team of researchers from several European-based institutions.

Otto said the companion study, “really shows that these two completely different lines of evidence show us the same thing.”

The study led by Gilford traced data from the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship, or IBTrACS, which provides global cyclone track information, and the National Hurricane Center’s GIS archive to analyze hurricanes back to 2019.

Researchers used observations and reanalysis from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s optimum interpolation sea surface temperature, or OISST, which is a long-term climate data record, and combined climate models to look at how sea surface temperatures are changing.

The companion study looked at stochastic models, which use mathematics that incorporate randomness and uncertainty to simulate hurricane behavior, including intensity, track, and landfall location.

From a scientific point of view, Otto said, the changes brought on by global warming show that a storm that might have been a Category 4 over cooler sea surface temperatures is now building up to a Category 5, the highest on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

“That makes a huge difference and I think that can also make a huge in how we communicate about the impact of climate change because, as we’ve seen, quite tragically this year, people died and there are huge death tolls when extreme events happen that people have not experienced before,” Otto said.

Thus was the case when Hurricane Helene swept up the Gulf Coast, making landfall Sept. 26 in Florida’s Big Bend region before barreling north through western North Carolina. More than 230 people across six states died as a result of the storm, one that gutted mountain towns, ripped away roads and caused more than $50 billion in damage.

Even though there “were really good warnings,” people in the Appalachian region had not experienced such an extreme event so they did not know what to do with the warnings, Otto said.

“I think this, that we see now, again and again, that records are broken, that wind speeds are higher than ever before, rainfall is higher than ever before. We really need to use that to make sure that people don’t die,” she said.

Otto added that it may be time to discuss whether to add a sixth category to the Saffir-Simpson scale, “just so that people are aware that something is going to hit them that is different from everything else they’ve experienced before and therefore more dangerous.”

Hurricanes Beryl and Milton were identified as the last of five storms that strengthened into Category 5 storms because of climate change, according to the study led by Gilford.

NOAA predicted earlier this year that there was an 85% chance this Atlantic Hurricane Season would be above normal.

Hurricane Beryl first formed on June 28 and broke a series of records this season.

It was the farthest east that a hurricane had formed in June, the first Category 4 storm to form in the month of June and, on July 2, it became the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record.

A little more than three months after Beryl made its third and final landfall – the last in Matagorda County, Texas – a monster Hurricane Milton seemingly filled the Gulf of Mexico as it roared toward Florida’s Gulf Shore. The speed of intensity at which Milton grew brought tears to longtime meteorologist and NBC 6 South Florida weatherman John Morales, whose live forecast went viral after he choked up reporting that the storm’s air pressure had dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours.

Morales, one of the speakers taking part in Tuesday’s webinar, noted that over his 40-year career he was seeing more hurricanes go through extreme, rapid intensification cycles in recent years, compared to years past.

“For all I know we might have four hurricanes in a year, but if 50% of those are becoming Category 3, 4 and 5, then we’ve got a problem because a greater proportion of them are becoming the very dangerous ones,” he said.

The science panel that advises the state Coastal Resources Commission is showing with a new report how the findings of a 2022 federal-level report projecting that sea levels will rise by more than a foot by 2050 apply to North Carolina.

Released in mid-October, the “North Carolina 2024 Sea Level Rise Science Update” is the product of the science panel following the commission’s 2022 charge to present any new or significant data and research on sea level rise projections.

The commission was put in place in 1974 when the North Carolina General Assembly adopted the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA. The 13-member commission designates areas of environmental concern, adopts rules and policies for coastal development within those areas, and certifies local land use plans. The state Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management staff enforces the commission’s rules.

The U.S. Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flood Hazard Scenarios and Tools Interagency Task Force wrote “Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States,” that was published in February 2022 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Among the task force members are scientists from NOAA, NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Defense and Environmental Protection Agency.

“In recent years, confidence regarding the expected amount of sea level rise by 2050 has increased,” the science panel recaps from the 2022 technical report in its October 2024 update. Regardless of how much warming occurs by 2100, trajectories evaluated by the 2022 sea level rise technical report indicate sea level rise of 1 foot to 1.4 feet by 2050, relative to sea level in 2000.

“The actual amount will depend on future greenhouse gas emissions, and how much ice is lost from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets,” the science panel continues in its update. “Projections for sea level rise beyond 2050 are less certain because they depend even more strongly on future greenhouse gas emissions and rate of ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica. However, rates of sea level rise are expected to further increase toward the latter half of this century.”

On the science panel, Dr. Reide Corbett is the dean and executive director of the Integrated Coastal Programs at the Coastal Studies Institute on the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus.

He told Coastal Review that sea level rise projections continue to improve as new data becomes available and as the scientific community gains a better understanding of global processes changing sea level on different spatial and temporal scales. 

The state’s science panel used the best available and most recent data to provide this 2024 Sea Level Rise Update, Corbett continued, adding that “It is critical that our communities are working with the most informed projections as they develop actionable plans for building more resilience across our coast.”

The strongest and most significant message Corbett said he sees coming from the 2024 update and other recent reports is that North Carolina must plan for at least a 1 foot rise in sea level by 2050. There is little deviation in this value whether projecting from tide gauges or using numerical models, Corbett added

“This is a reality that we need to start planning for today,” he said. “A 1 foot rise in sea level will significantly increase the number of days coastal North Carolina will experience high tide flooding. Communities need to start building these challenges into their land use plans, stormwater plans, and communicating the risks to residents.”

Division of Coastal Management Director Tancred Miller explained to Coastal Review that the science panel is defining sea level rise as an increase in the average height of the sea with respect to a specific reference.

Relative sea level is the combination of three primary factors: the global sea level, vertical land movement and oceanographic effects. These parameters are usually discussed in terms of their rates of temporal change, commonly expressed in millimeters per year, he said.

“Along the North Carolina coast, sea level is rising and the rate of rise varies depending on the location. There are two primary reasons for this variation along different parts of our coast: vertical land motion and the effects of ocean dynamics,” Miller continued.

He explained that this recent update emphasizes that tide gauge observations and modeling for all scenarios are nearly the same out to 2050, “indicating we are solidly on track for at least one foot of sea level rise by 2050.”

Miller noted that 2050 is just 25 years from now.

“To prepare for this, requires community involvement, planning, mitigation, and adaptation to start now,” Miller said.

To help better plan for sea level rise, the Coastal Resources Commission charged its science panel in 2022 with providing periodic updates to support what it called “informed planning and decision making.”

The charge includes a request for the science panel to review every year any “new and significant scientific literature and studies that address the range of implications of sea level rise at the State, sub-regional, and local scales.” If there’s enough new information to warrant an update, the panel is to present these findings to the commission.

Miller said for the science panel to follow through with the directive, the team of scientists held a series of meetings earlier this year to share and discuss any recent data related to sea level rise.

“Given that the painstaking work of preparing sea level rise projections based on the latest science has already been carried out” by the task force, the science panel recaps the key messages detailed in the 2022 technical report. The science panel also gives a brief summary of the regional sea level rise projections most relevant to North Carolina, and provides updated sea level rise projections and assessment of high-tide flooding frequencies for Duck, Beaufort and Wilmington, all based on data from the 2022 technical report.

The science panel sent out a draft of the sea level rise science update for comment this spring.

The document underwent a handful of changes based on public feedback, including the addition of a paragraph listing some of the key impacts of sea level rise, and adding the names of the different scenarios in the 2022 technical report — low, intermediate-low, intermediate, intermediate-high, and high — and referred to these throughout for clarity.

“The five sea level rise scenarios span the range of sea level rise that can be expected under the emissions and warming scenarios considered in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report,” or IPCC, the science panel states in its update. The IPCC was created by the United Nations to assess climate change-related science.

“We also added text to explain how these scenarios relate to the emissions pathways and warming scenarios used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report,” the new update continues. And provided more detail on the longer-term scenarios out to 2100.

The science panel did note in its update that, although summarizing the latest science on how these impacts will affect the state “is well beyond the scope of the Sea Level Rise Update Charge to the Science Panel, we refer interested parties to the coastal aspects of the 2020 Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan, and associated or similar documents (and updates), for a more comprehensive discussion of sea level rise impacts, based on the latest science, to facilitate effective adaptation and mitigation planning.”

The first report the science panel, along with six additional contributors, issued was in March 2010 titled “North Carolina Sea Level Rise Assessment Report,” at the direction of the commission. The science panel recommended the report be reassessed every five years.

In April 2012 the panel issued a follow-up addendum to the report in response to questions from the commission.

That report was met with pushback from certain groups, resulting in a June 2012 law that put restrictions on how the sea level data was collated and used by state agencies and local governments.

The panel released an update in 2015 of the 2010 report.

“The next update was scheduled for 2020. However, due to the COVID pandemic, the 2020 update was postponed. In 2022, the CRC issued a revised charge to the science panel,” Miller said.

The division continues to accept public comments on the newly released update. Send comments to DCMcomments@deq.nc.gov. List “2024 Sea Level Rise Science Update” in the subject line.

“Comments regarding the final report simply serve as an opportunity for citizens to provide thoughts on the finished work and will be provided to the panel for review,” Miller said.

Graduate students in good standing who attend one of the North Carolina’s colleges or universities can apply for a $10,000 grant to fund a one-year research project focusing on the state’s coastal and freshwater resources.

North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute and North Carolina Sea Grant are accepting proposals for the Mountains to Sea Graduate Research Fellowship until 5 p.m. Dec. 16. The full request for proposals is available online.

The institute works to address issues related to surface and groundwater resources, including quality and quantity. Sea Grant covers a range of topics including climate resilience, healthy ecosystems, education and workforce development, fisheries, and aquaculture.

Proposals should align with both organization’s strategic plans, coordinators said, and are encouraged to address one or more of the following focus areas:

• Emerging regulated and unregulated contaminants of concern.
• Microplastic pollution and marine debris.
• Aquatic invasive species.
• Harmful algal blooms and associated toxins.
• Climate impacts, including nuisance flooding.
• Erosion and sediment control.
• Surface and groundwater quality and/or quantity.
• Water treatment, including aquaculture effluent.
• Green stormwater infrastructure & nature-based solutions.
• Urban design and recreational management.
• Economics, planning and/or policy related to water resources management.
• Water education.

Water Resources Research Institute is a multi-campus center of the University of North Carolina system and is part of a national network of 54 institutes authorized by the Water Resources Research Act of 1964. The institute represents a federal and state partnership between the US Geological Survey and state land grant universities.

North Carolina Sea Grant, also a UNC system multi-campus program, is one of 33 programs within the National Sea Grant College Program, and represents a federal and state partnership between the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and coastal and great lakes states.

Second part in a series.

While wildfires are almost always the result of human activity, climate change is altering wildfires and how they’re managed.

North Carolina Forest Service Public Information Officer Philip Jackson said that while nearly all wildfires in the state correlate with human activity, climate change is affecting the nature of wildfires different ways.

First, the way precipitation falls is changing and becoming more extreme, Assistant State Climatologist Corey Davis said in an interview. “Instead of rain evenly spread out throughout a season or year, heavier rainfall is happening on fewer days with longer dry spells in between.”

Warming temperatures are an important part, too, and are making dry spells more severe and prone to wildfire activity. This has been especially apparent within the past few years. Last fall and again in June of this year, the state slipped into drought after just a few weeks of hot, dry weather.

“At both times, parts of the state went more than 20 days in a row without a drop of rainfall all while we were dealing with unseasonably warm temperatures — above 100 degrees in some areas earlier this summer,” Davis said. “Just like in your backyard garden, forests and other fire-prone ecosystems dry out in a hurry during times like that, and that brings the threat of wildfires.”

The State Climate Office, based in Raleigh, uses a handful of tools to monitor climate change and its effects, including measuring and archiving weather observations from more than 350 weather stations across the state, almost half of which have at least 30 years of historical observations.

Davis said this helps with understanding not only what current conditions are like, but also how conditions are changing, “and we’re consistently seeing more extremes in all directions.”

Most recently, that has been record rainfall totals in from Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina. Earlier this summer, conditions were extreme heat and dry weather. Davis’ office can use that kind of historical data to add context to those events. He cited Greenville as an example: The Pitt County city saw its longest streak of dry weather — 23 consecutive days without rainfall — since the fall of 2000.

The office is involved with research and partnerships that are helping explore climate change and its impacts, as well.

“Heat-mapping campaigns have shown us how much hotter certain parts of cities can get depending on their land use and land cover. There are applications there for forests, too, since we’ve found at a very micro scale on NC State’s campus, for instance, how bare ground and a lack of tree cover can affect surface temperatures,” he said.

That data, research and those partnerships all came together in the North Carolina Climate Science Report that the state climate office helped compile in 2020.

The report includes some key findings and projections related to wildfires, including a projected 300% or more increase in the number of weeks with the risk of very large fires, or burning more than 5,000 hectares – nearly 12,400 acres – by the middle of this century, compared to the end of the last century.

“And it notes that increases in temperatures and associated drying rates are very likely, with future droughts very likely to be warmer with a higher chance of wildfires,” Davis said.

Temperatures across the state are trending warmer in all four seasons, but it’s especially remarkable how much winters have been warming. According to the Climate Trends Plotter tool, the winter average temperatures in eastern North Carolina have been increasing by 0.5 to 0.75°F per decade over the past 50 years, and by more than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per decade in most areas since the year 2000.

“That’s having the effect of shrinking our winter seasons, and on the shoulders especially in February, we’re seeing more spring-like weather. That’s threatening to begin our spring fire seasons even earlier, and have them last even longer,” Davis said.

“We also see those changes reflected in future projections,” he continued, siting one study that projects a 74% increase in the area burned by lightning-caused wildfires in North Carolina between 2011 and 2060. “That’s a product of both longer fire seasons and warmer temperatures throughout the spring that make fuels more susceptible to burn.”

Other research shows more than a 200% increase in the number of days with suitable conditions for very large wildfires, which burn more than 12,000 acres, along the state’s coastline.

“Historically, these events have been very rare since they require all of those weather ingredients — extreme dryness in place with warm temperatures, low humidity, and high winds — for fires to grow that large in our region. But they’re expected to happen more often in the future,” Davis said.

Prescribed burns and climate change

Jackson explained that prescribed burns benefit forests and wildlife while reducing the risk and impacts of future catastrophic wildfires. The goal for these hazard reduction burns is to reduce the understory shrubs, vines, woody debris, needles and leaves that may be available to burn during unplanned wildfires.

“We will burn it in a planned manner that is of lower intensity, eliminating those fuel sources, helping prevent future wildfires or minimizing impacts from future wildfires. Low intensity prescribed fire also helps manage forestlands where many species require frequent burns to establish and thrive,” Jackson said.

The Forest Service also uses prescribed fire for site preparation purposes, also known as site-prep burns.

“These prescribed burns occur after harvesting to assist with reforestation activities. It allows for planting natural regeneration of tree seedlings, it’s less invasive and damaging than mechanical site preparation and is sometimes conducted as a pre-treatment to tree planting,” Jackson said.

Davis said that there’s been a lot of success with prescribed burns in North Carolina, and even though there’s still wildfires, those events are typically more manageable and less severe because of proactive prescribed burning practices, “But it’s already getting tougher to find windows to do this burning, and that problem is expected to become even worse in the future,” for a few reasons.

One, North Carolina is a fast-growing, fast-developing state, and we’ve got more acreage classified as wildland-urban interface than any state in the country, Davis explained.

“That means when we want to do burns in these natural areas, it’s more likely that people will notice it, so land and fire managers have to be very careful about burning when the wind direction is just right and making sure burns don’t linger overnight, when smoke can get trapped near the ground,” Davis said. “But climate change is also affecting our ability to burn. We’re getting fewer of those Goldilocks days when it’s not too wet or not too dry to have a successful burn, and the rapid changes from wet to dry patterns are making it tough to anticipate those periods.”

Historically, the most common times for burning in the spring and summer are becoming less suitable for burning as conditions then are hotter and drier, Davis said.

He explained that a study of the Southeastern United States looked at the suitability of prescribed burning based on projected weather conditions, and it found a sharp decrease in the number of suitable days in the transition seasons, or spring and fall, with the summer expected to become almost entirely unsuitable for burning by the end of the century.

“That’s largely driven by the warming temperatures, which makes the atmosphere less stable, the vertical transmission of heat and dispersion of smoke less predictable, and fuels drier so that they burn hotter and flames spread more quickly,” Davis said. “That’s all adding up to a big concern that we’ll see more frequent and more severe wildfires, with fewer opportunities to manage our forests in North Carolina to help avoid those events.”

Jackson said that the Forest Service predetermines weather and fuel parameters needed in order to safely execute a prescribed burn operation.

“If the weather doesn’t produce the ideal conditions that we need to safely carry out a burn, we simply won’t do it,” Jackson said, explaining that he has driven two hours to Stokes County, geared up in full personal protective equipment along with a dozen other personnel to conduct a prescribed burn, “only to cancel it before ever lighting a torch and putting fire on the ground. The weather either gives us what we need to carry out a burn safely, or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, we simply live to fight another day.”

First of two parts

As the fall wildfire season begins in North Carolina, the lead agency that responds to these uncontrolled fires in natural areas encourages residents be vigilant while burning outside.

“I’d like to remind folks about the importance of exercising caution with all outdoor fires, especially yard debris burns,” North Carolina Forest Service Division Public Information Officer Philip Jackson told Coastal Review.

Human activity causes 99% of North Carolina’s wildfires. Of that 99%, nearly half are caused by careless debris burning and escaped yard debris burns, which is the leading cause of wildfires across the state each year, Jackson said. The other 1% of uncontrolled fires are caused by natural ignition such as lightning.

“Fire activity has remained low over the last few weeks due to tropical storms and other rain events. However, as is the case most year’s during the month of October, we expect October to dry out some over the coming weeks, increasing fire activity,” Jackson said Wednesday.

Assistant State Climatologist Corey Davis told Coastal Review that there are three main components that each make for ideal wildfire conditions in eastern North Carolina: the time of year, the weather, and the ecosystem.

From late February through mid-April, grasses and other vegetation are coming out of their winter dormancy. Before the vegetation becomes fully green, they’re still pretty dry and flammable.

Deciduous trees are budding during this time, as well. But again, before the leaves have fully emerged, the leaves and trucks are fairly flammable. Without those leaves, they don’t offer as much shade for the vegetation beneath them, which helps it dry out even more, Davis explained.

These circumstances lead to the weather component.

“Warm and sunny days during the spring can cause environmental conditions to dry out more quickly, and as we receive more direct sunlight throughout the season, that can also cause fast-drying conditions in our forest fuels, which includes that not-yet-green vegetation and any dead woody material or litter covering the ground,” Davis said.

In addition to having those summer-like characteristics such as hot days with lots of sunshine, the spring is ultimately a transition season, and one feature of the winter climate that can carry over into the spring is lower relative humidity. “When we get one of those less humid air masses in place during the spring, especially after a warm period, then those dry fuels can be especially crispy and ready to burn,” Davis explained.

Last, there are a few different types of ecosystems in eastern North Carolina where we typically expect to see wildfires. Much of the southern and central coastal plain was once covered by native wiregrass pine savannas, where fires are a natural and common feature, happening every two to five years.

At low intensity, these fires are beneficial since they clear out competing vegetation and thin out the canopy so that native species like Carolina wiregrass and longleaf pines can thrive.

“Over the past century or so, the prevalence of these longleaf pine ecosystems has drastically declined across the region, Davis explained. This is because the trees were cut down initially for timber and naval stores such as tar, pitch, and turpentine, and more recently because of conversion to agricultural lands and other development.

“Where we do still have wiregrass ecosystems, the longleaf pines have been replaced by less fire-tolerant species such as loblolly, so fires may not be as effective. Historical fire suppression in these areas means that more fuels have built up within them, so when they burn now, it tends to be at higher intensity, which is both less beneficial and more likely to become difficult to control or contain,” Davis said.

The other major fire-prone ecosystems in eastern North Carolina are the pocosins near the coastline in places like the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Hyde, Tyrrell and Washington counties.

“These are fairly low-lying areas where the water table is usually very high, often submerging the soils and creating a peat swamp sort of environment. But during times of drought, the water table drops and that highly organic soil dries out, which makes it very easy to burn,” Davis said.

These types of wildfires are tough to contain because of how remote and inaccessible many of these locations are, and because the fire can burn into the ground and consume the soil itself.

“There’s no easy way to extinguish them except for flooding the soil with as much water as possible or waiting for help from the rain so the water table rises again. Until that happens, these fires can burn and smolder for weeks or months, all while releasing lots of smoke that can be carried by the winds to different corners of the state,” Davis said.

“For those reasons, these pocosin areas have historically seen our state’s largest wildfires, and continue to be an area of concern any time there’s a springtime dry spell,” such as the April 2023 fire in the Croatan National Forest.

“Putting all of that together, the perfect conditions for wildfires in eastern North Carolina would be in late March or early April following a month or so of unseasonably warm and dry weather.”

Davis continued that with vegetation either dormant, dead or not green just yet, the environment would be highly flammable.

“The spark for fires could come from human activity like debris burns, or on a larger scale from lightning strikes along a strong cold frontal passage. Behind that front, a dry and less humid air mass would move in, and gusty winds would spread any newly ignited fires quickly across the landscape,” he said.

By late September, “these same trends from the spring happen again, but in reverse. Our temperatures can remain relatively warm well into October, and once trees drop their leaves, they ramp up the fuel loading at the surface,” according to the climate office.

So far in 2024, the Forest Service has responded to more than 3,500 wildfires for roughly 13,000 acres, Jackson with the Forest Service said.

The 2023 fall wildfire season was extremely active with nearly 2,000 wildfires statewide, more than 1,200 of which burned in November 2023 alone, Jackson said. “That was during our traditional fall wildfire season where fire risk is elevated, but we had also experienced prolonged drought conditions for much of the fall last year.”

“This is consistent and on pace with what we typically see each year. We usually experience between 4,500 and 5,500 wildfires annually. Frequency and duration are heavily influenced by weather conditions and time of year,” Jackson said, adding that over the last two months, “we’ve seen 119 wildfires for less than 50 acres. That’s considered to be rather quiet in terms of new wildfire starts and minimal acreage, largely due to the amount of rain our state has received recently.”

Jackson said that there’s a common misconception that wildfires are only an issue in the Western United States.

“The American South experiences more wildfires each year than any other region in the U.S.,” Jackson said. “While wildfires in the Western U.S. tend to be more severe while consuming larger chunks of acreage, wildfires in the Southeast U.S. are becoming more common.”

North Carolina had the third most wildfires nationally in 2022, behind only Texas and California. That same year, Texas, California, North Carolina, Georgia and Oklahoma accounted for nearly half of the total wildfires in the U.S.

The wildland-urban interface a big reason why. The wildland-urban interface, or WUI, is where development meets forestland. Three of the top four states with the most homes in the wildland urban interface are states located in the South, with North Carolina in the lead.

“North Carolina remains the leading state in the U.S. relative to number of acres in the wildland urban interface. As North Carolina’s population continues to grow, we’ll likely see more people living and recreating in the wildland urban interface,” Jackson said. 

With almost all wildfires in the state correlating with human activity, as the population increases, more people living and recreating in the wildland urban interface, potentially resulting in an increase in the number of wildfires our state experiences.

Statewide, between 2010 and 2020, 41,551 wildfires burned 399,125 acres, and from 1990 to 2010, North Carolina saw an increase of 3,005,048 acres in the wildland-urban interface.

“North Carolina’s WUI Risk Index estimates 2.3 million acres are at risk for moderate to major impacts from wildfires to people and their homes,” Jackson said.

There is a grippingly real sense of dread that some people feel about the state of the environment.

That’s what Dr. Paul Taillie, assistant professor of geography and the environment at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, told an audience last week during the most recent “Science on the Sound” monthly lecture series hosted by Coastal Studies Institute at the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus.

“This is a documented term called ‘climate anxiety,’ where this state of the Earth these days is causing people to be anxious,” he said. “It’s hard to avoid these dramatic, very worrisome headlines about super hurricanes and death and destruction, historic flooding. This feeling of anxiety is valid (and) I think it’s very justified.”

He delivered his talk, “Coastal Ecosystems and Rising Seas: Impending Collapse or Conservation Opportunity?” Thursday evening, one day before Hurricane Helene brought unheard of rainfall and destruction to Western North Carolina.

Taillie acknowledged that while there is reason for concern about the environment, he does not share the full-on anxiety others may experience. “I tend to be very optimistic about things.”

There were reasons for his optimism, he explained, adding he hoped attendees left the evening’s discussion with “more of a sense of optimism about climate change and biodiversity than when you came in the room.”

Taillie pointed out that all systems evolve and change over time and that the plants and animals living in those systems adjust to the changes and have been “for a really long time, hundreds of thousands of years.”

Questions remain about the impact of environmental change on certain species, especially those that are threatened by the changes that are taking place.

Taillie said that when he began his graduate studies, he wanted to look at how species, in general, reacted to environmental changes. One of the difficulties he found in wanting to study the possible benefits of those changes was the reluctance to focus on possible benefits.

“It’s easier to publish a paper about a species going extinct because of climate change than it is to publish a paper about a species benefiting from climate change,” he said. “But that’s been kind of a driving force behind my research.”

Taillie’s first graduate work was to investigate the effects of wildfire on plants and animals, and what he found was that wildfire is, in fact, an important part of the ecosystem.

“I started to notice that there’s all these plants and animals that are uniquely adapted to the conditions created by fire, and that these disturbances that we think of as being really bad can often be really good for biodiversity,” he said.

When he started his doctoral work, he had the chance to study the 2016 Pains Bay Fire in Dare County that burned 15,000 acres in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

“I was super interested to see what happened to this area. As soon as I was allowed to, I went in there,” Taillie continued, showing the audience a picture of burned trees and shrubbery. Just a week later, grass had begun growing among the charred trees.

“These grasses (are) palladium or sawgrass. This is exploding,” he said. “It’s growing superfast and responding to fire very rapidly.”

A year later, he found what was once a forest was completely covered in grasses and fast-growing vegetation.

“This is almost unrecognizable as forest,” Taillie continued. “That fire is catalyzing this transition from forest to marsh.”

Taillie made the point that the grasses that have grown where there was once dense forest are essential for the survival of a number of species.

“These marshes support a lot of really unique animals that hide in these dense grasses,” he explained. “Many birds and small mammals are running around in there. They’re super vulnerable to predation, and so they need this dense grass in order to hide from predators.”

Fire is a relatively spectacular environmental change. The changes that occur in a marsh are more subtle but every bit as dynamic.

“Marshes,” he said, “have these built-in mechanisms of resilience to changes in sea level.”

As sea levels rise, the marsh will often migrate landward, replacing terrestrial systems, especially forest. That movement is apparent in ghost forests, where stands of dead trees immediately adjacent to a live forest.

State and federal agencies, including the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, are concerned about these ghost forests. “These were proliferating all over Dare and Hyde counties.”

Taillie continued that he realized while he studied what was happening that “the ghost forest represented a transition from one stage of this transition from forest to marsh. This is not something to stop.”

Bird surveys that were taken of the living forest and ghost forest showed that the ghost forests are an important part of species survival and adaptation.

“We started to notice that there were lots of interesting birds hanging out in the ghost forests, much different than in the live forest. One of those is a prothonotary warbler,” he said.

A highly migratory species, the prothonotary warbler is described by the Cornell University All About Birds website as “a species of high conservation concern.”

The birds prefer nesting sites in standing dead trees over shallow water, a condition that Taillie described as “the exact sort of conditions that you find in those forests.”

He said his work has taken him from the marsh and barrier islands of coastal North Carolina to the Florida Keys, where he has been studying the ability of a subspecies of marsh rice rats to adapt and survive in their environment.

“Everyone always wants to know, well, if all the Keys were underwater, where did they go? I don’t know,” he said and pointed out that, “They have dealt with hurricanes for a very long time.”

There are, he pointed out, a number of similarities between North Carolina’s barrier islands and the Florida Keys. Both are subject, as an example, to periodic flooding, and it was the flooding that brought the silver rice rat to Taillie’s attention in 2017.

At the time, he was working with the Fish and Wildlife Service following Hurricane Irma. The agency was concerned that because of storm surge, “this entire endangered species could be no longer in existence.”

It quickly became apparent that the silver rice rat population was holding its own, even though the storm surge of 2 to 3 feet should have inundated the Keys where the rats lived.

How they survived is a mystery, Taillie said.

A six-part documentary series that explores extreme weather in vulnerable communities is scheduled to debut Wednesday on PBS.

“Weathered: Earth’s Extremes” features 30-minute episodes that follow host and science communicator Maiya May as she looks into the impacts of climate change and meets with the people inside communities on the frontline of extreme weather.

May previously developed weather content for an ABC affiliate in Atlanta, the University of Missouri, and four small-scale documentary projects exploring climate.

“In 2015, when I decided to pivot away from pursuing a career as an on-air meteorologist, I made it my mission to create thought-provoking content that strengthens knowledge, appreciation, and connection to our natural world,” May said in a release. “Climate change is complex and, for some, may feel like a problem for future generations, or geographic regions other than their own. Weathered: Earth’s Extremes breaks down these concepts and shows viewers how their lives might be affected, all while offering hope and real, tangible solutions. I’m so proud and blessed to be able to communicate the science behind this increasingly important matter, and I can’t wait for audiences to see it.”

May studied geography and atmospheric science at the University of Missouri-Columbia and interned for television stations in Missouri, Atlanta and at The Weather Channel. May grew up in Lithonia, Georgia, where she graduated from Arabia Mountain High School Academy of Engineering, Medicine and Environmental Studies.

An evolution of the PBS Digital Studios YouTube series with the same name, which has amassed more than 30 million views on PBS Terra since 2020, the series aims to help audiences understand the big-picture shifts in weather mechanisms brought on by climate change while empowering them to plan, prepare, and offset the impact of these events.

 “The series’ central mission – using weather to draw viewers into deep conversations about climate science – has enabled us to connect with a broad audience across ideologies, ages, and backgrounds online,” Adam Dylewski, Senior Director of Multiplatform Programming at PBS, said. “This is also the first time a PBS Digital Studios show on YouTube has made the leap to a long-form series. With Weathered, it’s exciting to see how a new generation of PBS talent and creators are coming from YouTube and social media and bringing innovative storytelling approaches and a fresh new sensibility with them.”

In the first episode, “Are We at The Tipping Point?,” May embarks on a journey from Florida to Alaska to explore climate tipping points.

Episode 2, “Adapt or Leave?,” has May visiting Louisiana, one of the first communities in the country to undergo a federally funded relocation due to climate change.

May explores in Episode 3, “The Heat is On,” the most deadly kind of weather, heat, in an unlikely place: Portland, Oregon.

In Episode 4, titled “Water Whiplash,” May explores the growing extremes of droughts and floods and their impact on food and water.

Episode 5, “Not ‘Business As Usual,” May travels to see how climate systems are predicted and analyzed and the global energy transition to renewables.

The sixth and final in the series, “Climate Crossroads,” shows when May returns to Florida to explore the impacts of climate change on ocean currents.

“Weathered: Earth’s Extremes” will be available to stream starting Wednesday on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS app, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO. The series will also be available on PBS YouTube channels including PBS Terra and PBS stations. Check local listings.

WANCHESE — Dr. Pail Taillie, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environment, is the featured speaker for the next “Science on the Sound” Lecture Series at the Coastal Studies Institute on the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus.

The monthly, in-person lecture series brings perspectives from all over the state and highlights coastal topics in northeastern North Carolina. This month, Taillie is to present his lecture, “Coastal Ecosystems and Rising Seas: Impending Collapse or Conservation Opportunity?” at 6 p.m. Sept. 26.

The program being offered at no charge to the public is taking place on campus, 850 N.C. Highway 345, Wanchese.

“The negative consequences of climate change seem to be everywhere, making it hard to be optimistic about the future,” campus officials said in the announcement. “For anyone suffering from climate anxiety, this lecture promises some relief. Dr. Taillie will discuss the many ways that coastal ecosystems are highly resilient and capable of adapting to increasingly rapid changes in sea level. From simply counting birds with pen and paper to remote cameras and telemetry tags, he uses a variety of different techniques and tools to better understand how coastal plants and animals are responding to rising sea levels and how these responses can be used to help inform how we manage our coasts. He’ll conclude by arguing that this resilience represents a unique conservation opportunity where the impacts of climate change don’t have to be so depressing.”

Taillie earned both a master’s and doctorate in fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology from North Carolina State University. Following graduate school, he worked at the University of Florida as a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. His research and teaching broadly aim to address the implications of global change for biodiversity conservation, with a particular emphasis on wetlands, estuaries, and coasts.

The program will also be livestreamed on YouTube.

DUCK — For a few days this summer, three split-hull barges chugged south from Norfolk, Virginia, to deposit 6,500 cubic yards of olivine sand mined in Norway at a nearshore area of this small oceanfront town on the northern Outer Banks.

But with completion of the barge’s work in July, there’s no visible evidence that the trademarked Coastal Carbon Capture pilot research project is underway. The Vesta company project is to test whether olivine sand could permanently remove tons of carbon from the atmosphere and the ocean.

“So, I think ultimately, at the end of the day, it was a successful deployment in the sense that we’re set up for monitoring this project and getting the scientific results out of it,” Zach Cockrum, vice president of policy and partnerships with Vesta, told Coastal Review this week.

As the company’s website tells it, it’s taken decades of collaborative research to get to the point where data can be collected to support Vesta’s belief that plentiful and natural olivine could, if not outright save the planet, at least mitigate the problem.

“We could reverse climate change,” the company says on its website.

Vesta, which is permitted under the federal Clean Water Act and the state Coastal Area Management Act, has contracted with Hourglass Climate, a U.S-based nonprofit research organization, to monitor the site for two to three years. The site is a 300-foot-by-2,200-foot corridor situated 1,500 feet offshore of Duck’s beach in 25 feet of water.

Olivine, which has a light green tint, is a common magnesium silicate mineral similar to the quartz in Outer Banks sand. When it dissolves in seawater, it has the unique ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere and reduce acidity in the ocean.

Although olivine is not uncommon — there’s plenty in western North Carolina, for instance — Vesta’s coastal research is novel, including its two earlier projects testing olivine as part of shoreline replenishment and in a small area of marsh.

“But these pilot projects, using olivine in these coastal settings like this, is something that Vesta alone is doing, as far as we know, in the world,” Cockrum said.

According to company estimates, the Coastal Carbon Capture pilot project could remove at least 5,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the ocean and atmosphere. 

Eventually, the goal is that olivine, milled down to compatible grain size, could be integrated into beach nourishment projects, making the projects more affordable while helping to reduce carbon pollution. The olivine does lose its carbon removal ability over time, but further research is needed to determine how often it may need to be replenished.

As an alkaline material, olivine reacts with the carbonic acid, which contains carbon dioxide, as it weathers in the seawater. In the process, the acid is converted to bicarbonate, which provides long-term carbon storage.

Hourglass has a service agreement with the nearby Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center Field Research Facility, known locally as the Duck Pier, to use their equipment, vessels and amphibious vehicles at the site, Cockrum said.

“And then the researchers at the Army Corps are also looking at the sediment transport, how the olivine is moving in that ecosystem,” he added. “And that’s something that they’re interested in, outside of the carbon removal aspect of it, because olivine is a traceable mineral, so it’s helping them understand the dynamics of that coastal system.”

Hourglass is using “benthic flux chambers” that are placed on top of the sand for about a week to take consistent measurements of water over the sediment, Cockrum explained. There will also be sampling to look at benthic organisms in and around the olivine, as well as the surrounding ecosystem, and the carbon removal will be measured.

Since olivine is a natural mineral found on numerous locations, the issue is not its inherent safety; it’s what its impact would be to an ecosystem, as well as its carbon-removal ability, where it is not naturally occurring — hence, the testing at Duck. But not all olivine deposits react the same.

For instance, Papakolea Beach in Hawaii is notably green from its high olivine content. But it’s a different scenario, scientifically.

“I think the data on the naturally occurring beaches is complicated because of differences in grain size,” Cockrum said. “Like this gets way into the weeds of finer grain olivine dissolves more quickly, and therefore releases or captures carbon more efficiently. So, there are differences between the sort of existing beaches that are out there and what we’re hoping to do in these different settings. This is another thing that we’re looking at paying close attention to when I talk about how efficient is carbon removal.”

Part of the funding for research has been provided from the Coastal Carbon Capture Development Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. The project monitoring is also being supported by University of North Carolina Greensboro, UNC Wilmington, and the Coastal Studies Institute at East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus. 

Vesta is promising to share monitoring results publicly, including with regulatory agencies, and will be published in peer-reviewed journals.

Vesta’s monitoring partners are already starting to get some data back, Cockrum said.

“We’re in the process of basically analyzing that data and figuring out the best way to share it,” he said.

One of the most important goals of the pilot project is for data to establish how much carbon is being removed, and how quickly. And if it’s as the researchers are hoping to see, olivine could be elevated from its modest mineral status to a savior of the planet. Or at least a natural helper. 

“So, we go from here to really honing in on what is the coastal protection benefit,” he said. “Just in general, the coastal protection industry, whether it’s the Corps or any number of communities, they’re all looking for different sediment sources. And so, our hope is that we can be an affordable source of sand for any number of coastal protection projects.”

SUPPLY – Tens of thousands of acres of wetlands and hundreds of acres of salt marshes will be restored and protected in the state with funding from a multimillion-dollar federal grant recently awarded to a coalition of states, including North Carolina.

The $421 million Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, will also result in the addition of 3,000 acres to North Carolina’s state parks system, reforestation of 55,000 acres, the initiation of an urban tree planting program, and “so much more,” Gov. Roy Cooper said.

Against the backdrop and under the canopy of towering longleaf pines rising from sandy peat soil and wiregrass covering the forest bed of the Green Swamp Preserve in Brunswick County, Cooper, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel, and others on a balmy Tuesday afternoon touted how the funding will be used to reduce carbon emissions, boost the economy, and help communities become more resilient to natural hazards.

Related: EPA awards $421 million to multistate-nonprofit coalition

“You think about what this money will do — fight climate change to protect communities from flooding, put money in the pockets of North Carolina families to boost our tourism industry,” Cooper said. “We know that nature itself can play a significant role in carbon reduction. Renewable energy and the power sector and (electric vehicles) on the road get most of the headlines and attention when we’re talking about carbon reduction and it’s important for us to keep doing those things. But, it’s estimated that this grant will have the equivalent carbon reduction of taking six million gas powered cars off the road.”

The EPA announced last week that the Atlantic Conservation Coalition, which includes North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and The Nature Conservancy, are to receive the funds that will be used to work in conjunction with nonprofit organizations for conservation and restoration projects.

In all, there are 21 proposed projects that are estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 28 million metric tons by 2050.

“The peatlands here in the Green Swamp Preserve have existed for millennia, remaining natural and undrained the way a peatland is supposed to be,” Regan said. “Peatlands like this cover around one-third of the Earth’s surface and store twice as much carbon as all of the world’s forests. Because these swamps contain vast amounts of carbon, when they’re drained or burned, they release huge quantities of climate pollution and can no longer serve as natural buffers for flooding and wildfires, not only threatening biological diversity and ecological health, but also threatening the health of the surrounding community.”

The Biden administration has made the largest investment ever to tackle climate change, he said, including initiating what he referred to as the most innovative and exciting programs – the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program.

The program aims to help implement community-driven solutions to reduce air pollution, advance environmental justice and help accelerate the country’s transition to clean energy.

North Carolina’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources applied for the grant in April as part of the multi-state coalition, one that is “focused on the protection and restoration of over 200,000 acres of coastal habitat, forest and farmland,” Regan said.

Department of Cultural and Natural Resources Secretary Reid Wilson focused on two major benefits of the grant, the first of which is conserving and restoring degraded streams, forests and wetlands that will pull carbon out of the sky and reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the air.

“And then, second, these preserved and restored natural lands and waterways will make our state more resilient to the increasingly frequent and intense storms and other devastating effects from climate change,” he said. “Our department is really excited about this.”

Regan later said that all four states have signed a memorandum of agreement, well before the deadline set by the EPA.

Congressman Nickels called the grant an “incredible investment.”

“By making these important investments we’re ensuring a sustainable future, not only for our environment, but for our economy as well,” he said. “It’s essential that we maintain this for generations to come.”

It’s not uncommon for Dr. Jim Herstine to hear his name enthusiastically called out when he’s out and about in Wilmington.

Admittedly, he doesn’t always immediately recognize the smiling face greeting him in a parking lot or grocery store. By his estimates he taught some 300 students in a class that he and a couple of colleagues came up with to offer at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in the mid-1990s.

But his former students who took the North Carolina coastal issues and experience class, now more than 20 years strong and counting, remember the course that took them from the classroom on a trip through the Outer Banks.

“It was my favorite class to teach,” said Herstine, who earned the title professor emeritus when he retired in the summer of 2018. “The whole purpose of the class was to get the students out of the classroom and into real-life situations.”

He’s “tickled to death” the course continues to leave an impression on students willing to brave the seven-night, eight-day field portion of the class that entails camping, kayaking and covering miles and miles of coastal areas to learn about and experience the Outer Banks and the issues communities within the region are facing, be it climate change, tourism-related impacts or development.

Today, UNCW students may take this unique course during the university’s first summer session, which ran from May 20 through June 18 and was, this year, opened to undergraduate students by Dr. Jennifer Biddle, an associate professor of public and internal affairs who inherited the course from Herstine.

Biddle explained in a telephone interview earlier this month that the ultimate goal of the field course is to bridge the gap between science and policy by exploring an area filled with beautiful beaches, “but they have a lot of serious threats that they are being faced with.”

“The idea is we really are trying to help (students) understand the variety of perspectives on these coastal issues,” Biddle said.

Think of it as a guide to get students to appreciate and empower them in how they can help affecting change where they live.

Students learn about how different organizations are coping with threats facing these coastal communities, why it’s important to protect those areas and how they, in their future professions, can work with various organizations and groups in helping coastal communities deal with these issues.

It’s an ultimate field trip that takes the students through an immersive experience from the Virginia border to Carteret County, stopping along the way to kayak along freshwater rivers and coastal sounds and meet with an array of professionals, from federal and local government officials to coastal environmentalists to ferry captains.

They camp primarily in state parks and on national seashores, more often than not washing off the day’s grime in cold showers at primitive campgrounds.

But what they lack in modern-day comforts, they gain from the sound of a chorus of frogs at night, marveling at a stingray swimming gracefully near their kayaks and good conversation about the day’s highlights over a communal dinner, Biddle said.

“You have the whole tourism economy meets sea level rise,” she said. “Or, even in Hyde County, the loss of economic opportunities meets sea level rise. And, one of the prevailing things in the Down East area is sense of loss.”

That includes a loss of community, loss of lifestyle and livelihoods and loss the community has experienced as members of families who have been here for generations move away, she said.

This year’s class of 15 students, including five undergraduate students and 10 graduate students, represented an array of studies: oceanography, political science, public administration, environmental sciences, biology, public policy and the university’s Master of Coastal and Ocean Policy degree program.

“I definitely came back tired. I definitely came back dirty, but it was a fantastic opportunity because I came back with so many different perspectives,” said UNCW Assistant Director of Transfer Admissions and graduate student Trey Ricks. “I think one of the things that I walked away with that has been most impactful is that you have to work with the environment and people to make any kind of change.”

Fulbright Scholar and UNCW graduate student Elisapeti Veikoso saw some parallels between the issues Outer Banks communities are facing and those of her native Tonga.

“I have to say that this course was an eye-opener for me in how developed countries try to deal with coastal issues and the big issues that we’re facing nowadays – climate change, sea level risk and frequent tropical cyclones, I think you call them hurricanes,” she said. “I got the same feeling that we have at home. We’re not alone in dealing with climate issues. As an islander, that is our story as well. This class is really an eye-opener.”

That’s what the professors – current and past – aim to provide through the course.

“It took a lot of people to put the whole class together,” Herstine said. “Do I think that the class itself is a legacy for the university? Yes, I definitely do.”

Chris Herndon of Cary is the new director of the North Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club.

The Raleigh-based nonprofit organization, which advocates for a clean, healthy environment and the well-being of all who live in it, made the announcement Wednesday.

Herndon, who has spent most of the past 12 years in executive leadership roles with the United Way, comes most recently from United Way of the Greater Triangle, where he was CEO. He also served as interim executive director of WakeUP Wake County.

Previously, he was chief marketing and engagement officer at United Way of Central Indiana in Indianapolis, and served on the United Way Worldwide Marketing Leadership Council.

The NC Sierra Club said Herndon, who moved to North Carolina in 2019, was a respected nonprofit leader in the Triangle.

“The work of the N.C. Chapter is more crucial than ever as climate change increasingly threatens our environment and communities. Our children and grandchildren’s futures depend on how effectively we meet this challenge,” Herndon said in a statement. “I’m eager to help protect marginalized communities from polluters in rural and urban areas, safeguard biodiversity and public lands, celebrate our connection to the natural world, and elect and hold accountable leaders at all levels of government who share these values.”

Herndon’s responsibilities include guiding staff and volunteers and working with Sierra Club national staff working in the state and region on environmental policies, priorities, and objectives set by the chapter’s elected volunteer leadership.

“The Executive Committee is glad to put our trust in Chris to steward this organization into its next era in collaboration with our volunteer leaders and staff,” Chapter Chair Katie Tomberlin said in the announcement. “The Sierra Club’s work is more essential than ever, and we’re happy to have a proven leader to bring new energy, ideas and commitment to our mission.”

Prior to beginning his nonprofit career, Herndon spent 16 years as a sports executive in Indianapolis.

Herndon currently chairs Cary’s Greenway Committee, is a member of the Cary Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources Advisory Board and a member of the Dix Park Community Committee. He also serves as a board member for WakeUP Wake County.

“I couldn’t be more excited to serve the North Carolina community I love in this way,” Herndon said. “I’m especially eager to amplify the power of the N.C. Sierra Club’s passionate members to defend everyone’s right to a healthy world.”

The national Sierra Club, now more than 125 years old, works to “defend everyone’s right to a healthy world,” according to its website.

In the weeks before this year’s hurricane season began, weather and safety officials worked to spread the same message: Because it only takes one storm to impact a community, prepare now.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center Director Dr. Michael Brennan said Friday that “we’re on the precipice of what looks to be a very active 2024 hurricane season,” which began Saturday and ends Nov. 30.

This is the most active seasonal forecast that NOAA has ever issued in May, with the forecast looking to be busy with 17 to 25 named storms and eight to 13 hurricanes, of which four to seven are expected to become major hurricanes, Brennan said during a press conference at the Miami, Florida-based center.

There’s a “very high chance of a very active hurricane season,” but the main message “is preparation has to be the same every year, regardless of what any seasonal forecast says. It only takes one storm affecting you and your community to make it a busy hurricane season,” Brennan continued.

Brian Haines with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety told Coastal Review that while the Climate Prediction Center calls for an 85% chance of an above normal season, “history has taught us that it only takes one storm to impact our state, which is why we encourage all North Carolinians to be resilient and prepare for any natural or manmade disaster.”

National Weather Service Warning Coordination Meteorologist Erik Heden with the Newport/Morehead City office shared a similar message. “It takes just one storm to make an impact on our life,” Heden said.

Assistant State Climatologist Corey Davis, speaking during a recent webinar about this year’s hurricane season forecast, said much the same.  

“An active hurricane season does not necessarily mean it’ll be an impactful one locally, but by the same token, it only takes one storm in your area to make it a very impactful and a very memorable season,” Davis said.

Tropical storms, hurricanes threats

Heden said Friday to “never, ever focus on just the category of the storm,” referring to the Saffir-Simpson Scale that measures only hurricane wind speeds, which determine a storm’s category, 1-5.

“The category tells us only the strength of the storm based on wind alone. It says nothing about how much rain we will see, what the storm surge will be, how long the storm will sit over us, whether or not it is a large or slow-moving storm,” Heden said. Adding, that Irene in 2011 and Florence in 2018 were Category 1 storms. “The category of the storm is part of the puzzle, not the whole puzzle.”

Brennan emphasized Friday during the press conference that it doesn’t take a major hurricane making landfall for there to be major impacts.

“Rainfall flooding has been the deadliest hazard in tropical storms and hurricanes in the United States over the last 10 years. It’s been responsible for more than half of the fatalities. The rainfall flooding is almost entirely unrelated to the strength of a storm,” Brennan said.

“It doesn’t matter what category it is, whether it’s a tropical depression, tropical storm or hurricane, all that matters is how long it rains and how hard it rains in a given location for a given amount of time, and again, that rainfall flooding has been the biggest killer,” Brennan added.

It’s water hazards in general have officials most concerned.

“The combination of rainfall flooding storm surge and surf and rip currents are responsible for about 85 to 90% of the fatalities we see in tropical storms and hurricanes across the United States,” Brennan said.

He called surf and rip currents “an underappreciated hazard” in tropical storms and hurricanes. These have killed more people than storm surge over the last 10 years in the United States, especially along East Coast-facing beaches like Florida, North Carolina and New Jersey. “They’re susceptible to dangerous ocean conditions that are spawned by hurricanes that might be hundreds of miles away.”

Post-storm safety is another increasing point of emphasis, Brennan said.

“We’ve lost almost as many people after tropical storms and hurricanes in this country in the last 10 years as we’ve lost from the direct forces of the storm itself,” he said. Indirect fatalities are those occurring from accidents, power issues, cardiac arrest, improper generator use, heat exhaustion and lack of medical access that are connected to storms.

To help communicate the hazards associated with hurricanes and storms, Brennan said that the National Hurricane Center is disseminating Spanish language products translated by artificial intelligence programs to reach those whose primary language is Spanish.

“The other thing we’re doing is rolling out an experimental version of the cone graphic by mid-August that’s going to show the inland extent of the tropical storm and hurricane watches and warnings,” Brennan said.

How, why preparing is critical

Knowing your risk is the first step to prepare for a hurricane, Brennan said Friday.

“Know if you live in a storm surge evacuation zone — that forms the foundation of your entire hurricane preparedness plan,” Brennan said. You may be asked to evacuate your home by emergency management or government officials and “you need to know where you’re going to go, how you’re going to get there, what you’re taking with you.”

And remember that in many cases, you only need to evacuate tens of miles, not hundreds of miles, to get to a safe place.

“Preparation is key. If you’re going to shelter in place for a storm, you want to have your emergency kit in place,” Brennan said, and you should start collecting now multiple days’ worth of nonperishable food, water, medicine, batteries — “anything you’re going to need to survive the aftermath of a major hurricane landfall” — taking into account that there may be power outages for days, with no access to medical or emergency services.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Deputy Administrator Erik A. Hooks said Friday during the press conference that officials were “getting down to the wire” when it comes to making sure communities are prepared.

“The time to make sure that you have a clear understanding of your unique risk is now,” said Hooks.

Things you should prepare for and take into account to be risk ready include the following:

• Do you have medication that requires refrigeration?
• Do you have a medical device that runs off electricity?
• Do you have mobility challenges that make it more difficult to evacuate in a time?
• When was the last insurance checkup, including flood insurance?

“Now is the time to ask yourselves these questions, understand your particular risk for you and your community, and put a plan together so that you are prepared when disaster strikes,” Hooks said. “Start getting risk-ready now.”

Heden said that while peak hurricane season isn’t until Sept. 10, eastern North Carolina has had storms in June and July.

“You should prepare each and every year for hurricane season, and please don’t wait,” Heden said. Preparedness is a three-step process, he said.

The first step is to know your risk, and “Vulnerability extends beyond weather risk,” Heden said. “Who lives in your home? Do you have young kids, elderly parents? Does somebody in your home rely on power for oxygen? Your vulnerability will help you determine the next two steps.”

The second step is to have a hurricane kit with at least three to seven days’ worth of food, water and medicine.

If you choose to stay during a storm, you may not be able to get out or first responders may not be able reach you.

“Life won’t be normal right away,” and you may be without help for at least three days, or longer, Heden said, also suggesting purchasing  items here and there to buffer the financial strain of preparing.

And the third step is to have an evacuation plan with at least two places to go, Heden explained.

“I like to have a northern and southern option. You want to go away from the storm’s path. Don’t just plan to go to Goldsboro or Raleigh. Sometimes impacts occur well inland,” he said. “Make sure your plan includes your pets and anybody in your house. Your last resort is a shelter. Those are stressful and packed. You will be more comfortable in a hotel or a family or friend’s house.”

Haines said to ensure multiple ways to receive information from reputable sources, such as area emergency management team and public safety agencies, local media outlets, or North Carolina Emergency Management.

Everyone living or vacationing in North Carolina’s coastal counties should also Know Your Zone. That’s the name of an initiative that established evacuation zones to streamline the evacuation process in the event of an emergency, Haines said.

From an insurance perspective, State Department of Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey said Wednesday during a press conference in Kinston livestreamed by Neuse News that preparation should include steps to protect important documents like car titles and deeds. Causey also recommended speaking with an insurance agent in advance of a storm, “and if you don’t have flood insurance, look at getting a flood policy, because you have to have a separate flood insurance policy to have that covered.”

Causey cautioned that companies won’t issue insurance when there’s a named storm heading in this direction.

“You’re not going to be able to buy insurance, and when you do buy flood insurance, there’s a 30-day waiting period, so you’ve got to think at least more than 30 days ahead to get that flood insurance coverage,” he said.

People really need to understand and know that homeowners policies do not cover floods, Causey explained. “We learned that lesson — hard lesson — during Hurricane Florence, when we had 23 southeastern counties underwater, and 88,000 people lost their homes and everything in it and found out they had no insurance because floods are not covered under a homeowner’s policy.”

He said the department is there to help and residents can call to speak to a representative or email with questions, disputes or claims. Contact information is on the department’s website.

Why an above-normal forecast?

“Human-caused climate change is warming our ocean globally and in the Atlantic basin, and melting ice on land, leading to sea level rise, which increases the risk of storm surge. Sea level rise represents a clear human influence on the damage potential from a given hurricane,” NOAA officials said when it released the May outlook.

NOAA Administrator Dr. Rick Spinrad, speaking during a press conference May 23, said that this season is looking to be extraordinary in a number of ways. Data and models show El Niño/La Niña weather patterns playing a significant role.

El Niño is the flow of warm ocean surface waters from the Pacific toward and along the western coast of South America. La Niña is the opposite: an upwelling of cold Pacific Ocean water to the surface along the western coast of South America.

“The key this year, as in any year, is to get prepared and stay prepared,” Spinrad said. “It’s the best way to reduce risk, especially the risk of potential loss of life.”

The Climate Prediction Center in May forecast a 77% chance of La Niña forming during the August-October time frame and “We know the development of La Nina can lead to weaker easterly tradewinds and below average vertical wind shear in the tropical Atlantic Ocean.” Such conditions can be more conducive for tropical cyclone development.

Additionally, Spinrad said, NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Information has reported record warm water temperatures for much of the tropical Atlantic Ocean.

“Forecast modeling indicates that above-average sea surface temperatures are predicted during the peak months of the Atlantic hurricane season from August to October,” Spinrad said. “We know warm sea surface temperatures are an important factor in rapid intensification of tropical cyclones to major hurricane status.”

NOAA’s outlook is for overall seasonal activity and is not a landfall forecast. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center will update the 2024 Atlantic seasonal outlook in early August before mid-September, the historical peak of the season, officials said.

Visit ReadyNC.gov for more information from the state on preparing for storms or knowyourzone.nc.gov to learn more about the coastal evacuation zones.

North Carolina Office of State Archaeology staff are completing two projects to identify resources and communities on state-owned, coastal lands impacted by 2018 hurricanes and that remain at risk of damage from future storm events.

Called the North Carolina Shorescape Survey, the public will have a chance to learn more about what they discovered during two town halls on the projects aimed to identify, document and assess archaeological resources on the shorelines of the Scuppernong River Dedicated Nature Reserve, Alligator River Game Lands, both in Tyrrell County, and Hammocks Beach State Park in Swansboro.

The first town hall is scheduled for 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 11, at the Tyrrell Senior Center, 406 Bridge St., Columbia, and the second 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 12, at the Swansboro Area Heritage Center, 502 W. Church St., Swansboro.

Organizers said that the public is encouraged to share their knowledge of any historical sites, cemeteries, or stories about the history of these places, family or community ties or observations during the town halls.

Fieldwork at all locations was complete in December 2023 and data analysis is currently underway. Several new sites were discovered and paint a picture of long-term use of these lands. The fieldwork also revealed major impacts to sites in barrier island systems.

“The results of these studies are helping the state develop better management strategies and share the rich community and cultural histories of the North Carolina coast,” officials said.

The project was funded through the Emergency Supplemental Historic Preservation Fund appropriated by Congress in response to hurricanes Florence and Michael in 2018 and administered by the National Park Service.

More information on these and other projects related to changing systems can be found on the projects website or this past report, “Surveys to guide moves to save cultural sites on state lands.”

A study on last year’s extreme heat and the National Weather Service’s most recent seasonal outlook both point to 2024 being just as warm or even warmer than 2023’s record-breaking temperatures.

Researchers behind the study, “2023 summer warmth unparalleled over the past 2,000 years,” found that not only was 2023 reported as the hottest year on record, for most of the Northern Hemisphere, the year also included the warmest summer in 2,000 years.

Dr. Jan Esper and Dr. Max Torbenson, geography professors at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, and Dr. Ulf Büntgen, a professor from Cambridge’s Department of Geography, wrote the study published this month in the journal Nature.

Esper explained during a recent online press briefing that the study places the 2023 temperature extremes into a long-term context, in this case the last two millennia.

They combined existing meteorological records with data from the nine longest temperature sensitive tree-ring chronologies to examine June, July and August surface air temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere extra-tropics, Esper said. This region is between the latitude line that runs through New Orleans and Cairo, or 30 degrees north, and the North Pole, 90 degrees north.

The researchers also found that the temperature baseline from the 19th century used to contextualize global warming for the Paris Agreement is cooler by a few tenths of a degree than previously thought.

This period is really not well covered with instruments, Esper said of the years 1850-1900, but at least for the region in the Northern Hemisphere that was studied, the tree rings “can do really, really well.” He said the tree ring data can be used as a substitute and show the early instrumental temperature errors.

The study also found that in the last 60 years, greenhouse gas emissions have caused El Niño events to become stronger, leading to hotter summers, and 2023 is consistent with a greenhouse gases-induced warming trend that is amplified by an unfolding El Niño event.

The current El Niño is forecast to end early this summer, and past data shows that there is a lag between extreme El Niño conditions and large-scale temperature deviations, making it likely that 2024 will see temperature records broken again.

“When you look at the long sweep of history, you can see just how dramatic recent global warming is,” Büntgen said in a statement. “2023 was an exceptionally hot year, and this trend will continue unless we reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically.”

Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information explained in its global monthly report that April 2024 is the 11th-consecutive month of record-high global temperatures. The month ranked as the warmest April on record, suggesting that Büntgen is right that the heat trend is continuing.

According to the global annual temperature rankings outlook, “there is a 61% chance that 2024 will rank as the warmest year on record and a 100% chance that it will rank in the top five of warmest years recorded.”

And, “based on current anomalies and historical global annual temperature readings, it appears that it is virtually certain that 2024 will be a top 10 year, consistent with a strong propensity since 1988 for recent years to be initially ranked as a top 10 year,” NOAA officials said.

State relief programs

To help communities take action to reduce the health effects caused by extreme heat exposure, Gov. Roy Cooper’s office announced Tuesday that May 26-June 1 is North Carolina Heat Awareness Week, and reminded residents of the state’s heat-preparedness tools.

“As our summers continue to get hotter, today’s proclamation raises awareness of the many tools and resources available to keep our communities safe from extreme heat,” Cooper said.

On the state level, several programs have been launched to help communities weather the heat, especially for outdoor workers, infants and children, older adults, pregnant people, athletes, low-income individuals and people with underlying health conditions who are at higher risk for heat-related illnesses.

The N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency, N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, N.C. State Climate Office and the Duke University Heat Policy Innovation Hub teamed up to create the Heat Action Plan Toolkit for health departments, local governments and other community partners to develop their own plans specific to their needs.

Chief Resilience Officer Dr. Amanda Martin told Coastal Review Wednesday that the state wants everyone to know the signs of heat illness when they are enjoying the summer sun at the coast.

“Extended extreme heat is dangerous to the human body. Perhaps just as dangerous as the actual heat is ignoring the protective factors that reduce and eliminate heat illness and death,” Martin said. “Last year was the hottest year in 2,000 years, so it’s more important than ever for outdoor workers and indoor workers without air conditioning to take breaks, access cooler air, and drink water. Senior citizens, young children and people with health conditions are especially vulnerable to heat waves.”

Also, the state Health and Human Services’ Climate and Health Program launched its Heat Health Alert System this month to notify subscribers when the heat index is expected to reach unhealthy levels in their county. The program operates a Heat-Related Illness Surveillance System from May through September and documents weekly emergency department visits for heat-related illness in the state.

“We want all North Carolinians to enjoy a safe and healthy summer,” said Dr. Susan Kansagra, Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Public Health, in a news release. “With more than 3,900 emergency department visits for heat-related illness in North Carolina last summer, preparing for extreme heat at the local level is critical to protecting the health of North Carolina residents and workers.” 

The Office of Recovery and Resiliency announced last week its newest product, the NC Resilience Exchange website, an interactive resource to help local and state leaders find relevant information in the wealth of climate data available online.

“The Exchange offers funding opportunities, a directory of experts, interactive mapping tools, model ordinances and more in a one-stop-shop that is relevant to North Carolina communities,” according to the website.

Federal efforts

At the federal level, the Biden-Harris administration on May 20 announced it had committed $4.55 million for the interagency National Integrated Heat Health Information System  “to enhance community science observations and data collection on extreme heat, and provide assistance to communities planning for and evaluating equitable heat resilience projects.”

NOAA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention founded the system in 2015 to lead developing community resilience to the effects of extreme heat.

The Center for Collaborative Heat Monitoring based at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham will assist organizations conduct local climate and health studies. The Center for Heat Resilient Communities that will be based out of California and Arizona is to offer diverse expertise and knowledge-sharing hubs to identify and evaluate policies, protocols, and lessons for heat resilience.

“The impacts of extreme heat caused by climate change are an increasing threat to our health, ecosystems and economy,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement, adding that this investment will support new Centers of Excellence “to help protect historically excluded communities from the dangers of extreme heat, boost climate resilience and increase awareness on best practices to tackle the climate crisis.”

The Durham center will work with the Arizona Science Center, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, and the Museum of Science in Boston to serve the entire country at a regional level.

Officials with the museum said the center will observe, monitor and evaluate factors influencing heat risk at a local scale in 30 historically disadvantaged communities over the next three years. The center is a broad collaborative effort leveraging these place-based institutions and supported by the technical capacity and expertise at CAPA Strategies, Utah State University, the North Carolina State Climate Office, and AQUEHS Corp.

“The past few years have shown us that we can work towards fixing what we can measure,” said Max Cawley, principal investigator for new center and the Museum of Life and Science’s Director for Climate Research and Engagement. “And when it comes to heat imperilment, how you measure also matters. We’re eager to convene a strong collaborative partnership towards expanding where we can measure heat and who’s involved in measuring it.”

Last month, the National Weather Service and the CDC released an experimental online tool called HeatRisk.

HeatRisk provides a color-coded forecast of risk of heat-related impacts that could occur over a 24-hour period. HeatRisk takes into consideration how unusual the heat is for the time of the year, the duration of the heat including both daytime and nighttime temperatures, and if those temperatures pose an elevated risk of heat-related impacts based on data from the CDC, according to the website.

“Climate change is causing more frequent and intense heat waves that are longer in duration, resulting in nearly 1,220 deaths each year in the U.S. alone,” NOAA Administrator Dr. Rick Spinrad said in April when the tool was released. “Last year was the warmest year on record for the globe, and we just experienced the warmest winter on record. HeatRisk is arriving just in time to help everyone, including heat-sensitive populations, prepare and plan for the dangers of extreme heat.”

CDC Director Mandy Cohen explained during a news conference that the tool will help “protect health and improve lives and to prepare for what we anticipate will be a very hot summer. Heat is a threat to our health. Heat can make underlying health conditions worse and heat related illness like heat exhaustion and heat stroke can cause serious illness and even lead to death. Heat can be especially dangerous for certain people, including very young kids.”

Threats to the state’s 220,000 acres of salt marshes spurred the development of a five-year strategy designed to protect and restore this vegetation that helps protect shorelines from erosion and provides habitat for juvenile seafood to grow.

Released Wednesday, the North Carolina Salt Marsh Action Plan has the overarching goal “to protect, restore, and facilitate the migration of salt marshes in North Carolina to minimize loss of function, benefits, and acreage through 2050 and beyond.”

There are numerous persistent and emerging threats to current and future salt marshes such as incompatible land and water uses, wave energy caused by boat wakes, and, as a result of climate change, more intense and wetter storms and sea level rise. The state plan offers strategies to address these threats, plus ways to promote the plan’s goals and actions, and a five-year monitoring and evaluation strategy to track success.

“Salt Marshes provide numerous benefits to the health and productivity of the coastal environment, economy, and culture. These benefits include essential fish habitats, water quality enhancements, climate change mitigation, and enhanced community and ecosystem resilience through flood and erosion protection,” Coastal Federation Salt Marsh Program Director Jacob Boyd said in a statement. “We can’t afford to lose that through inaction, especially with the ever-increasing impacts from climate change.”

The state plan was developed to implement the regional marsh plan, “Marsh Forward: A Regional Plan for the Future of the South Atlantic Coast’s Million-Acre Salt Marsh Ecosystem” the South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative, or SASMI, released in May 2023.

The Pew Charitable Trusts and Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability formed SASMI in 2021. The regional initiative is an effort of more than 350 partners to preserve and enhance the existing million acres of salt marsh between North Carolina and the northern Atlantic coast of Florida. The states are developing implementation plans specific to their needs.

“The development of the NC Salt Marsh Action Plan that builds off the SASMI regional efforts highlights the importance of protecting and restoring salt marshes in North Carolina and the region,” said Sarah Spiegler, North Carolina Sea Grant coastal resilience specialist. “The Plan’s emphasis on partner collaboration is vital to ensure we effectively build more resilient coastal communities and habitats throughout North Carolina.”

There are numerous partners who will contribute to plan implementation as members of the Salt Marsh Steering Committee that the Coastal Federation is leading, including the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership, Audubon North Carolina, Carolina Wetlands Association, Department of Environmental Quality, Duke University, East Carolina University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape and others.

Anyone who has taken a stroll along downtown Morehead City’s waterfront in the last six or seven months may have noticed the hundreds of concrete, flat-top pyramids being strategically placed in rows around the rapidly eroding Sugarloaf Island.

Those are wave attenuation devices, or WADs, and part of a bigger, hybrid project to restore 3,520 linear feet of the barrier island’s shoreline.

Teaming up with the city on the effort to save the island are Sea & Shoreline LLC., a Florida-based aquatic restoration specialist with offices in the Carolinas, the nonprofit North Carolina Coastal Federation, engineering consultant Quible & Associates of Kitty Hawk, East Carolina University and Sandbar Oyster Co., a Beaufort-based habitat-restoration business.

“About 25 years ago, the Coastal Federation worked with the town of Morehead City to purchase the island. At that time, it had been slated for development — there were some condo plans in the works,” Coastal Federation Living Shoreline Division Lead Dr. Lexia Weaver explained. “Thanks to that purchase the island was able to be protected and conserved and be the natural resource it is for both for the public and the environment, as well but since that time the island has eroded significantly, as much as a football field.”

Sea & Shoreline Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Heather Herold told Coastal Review that if this erosion, which is taking place at an accelerated rate because of rising sea levels and wave energy, isn’t addressed, “the island could disappear, leaving the town vulnerable to climate-related events.”

Weaver added that the state invested $6.6 million to “protect this crucial natural asset from ongoing and worsening erosion, especially as a result of storm systems that are frequent to our coastal region.”

The money is from a 2022 appropriation of $2 million and $4.6 million in 2023. The town held a ceremony when the work began in mid-November to thank Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, who also represents Carteret County, Rep. Celeste C. Cairns, R-Carteret and Craven counties, and former Rep. Pat McElraft of Emerald Isle for supporting the project.

“Restoration methods for this project include reducing wave energy with an offshore living breakwater, planting seagrass behind the living breakwater, and planting a living shoreline on Sugarloaf Island,” officials said. “The living break water will not impede normal vessel traffic because it will be installed in areas too shallow for vessels to navigate safely at high speeds. The breakwater will also be staggared so that fishers can fish around them or pass through sections of the wave attenuators.”

Herold said the project is expected to bring back habitat and lead to benefits such as shoreline restoration, water quality improvement, resiliency, fish habitat, upland habitat and flood control.

Weaver said the design was based on a 2022 study of the island, as well as other studies. There was also evidence of significant erosion through mapping imagery combined with local knowledge and testimonials.

Plans call for a total of 1,200 wave attenuators to be installed around the island. The attenuators are 7 feet tall with a 9-foot base on each of the three sides, weighing in at around 7,500 pounds each.

Tina Harris, Sea & Shoreline’s pre-construction manager, said that as of Monday, a total of 443 attenuators are in the water. Of those, 376 had been deployed at the west end of the island, completing the attenuator portion of the project on that end of the island. Work is now taking place on the east end of the island where another 67 attenuators, or units, have been deployed. Harris said they have about 650 left to deploy.

“Once we complete the east end of the island, we will deploy units along the entire south side moving from the east back towards the west,” Harris said, adding they anticipate completing the attenuator placement part of the project in late June to early July of this year. “The nature of the project is heavily dependent on weather conditions.”

The patented attenuators being installed are to “stop the wave energy and accrete sand behind them to naturally renourish and rebuild the shoreline without the need for beach renourishment,” Herold explained, adding the attenuators provide water quality benefits, including attracting oysters that filter water. Other installed projects are filtering 22 million gallons of water per day.

Herold said that, together, “these measures will protect and restore the island, improve water quality, create essential fish habitat, protect shorebird nesting areas, and enhance the shoreline for recreational boaters to enjoy.”

Herold added that the patented device is created by Living Shoreline Solutions Inc. and made out of a pH-neutral mixture of concrete and fiber-mesh. 

“We pour this mix into molds, allow for drying time, unmold them, let theme cure, then place them in the water in arrays that are pre-determined based upon scientific wave study modeling,” Herold said. As of Thursday, 682 total attenuators had been manufactured.

Harris added that the company manufactures the units at a Core Creek site and they are then moved the 10 miles by barge to Sugarloaf Island. Once the attenuators reach the island, the units are placed into the water using a large excavator, “where the units are leveled and aligned for maximum performance.”

In addition to the attenuators, Weaver said last week that two Oyster Catcher sills made by Sandbar Oyster Co. and totaling 550 feet have been put in place. These structures that resemble tables and made out of cement and plant-based cloth will continue to be manufactured and installed through the spring.

A total of 9,375 plugs of Spartina alterniflora, or smooth cordgrass, and 3,200 plugs of Uniola paniculata, or sea oats, were ordered as well and are scheduled to be planted this spring. Plans are to plant more in the spring of 2025, Weaver said.

They’re starting to see results of this work.

Weaver said that wave energy is already being reduced landward of the attenuators and sediment is already starting to accrete landward of the Oyster Catcher sills, promoting the natural expansion and growth of salt marsh grasses.

“The structures are also providing valuable habitat for fish, oysters and other marine life. Seagrass is expected to grow landward of the WADs in the quiescent waters,” Weaver added.

Morehead City Public Information Officer Anna Smith said Wednesday that the town “is grateful to be working with our partners on the Sugarloaf Island Restoration Project, and we are excited to already see positive progress,” adding that the “critical initiative would not be possible without $6.6 million in state legislative funding and the hard work” of the city’s partners and staff.

Post has been updated.

It’s not hurricanes. It’s not tornadoes. It’s not floods.

Heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer in North Carolina, but also the most preventable, according to the state’s recently released Heat Action Plan Toolkit, designed to help communities adapt as climate change drives more frequent and intense heat events.

“Our days and nights are getting hotter as the planet warms,” State Climatologist Dr. Kathie Dello told Coastal Review recently.

“We’re seeing more instances of record daily maximum temperatures than daily minimum records. But we’re also seeing more relentless heat — days and nights that are consistently above the temperatures that we’re used to, but maybe not Earth-shattering. And we’re seeing the hot days and nights starting earlier,” Dello said, adding that the temperature in Raleigh hit 92 degrees May 2, “Our first day over 90, about a week and a half earlier than normal.”

Children, older adults, athletes, outdoor workers and those who are pregnant, with chronic health conditions or without access to air conditioning are most vulnerable to the effects of extreme heat, but everyone is at risk.

North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency Resilience Policy Analyst Andrea Webster said that deaths and heat-related illnesses from extreme heat are 100% preventable.

“While residents are used to hot temperatures, North Carolina’s coast has a high number of outside visitors in the summer months. If they come from a much cooler area, their bodies are likely less adapted to extreme heat. Messaging about symptoms, cooling and hydration strategies, and resources to stay cool can drastically reduce health impacts and emergency department visits,” Webster said.

This is where the toolkit comes in.

The 72-page document features a template with fill-in-the-blank language for local governments, health departments and other entities to write its own heat action plan, as well as about the causes and symptoms of heat-related illnesses, groups most at risk, and where to look for funding. Supplemental materials for getting the word out to the public such as sample graphics, factsheets, brochures, and scripts to warn of impending high heat are on the toolkit website.

“With the frequency and severity of extreme weather increasing, it’s more important than ever to build local resilience that will help protect people and save lives,” Gov. Roy Cooper said when the plan was announced in late April. “The new toolkit provides valuable resources that will help local governments prepare for and respond to these potentially life-threatening events. The project also underscores how state partnerships are critical to finding climate solutions that benefit all North Carolinians.”

About the toolkit

The Office of Recovery Resiliency led the effort in partnership with Dello’s State Climate Office of North Carolina, the N.C. Division of Public Health, Duke University Heat Policy Innovation Hub and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Carolina’s Climate Adaptation Partnership.

The idea for the toolkit came about as part of the Regions Innovating for Strong Economies & Environment, or RISE, program, according to the website. Participants from across the state said a heat action plan template was a priority resilience project.

Dr. Rebecca Ward, a postdoctoral research scholar, was lead developer of the toolkit and collaborated heavily with Webster. Ward is with North Carolina State University’s Coastal Resilience and Sustainability Initiative and the NOAA Carolina’s CAP.

Ward explained that developing the Heat Action Plan Toolkit took about a year, from initial idea to final product.

“Throughout the whole process, I’ve been continually delighted with how many different groups and individuals have shared their time and expertise to help create content and give feedback. We’ve done our best to make sure that this will be useful and usable — very ‘plug-n-play’ — for its target audiences of local governments, primarily health departments and emergency management,” Ward said.

Webster said that local and county governments, health departments and other leaders can use the toolkit to ensure there is a plan in place for when a heat wave is in the forecast, and to ensure that community partners are developing and pursuing resources that help residents and visitors cool down when it’s hot.

“We know that local government leaders are juggling so much — and the more invisible hazards, like heat, may not be top of mind for folks. We’re also just dealing with summers like we haven’t seen in our past,” Dello said. “What used to be a once in a generation hot summer is now happening more frequently. We designed it so it would be helpful and accessible for everyone.”

Webster said the meat of the toolkit is the template heat action plan.

“This word document is already designed with draft text. We want to encourage jurisdictions and community partners to work together to pick out the suggested heat resilience actions that work best for their community and start implementing the actions in the plan,” Webster said.

A list of resources is included for community leaders to contact for help filling in the template ahead of an extreme heat event, and provides instructions on how to identify census tracts with high concentrations of residents especially vulnerable to extreme heat, such as the elderly, she said.

Leaders can access region-specific heat thresholds to know when to send out heat awareness messaging, which is part of the toolkit. There is sample messaging, graphics, fact sheets, checklists, sample community surveys to understand how residents currently deal with extreme heat. Many of the toolkit’s supplemental materials are also available in Spanish.

“NCORR plans to offer workshops for communities to begin developing their heat action plans. Sign up for our e-newsletter to learn about upcoming offerings,” Webster said.

Ward said that the workshops are to take place over the next few months with target users to work through the toolkit.

“I think these will be great opportunities to advance our state’s resilience to extreme heat, and any feedback collected during these workshops will ultimately improve the Toolkit, making it more useful and usable — and we hope used — by local governments across the state,” Ward added.

Webster said that so far, the public health preparedness coordinators are particularly excited about the toolkit, and Chatham County used a draft of the Heat Action Plan Toolkit to publish the first Heat Action Plan in the state.

“Heat affects our residents’ health, and it’s often overlooked as a health concern. Having easy-to-use resources at their fingertips is helpful,” Webster said.

Heat illnesses in numbers

The state Department of Health and Human Services has been recording reported heat-related illnesses for some time.

Every year during the heat season May 1 to Sept. 30, the department’s climate and health program publishes heat-related illness surveillance reports. The first report of the year is expected to be on the website by Wednesday, May 15.

In past years, the reports provided statewide data on heat-related illness. This year, weekly reports will also include regional summaries and some county-level information, the department said.

Last year, North Carolina had more than 3,900 emergency department visits for heat-related illness between May 1-Sept. 30, with 497 of those in North Carolina’s 20 coastal counties. 

The department’s numbers show that between 2016 and 2023, these counties had around 4,300 total reported heat-related illness emergency department visits.

Department officials noted that the annual number of visits are based on the patient’s county of residence, not where they sought medical attention.

For example, a Wake County resident who seeks help at an emergency department for heat-related illness in Carteret County may not be included in Carteret’s count.

“Heat-related illness can affect anyone. People who are accustomed to this weather should still watch for the signs and symptoms of heat-related illness and take precautions to protect their health,” a health department spokesperson said. “Take the heat seriously and do not ignore danger signs like nausea, headache, dizziness or lightheadedness, confusion, and rapid or erratic pulse. They can all be signs of trouble. Get to a cool place, drink water slowly and seek medical help if conditions don’t improve.”

The long-term heat forecast

Webster said her office relies on predictions in the 2020 North Carolina Climate Science Report, which states that, for the coastal plain, “climate models project a substantial increase in the number of these very hot days and very warm nights by mid- to late century under both scenarios.”

By 2100, the number of very hot days is projected to increase by 11 to 49 under the lower scenario and 42 to 94 under the higher scenario, compared to the 1996–2015 average. The number of very warm nights is projected to increase by 14 to 45 under the lower scenario and 48 to 87 under the higher scenario, she sited from the report, adding that the State Climate Office regularly updates their projections, so it’s possible that they may have newer data that aren’t published as a report yet.

“We need to start preparing for more frequent heat waves and high nighttime temperatures. That continued stress on our bodies leads to health impacts such as heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat stroke and even mortality,” Webster said.

Resources

Webster said that residents can sign up to receive heat alerts when the weather is forecast to reach unhealthy temperatures.

The emails from the state health department’s Heat Health Alert System notify when the heat index is forecast to reach unhealthy levels in their county. The sign-up form is available in English and Spanish.

Other resources include the federally funded Crisis Intervention Program administered by the state Department of Social Services that assists those experiencing crises related to temperature, and Operation Fan Heat Relief for eligible adults to receive fans through their local Area Agency on Aging.

Warning signs and symptoms can be found on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s webpage on extreme heat symptoms as well as tips for preventing heat-related illness.

Webster said that visitors and everyone spending time outdoors or in unairconditioned spaces throughout the summer months should pay attention to how they feel in high temperatures.

“Stay hydrated, take breaks in the shade, and cool off in cold water. Watch out for dizziness, nausea, heavy sweating, heat cramps and painful muscle cramps in the abdomen, arms or legs following strenuous activity,” Webster said.

The health department recommends taking the following steps during heat season:

• Increase fluid intake.
• Wear sunscreen of 15 SPF or higher. Sunburn affects your body’s ability to cool down.
• Spend some time in a cool or air-conditioned environment.
• Reduce normal activity levels.
• Cool off by taking cool baths or showers, or placing ice bags or wet towels on the body.
• Stay out of direct sunlight, put shades over the windows, and use cross-ventilation and fans to cool rooms if air conditioning is not available.
• Wear lightweight, light-colored, loose-fitting clothing that permits sweat to evaporate.
• Drink plenty of liquids such as water and sports drinks to replace the fluids lost by sweating. As a person ages, thirst declines.
• Limit intake of alcoholic beverages or sugary drinks. If you are on a low-salt diet or have diabetes, high blood pressure, or other chronic conditions, talk to your doctor before drinking sports drinks.
• Check up on friends or neighbors who live alone.
• Never leave children or pets unattended in vehicles, even for a few minutes, as temperatures inside a car can reach a deadly level quickly.
• This can also be a good time to join your local senior center or take advantage of buildings made accessible to seniors during excessive heat. Your community’s public information office can be contacted for additional information.
• Residents are encouraged to speak with their healthcare provider about how to stay safe. Certain medications make you more vulnerable to heat-related illness.
• Keep your medicines in a cool, dry place.

There’s an opportunity to hear from a health professional about the potential risks and hazards associated with climate change during the next “Science on the Sound” with the Coastal Studies Institute at the East Carolina University’s Outer Banks Campus.

Dr. Alex Hodges, a clinical professor in the Department of Advanced Nursing Practice and Education at East Carolina University, will present “Ready for Change: Building Effective Climate Readiness” at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 23, on the campus in Wanchese.

Hodges is a climate change expert and has collaborated with Americares and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her area of research is related to the climate impacts within Eastern North Carolina.

The session will focus on a nurse practitioner’s perspective on climate change and its implications for primary care, as well as ways to be better prepared for related challenges.

Hodges volunteers at the nurse practitioner at the Community Care Clinic of Dare, providing primary care, and serves on the Dare County Board of Health and Human Services.

The monthly “Science on the Sound” in-person lecture series brings perspectives from all over the state and highlights coastal topics in northeastern North Carolina. The public is encouraged to attend the program being offered at no charge. It will also be live-streamed on the CSI YouTube channel.

Gov. Roy Cooper has proposed around $150 million to go toward conservation and resiliency, with $20 million of that for grants to improve draining and reduce flooding, in the recommended budget his office released released last week.

The $34.5 billion proposed budget, “Securing North Carolina’s Future” for fiscal 2025 announced April 24 recommends investing more than $148 million in land and water resources conservation and resilience to natural disasters, according to the 223-page summary of the suggested budget. The focus of the budget is education with with a proposed $1 billion investment in the state’s public school system.

“This budget is an opportunity to build on our state’s momentum and make up ground in areas like public education, quality child care and clean drinking water, where legislators have fallen short,” Cooper said in a statement. “As the number one state to do business in the country for two years in a row, we have the formula for success in our high-quality public schools, talented workforce and thriving economy. We must make targeted investments strengthening public education, boosting economic development, and protecting our natural resources to secure a bright future for North Carolina.”

The $148 million to conserve land and water resources and build resilience will “promote land conservation through tax credits, reinforce ongoing efforts to preserve the state’s natural and working lands, and aim to mitigate future damages from storms, flooding, and wildfires,” according to his office.

One line item specific to Carteret County is the $50 million for infrastructure improvements at Radio Island as a way “to support economic development at the site.”

To address emerging compounds, Cooper proposes $100 million for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality to help communities with new federal drinking water per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, standards and address gaps in available federal funding for PFAS remediation.

Highlights of the conservation and resiliency allocations include the following:

• $2 million recurring and $30 million nonrecurring to improve state parks, matching grants for local projects, and access to beaches and coastline.
• $2 million recurring and $30 million nonrecurring for projects that protect and restore the state’s land and water resources, preserve military buffers, restore degraded streams, and develop and improve stormwater treatment.
• $2.46 million in recurring to help the state preserve farmland through grants for conservation easements, farmland preservation plans, and agricultural development projects.
• $1 million nonrecurring to support agricultural water supply and efficiency increases for agricultural water use, with a focus on increasing assistance for on-farm water storage.
• $1 million recurring to expand sustainability and conservation efforts at the Department of Adult Correction, which manages more than 1,040 acres of natural lands and 54 correctional facilities.
• $20 million nonrecurring to support organizations working to reduce flooding through the restoration and maintenance of streams, waterways, and drainage infrastructure across the state.
• $5 million for the Coastal Resilient Roof Grant Program administered by the N.C. Insurance Underwriting Association to create storm-resistant houses by strengthening roofs against natural disasters.
• $5 million to strengthen an application for $68.5 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, and the Division of Coastal Management have partnered on the funding opportunity through NOAA for living shorelines, the Resilient Coastal Communities Program, stormwater improvements, and land conservation to protect against extreme weather in the 20 coastal counties.
• $5 million nonrecurring to enable the N.C. Forest Service to conduct prescribed fires and contain wildfires.
• $4 million to enhance the Flood Resiliency Blueprint with more data about impacts from storm surge and coastal flooding.
• $3 million in nonrecurring funds for grants that support nature-based projects.
• $300,000 nonrecurring to replace the trailers required for transporting mobile units designed to quickly depopulate swine following disease outbreaks, natural disasters, or other catastrophic events.
• A new conservation tax credit to support land conservation efforts.

Republicans have indicated willingness to consider some of Cooper’s proposals and expressed a desire to vote on a budget and adjourn before July.

Tidal flooding is creating a potential public health hazard on the streets and roads of coastal towns, according to a recently published study.

The study found elevated levels of fecal bacteria in water samples collected over the course of two months from a tidal creek in Beaufort and its streets following rainfall.

Dr. Natalie Nelson, an associate professor at North Carolina State University, explained that the study reaffirmed what researchers already knew — stormwater runoff is the largest culprit of elevated levels, or levels that exceed regulatory recreational water quality standards, of enterococcus bacteria in Taylors Creek.

Tidal flooding forces water into the town’s stormwater system that empties into Taylors Creek. When the system exceeds capacity, water overspills onto road surfaces.

This type of flooding occurs when rainfall causes saltwater to overflow from the ocean, sounds and estuaries and, because of sea level rise, it’s becoming more prominent in coastal areas like Beaufort.

Samples collected from floodwater patches on roadways almost consistently had elevated concentrations of enterococcus bacteria.

And, in some cases, bacteria in those samples maxed out the detection limit, Nelson said.

“What it indicates to us is that the concentrations were likely high because of a source from within the stormwater network,” she said. “We say that because the floodwaters, it’s not like they were so extensive that we could really argue that they might be flushing the land surface. But, because those floodwater patches were pretty small, we think the elevated concentrations were coming from within the stormwater network.”

When floodwaters glazing the roadways drained back into the stormwater system during ebb tide, researchers recorded higher levels of bacteria in the creek, indicating that the contamination in the creek is coming from the stormwater network, Nelson said.

The contamination wasn’t present in all of the locations sampled and the presence of the contamination was brief, she said.

Enterococci are bacteria that live in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and warm-blooded animals. People who swim or play in waters with bacteria levels higher than state and federal standards have an increased risk of developing gastrointestinal illness or skin infections.

“I think the problem that we uncovered is not at all unique to Beaufort,” Nelson said. “The stormwater network was never designed to have water come back up through it and then go into places where pedestrians encounter and so we’re now in an era where we have to think about how our infrastructure systems are being stressed in new ways and how that might lead to new types of issues like maybe floodwaters having issues with contamination, but it’s a topic of ongoing research.”

In recent years, Beaufort has repaved hundreds of feet of one downtown street with pervious pavement, which allows water to soak through to the ground rather than route the water to the town’s stormwater system.

That project fell under the 2017 Beaufort Watershed Restoration Plan, one that aims to restore hydrology and reduce polluted runoff using retrofits that direct stormwater to filtrate into the ground or collect it for later use.

The town is among a number of coastal communities that have been examining how to best respond to what researchers often call “sunny day flooding” and other weather-related issues that are being exacerbated by the changing climate.

Dozens of coastal municipalities and counties have received grants through the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management’s N.C. Resilient Coastal Communities Program, or NC-RCCP.

The program is a creation of the state’s 2020 Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan, which was the result of Executive Order 80 signed by Gov. Roy Cooper in October 2018.

NC-RCCP aims to boost resilience efforts in the state’s 20 coastal counties and encourages those who live and work along the coast to participate in finding solutions to prioritize projects designed to help their communities bounce back from storms and floods.

For more information about tidal flooding and precautions, visit North Carolina Sea Grant’s website.

A webinar next week is set to bring together climate scientists, public health professionals and policy specialists to speak on the dangers of extreme heat.

The North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency and the State Climate Office of North Carolina are hosting “Navigating North Carolina’s Rising Temperatures: Understanding and Addressing the Health Risks of Heat.” The webinar is from 10-11:15 a.m. Wednesday, April 17. Register at go.ncsu.edu/heat-health.

“We know North Carolina summers are getting hot. But they’re getting hotter, and we’re especially seeing the increase in nighttime temperatures. Heat illness and death is also preventable. Flooding gets a lot of attention — but heat is more of a chronic, silent threat,” State Climate Office Director Kathie Dello said.

“Each year, on average, heat kills more people than all other natural disasters combined,” NCORR’s Resilience Policy Advisor Andrea Webster told Coastal Review, adding that while many coastal residents are “understandably preparing for the impacts of stronger hurricanes and heavy precipitation events,” they shouldn’t forget about heat.

As more heat records are broken — March 2024 was the warmest March ever recorded globally — stronger hurricanes, more intense wildfires and other climate-related challenges, Webster said the NCORR Resilience Program team is working to help local governments and elected officials reduce economic, social and environmental consequences, and managing the impacts.

Local governments “have protocols they enact when hurricanes or ice storms hit, but they typically don’t have a plan of action for when a heat wave is in the forecast,” Webster said.

Speakers during the webinar will talk about the state’s changing temperatures, the dangers of extreme heat to human health, evidence-based strategies for preventing heat-related illnesses, how communities are already preparing, and how the state can help.

In addition to the host agencies, partners for the webinar are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Carolinas Climate Adaptation Partnership, the Duke University Heat Policy Innovation Hub, Chatham County Public Health Department, and N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health.

Looking ahead, NCORR, the State Climate Office and the Department of Health and Human Services plan to release a Heat Action Plan Toolkit later this month to help local governments and health professionals encourage residents to take care of themselves during extreme heat.

Webster said the toolkit will include extreme heat thresholds to help local governments know when to implement heat preparedness activities. Thresholds for multi-county regions across the state are being developed.

Dello said that the State Climate Office works to help residents understand their weather and climate risks.

“We do this in a few different ways,” Dello said, including with original research in partnership with state agencies, working with N.C. Cooperative Extension and N.C. Sea Grant to raise awareness, and work with K-12 teachers to teach them about the environment.

The webinar came about at the request of communities that are already preparing their residents for extreme heat, Webster said.

NCORR, the State Climate Office and other partners held last a workshop last summer in Fayetteville on heat action protocol development.

“When asked what additional resources would be helpful, the local governments in attendance requested a ‘heat and health 101’ training. This workshop is in direct response to that request,” Webster said.

Dello added that this how a lot of their projects and work begins.

“Someone expresses an idea or need, and we’ll assemble the resources to try to help them out,” Dello said.

NCORR has been working with the local governments in the Community Disaster Resilience Zones, or CDRZ, designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency last year. These zones, which include nearly all coastal counties, were designated to “build and strengthen community resilience across the nation by driving federal, public, and private resources to the most at-risk and in-need communities,” according to FEMA.

The team is meeting with officials to help them understand the risks of climate change in their community and what resources and solutions are available to help.

“North Carolina residents are used to hot temperatures, but we need to start preparing for more frequent heat waves and high nighttime temperatures,” which Webster said is especially concerning because of the increase in emergency room visits from not being able to cool down several nights in a row. “That continued stress on our bodies leads to health impacts such as heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat stroke and even mortality. Unlike other climate change impacts, heat-related mortality and morbidity are 100% preventable.”

Webster said NCORR hopes to offer more opportunities to learn about preventing heat impacts on residents and infrastructure in the future. Sign up for the NCORR Resiliency Updates e-newsletter to learn more.

“There are steps we can take to keep our residents and our tourists cool. North Carolina’s coast has a high number of outside visitors in the summer months. If they come from a much cooler area, their bodies are likely less adapted to extreme heat. Raising public awareness of symptoms, cooling and hydration strategies, and resources to stay cool can drastically reduce health impacts and emergency department visits,” Webster said.

Pender County Tourism is hosting a workshop to promote sustainable practices to safeguard coastal ecosystems and educate visitors.

The Green Practices Environment Awareness Seminar is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, April 12, at the Surf City Welcome Center, 102 North Shore Drive. Register at https://bit.ly/GreenPracticesEnviromentalSeminar.  

Guest speakers include representatives from the North Carolina Coastal Federation, Plastic Ocean Project, N.C. Green Travel Initiative, Ocean Friendly Establishments, University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Committee.

Speakers will provide organizational updates, offer strategies and initiatives to reduce plastic usage, and hold an open discussion with attendees.

“We encourage you to join us for lunch and learn more about sustainability practices and programs. Special thanks to Surf City Parks, Recreation and Tourism and the Greater Topsail Area Chamber of Commerce,” organizers said.

For more information or for help registering, email skey@pendercountync.gov or call 910-259-1278.

Sinking land areas in major coastal cities could intensify climate change-related flooding and inundation in the next 25 years, concludes a new study.

For the analysis, “Disappearing cities on US coasts” published earlier this month in Nature, the team of scientists combined data on the rising or lowering of land with sea level rise projections to calculate the potential inundated areas in 32 coastal cities, including Wilmington.

“As sea level rises and land subsides, the hazards associated with climate extremes (for example, hurricanes and storm surges), shoreline erosion and inundation of low-lying coastal areas grow,” which is a “factor that is often underrepresented in coastal-management policies and long-term urban planning,” the study states.

Sea levels are expected to rise about a foot by 2050. Researchers used 2020 data as a baseline to predict how much land this will cover within the next 25 years. Then, to see how much more land is projected to be exposed to flooding and inundation because of subsidence, or sinking land, high-resolution vertical land motion and elevation data was added to the sea level rise predictions.

Leonard Ohenhen, lead author of the study, told Coastal Review in an email that they found that most communities on U.S. coasts are sinking and at different rates.

“This sinking in combination with climate change-induced sea level rise poses a significant flood hazard to major communities on the US coasts, including NC. In total, a maximum additional population of 273,000 people will be exposed to flooding by 2050,” Ohenhen said. He is a graduate student in the Department of Geosciences at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

For North Carolina, the coastwide average rate of sinking is 1.4 millimeters, or about 0.06 inches per year, with a maximum sinking rate of 4 millimeters, or 0.16 inches, per year, Ohenhen continued. For the inundation risk, the only city researchers focused on in North Carolina was Wilmington, “and the analysis shows that an additional 2,000 to 3,000 persons, will be exposed to flooding by 2050” because of subsidence.

Other cities on the Atlantic Coast studied were Boston, New York City, Jersey City, Atlantic City, Virginia Beach, Wilmington, Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Savannah, Miami and Jacksonville, Florida. The study also looked at projected numbers for 11 cities on the Gulf Coast and 10 on the Pacific Coast.

Ohenhen said that on the East Coast, a total of about 300 to 370 square miles will be exposed to flooding by 2050, along with 59,000 to 262,000 people and 32,000 to 163,000 properties.

He said that natural and human processes help drive land subsidence.

“Why the land is sinking differs from location to location, and in some cases, it may be a result of multiple interlinked processes,” he continued. “For the US East Coast, sinking is driven by glacial isostatic adjustment, natural sediment compaction, and groundwater extraction.” Glacial isostatic adjustment is the ongoing movement of land reacting to being covered by glaciers during the ice age, according to the National Ocean Service.

The primary motivation for the research, Ohenhen said, stems from a growing concern over the increasing vulnerability of the country’s coastal cities to flooding risks.
“While sea-level rise (SLR) due to climate change has been a focal point of scientific studies, the exacerbating role of coastal subsidence — both natural and anthropogenic — has been underrepresented in coastal management policies and discussions,” he explained in an email.

“Recognizing this gap, our study aimed to create the first high-resolution (50 m), policy-relevant land subsidence dataset for the US coastlines and integrate this dataset with SLR projections to provide a more accurate assessment of future inundation risks.”

The reason previous flood estimates omitted land subsidence can largely be attributed to its gradual nature, “which often escapes immediate notice, leading to a lack of prioritization in flood risk models,” Ohenhen said. “While some existing projections do account for land subsidence, they typically rely on singular measurements obtained from tide gauges, which fail to capture the spatial variability inherent in subsidence rates across different regions. Our study provides the first semi-continuous spatially variable land subsidence dataset for the US coast.”

Ohenhen said there are ways to either mitigate or adapt to coastal subsidence.

“Here, identifying the drivers is important for preparedness,” he said. If subsidence is a result of glacial isostatic adjustment, “there is no way to mitigate against it, so we must adapt to the consequences,” by finding ways to elevate the land or replenish groundwater through managed aquifer recharge, which will help to reverse elevation loss.

“However, in cases where the land elevation loss is driven by the extraction of groundwater, then reducing groundwater pumping can be effective in slowing down or completely halting coastal land subsidence,” he said.

Ohenhen added that a number of defense structures were identified in the research that could be put in place, including nature-based protection using marshes and mangroves, subsidence control in cities subject to anthropogenic-caused land sinking, land use planning, and a combination of these will be effective in adapting to the identified consequences.

Marine Geologist Dr. Stan Riggs, distinguished research professor and Harriot College Distinguished Professor of geology at East Carolina University, when asked for his thoughts on the study, told Coastal Review that he and the other scientists he’s worked with over the last 60 years have known that there’s been a subsidence component, “but we were never able to sort it out. And I think I’ve just finally solved that problem,” which he added will be detailed in his book being published later this year.

“The Atlantic Coast here is intermediate. In the case of North Carolina, Wilmington is the most stable part of our whole coastal plain,” Riggs said, and “you would expect to get a minimum amount of compaction down there. For example, if you drill a hole in Wilmington, you go down 1,000 feet, you get granite, up here in this part of the state you go down 10,000 feet to hit granite. There’s a lot more sediment up here and so the compaction is going to be higher,” he said about the area of his residence in northeastern North Carolina.

In the Coastal Resources Commission’s 2015 sea level report written by its advisory science panel, the coastal plain was broken down into four quadrants, with Wilmington having the lowest rate of sea level rise and “the highest by quite a bit being the Albemarle embayment, everything from Croatan National Forest north into the northern part of North Carolina,” Riggs said.

At the time, the science panel couldn’t separate out how much of that was subsidence versus regular sea level rise, “so we focused on regular sea level rise, because we didn’t know how to measure the vertical subsidence,” Riggs said. “I’ve now got data and some capabilities of measuring elevation changes down to a half an inch over time.”

In the northeastern part of the state, where there are thick areas of peat, there’s been as much as two to three feet of subsidence in the last 200 years which is pretty significant,” and regarding increasing ghost forests, “that’s partly because everything’s sinking in addition to the sea level rise, and it’s happening really fast now because we’ve ditched the living hell out of this area. For 250 years now we’ve been ditching and there’s probably more than hundred or several hundred thousand miles of ditches and it’s all starts out as peat land and peat is organic matter and organic matter oxidizes if it dries out.”

What he said is important about the study is that it demonstrates that subsidence is real and highly variable depending on “where you are and what the conditions are, what the history is now and what the geology ecology is. All of that has to go together to try to understand and manage the coastal system.”

Being variable is one of the most important points, Riggs said adding, that in some places, subsidence is equal to the rate of rising sea levels, “which doubles the whammy of sea level rise.”

The science panel that advises the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission has planned a virtual meeting for 10 a.m. Friday, March 15, to resume its discussion on delineating Inlet Hazard Area boundaries, and recent sea level rise data and studies.

The public can listen to the meeting online through WebEex or by calling 1-415-655-0003. Use access code 2430 465 3667. There will be a listening session at North Carolina Division of Coastal Management headquarters office at 400 Commerce Ave., Morehead City.

Comments can be submitted by email to DCMcomments@deq.nc.gov. Include “Science Panel” in the subject line.

The science panel provides the commission with scientific data and recommendations pertaining to coastal topics.

Members met Feb. 29 to continue the conversation on inlet hazard area boundaries and sea level rise that has been carried through the last handful of panel meetings. They also worked on a presentation on sea level rise data, sunny day flooding projections, water level monitoring efforts and adaptation for the commission’s April 24 meeting.

The upcoming meeting is to be a continuation of that discussion.

PBS North Carolina is holding a special screening of a film featuring residents who are adapting to the changing climate.

“State of Change: Seeds of Hope” will be shown at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 4. There is no charge to attend the event to be held in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh and virtually, but registration is required.

Part of the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide Connected Coastlines reporting initiative, the film set to premier on PBS NC April 22 shows how “these innovators are facing the challenges of climate change with perseverance and ingenuity,” the release states.

Frank Graff, producer and host of PBS North Carolina’s “Sci NC,” is to moderate a discussion with the following panelists to provide an up close look at climate change issues after the screening:

• Michelle Lotker, executive producer, “State of Change: Seeds of Hope.”
• Kathie Dello, director, NC State Climate Office, co-director, NOAA’s Carolinas Climate Adaptation Partnership.
• Mary Alice Holley, director of community innovation, Conservation Trust of North Carolina.
• Steve Kalland, executive director, NC Energy Collaborative.
• Ajulo Othow, founder and CEO of EnerWealth Solutions, attorney and board member, Center for Progressive Reform.
• Jacob Rutz, lecturer of agroecology, Department of Environmental Studies, Elon University.

The showing is being supported by the North Carolina Science Festival and in partnership with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

In a new plan to address climate pollution, state officials have taken what they call a “different approach” by making natural and working lands conservation and restoration a priority to offset greenhouse gas emissions.

North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality officials announced late Tuesday the state Priority Climate Action Plan, which “identifies high priority, ready-to-implement” greenhouse gas reduction measures that will provide “significant climate, air quality, and other co-benefits” to the state and its communities.

As required under the first phase of a federal grant program, the plan was developed over the past six months and then submitted this week to the Environmental Protection Agency. The state intends to use the plan to inform the application due April 1 for the $4.6 billion in competitive grants, the second phase. The EPA is to award these grants ranging from $2 million to $500 million later in the year. If NCDEQ is awarded the grant, the action plan will be developed into a Comprehensive Climate Action Plan due July 5, 2025. 

While most of the measures in the 189-page plan focuses on greenhouse gas emissions sources — transportation, electric power generation, industry, buildings and waste management – NCDEQ “took a different approach to develop priority (natural and working lands) measures, performed separately but in parallel to the development and prioritization of measures to reduce (greenhouse gas) emissions in other sectors.”

The plan explains that there is “compelling potential” for natural and working lands to “substantially offset (greenhouse gas emissions) by permanently storing atmospheric carbon in the ground and plants,” the report states. “The natural and working lands “sector ‘netted out’ 34% of the state’s gross GHG emissions in 2020.”

Jacob Boyd, who helped develop the natural and working lands section of the plan, told Coastal Review Wednesday that incorporating natural and working lands into the plan has been considered since the start.

“From the very beginning, the department had made the decision that natural and working lands should be a component, not just the greenhouse gas emitting sectors,” he said.

Boyd, who is the new salt marsh program director for the North Carolina Coastal Federation, was involved in the plan through his previous role as habitat and enhancement section chief at NCDEQ’s Division of Marine Fisheries. Boyd was with the division for 17 years, serving in various roles until last month when he joined the nonprofit conservation organization that also publishes Coastal Review.

Boyd explained that with past plans and strategies, the focus was on resilience with carbon sequestration as a side benefit. “We’re still highlighting the resilience co-benefits,” Boyd said, but now it’s more carbon-focused. “This is really the first time we’ve had an opportunity to do that, which I think it’s great.”

An interagency effort, the Priority Climate Action Plan was built using nearly 50 existing state reports, including the greenhouse gas inventory, a clean energy plan, a clean transportation plan, a zero-emission vehicle plan, climate strategy reports, and a natural and working lands action plan. These were reviewed and consolidated into sectors.

Natural and working lands offer protection and restoration and voiding emissions, Boyd explained.  

“All land is comprised of carbon, which is a greenhouse gas, and some soils and land have higher amounts of that carbon, “Boyd explained, adding coastal habitats such as salt marshes, pocosins and peatlands are some of the highest carbon-rich habitats in the world.

If we lose those, most of that carbon gets emitted back into the atmosphere, but when we protect those coastal habitats, it keeps the carbon in those soils and emits less carbon, and the emissions can be avoided.

“We not only get those carbon benefits, but we also protect natural resources and critical habitat and provide flood resiliency,” he said.  

Boyd said he’s been involved in this type of planning since 2018 when NCDEQ began developing its Natural and Working Lands Action Plan, published in 2020, and related projects, including the recent N.C. Coastal Habitat Greenhouse Gas Inventory.

Because of this experience, Boyd said he was asked to be involved in the action plan development and implementation. It took about six months to develop.

The working group used as a roadmap the 2020 land action plan, which highlighted strategies like high-carbon coastal habitats that help avoid emissions and with carbon sequestration, as a roadmap for this section. As they progressed through developing, these important strategies rose to the top as being needing to be some of the important components of the plan.

The Coastal Federation will be one of a few organizations being brought in to implement projects to conserve and restore these high-carbon habitats.

“We are excited to partner with the State to safeguard and rejuvenate coastal ecosystems given their important role in storing and sequestering carbon. Salt marshes, peatlands, and adjacent working lands also provide an important buffer for coastal communities, offering resilience against extreme weather events and sea level rise,” Executive Director Braxton Davis said. “This Plan seeks to harness the strength of nature itself as a key line of defense in combating climate change and sea level rise.”

Boyd said though he’s transited from NCDEQ to the Coastal Federation, he will continue to work on the action plan for the natural and working land sector.

The plan also notes there are five executive orders in place for climate action and greenhouse gas reduction targets, many of which are focused on the transportation sector.

Transportation, the largest emissions sector, represents about 36% of all greenhouse gas emissions, according to the report. That makes transportation measures a top priority. These include increasing zero-emission and electric vehicles, including in the state fleet as well as school and transit buses, installing and maintaining an electric vehicle charging network, and going after programs to increase efficiency and reduce emissions at port and freight terminals.

“The N.C. Department of Transportation is working with its partners in the public and private sectors to ensure North Carolina is prepared as we transition to a clean energy economy and invest in more sustainable and accessible transportation options,” Jamie Kritzer, assistant director of communications for NCDOT, told Coastal Review Wednesday.

In keeping with the Cooper administration’s executive order to increase the total number of registered zero-emission vehicles, Kritzer continued, NCDOT led the creation of the Clean Transportation Plan, which was developed in about a year by a diverse group of stakeholders and released last April.

“NCDOT is working to carry out the plan’s strategies to encourage the transition to zero-emission vehicles, ensure electric vehicle charging stations and other clean transportation infrastructure are in place, and help make clean mobility options accessible to everyone,” he said.

NCDOT and the NCDEQ also are working on the measure in the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program related to reducing vehicle miles traveled, Kritzer explained.

“Together, our agencies will identify bicycle and pedestrian projects in the rural parts of the state, especially in lower income and disadvantaged communities where current funding through NCDOT programs does not exist. These projects will help reduce vehicle miles traveled, which supports important goals set forth in the Clean Transportation Plan,” Kritzer said.

Southern Environmental Law Center Climate Initiative Leader Alys Campaigne said in a statement about Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina submitting Priority Climate Action Plans to the EPA that the South plays an outsized role in contributing to climate change and severe, accelerating impacts are impacting vulnerable residents with higher pollution exposure and less ability to adapt.

“We applaud Southern Governors and Mayors for developing bold local strategies to protect people from pollution and invest in innovative projects that spur a cleaner economy and more resilient communities. We now have sector-based data on the sources of climate pollution and a roadmap for taking meaningful action in each of our six states,” Campaigne said. “These plans will help draw other competitive public and private investments to our region to deliver on the clean energy transition and respond to community needs.”

DEQ is accepting comments and suggestions through June 3 for program, which will be considered as the state develops its Comprehensive Climate Action Plan for the implementation phase. Send comments through the online form, via email to cprg@deq.nc.gov or by calling 919-707-8757.

Dare County has received more than $5 million to elevate 31 flood-prone homes through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Dare County Grants and Waterways office announced Monday that the county has received the FEMA hazard mitigation assistance grant awarded in December 2023 because of the extensive damage caused by Hurricane Dorian, which was declared a federal disaster in 2019. 

The 31 homes that will be elevated this year were selected from applications submitted in 2019 by homeowners in Kitty Hawk, Manteo, Wanchese, Stumpy Point, Manns Harbor, Avon, Buxton, Frisco and Hatteras. 

Elevations will begin once the project has been bid out by the state and a contractor has been selected. The project is expected to begin in late this year and take a year to complete. The elevation of each home is expected to take between 60 and 90 days to complete.

FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program provides funding to local and state governments so they can develop hazard mitigation plans and rebuild in a manner that reduces future disaster losses within their communities. This funding, which only becomes available after a presidentially declared disaster occurs, allows structures to be elevated above the known flood level, preventing or reducing the risk of future flood losses.  

Over the past 25 years, Dare County has completed the elevation of nearly 100 homes with FEMA assistance, including 27 residences that were elevated in 2023 with funding from a hazard mitigation assistance grant of $6 million awarded in August 2021 as a result of damage caused by Hurricane Florence, declared a federal disaster in 2018.   

“In addition to reducing flood insurance claims and keeping insurance rates down, elevating homes located in areas prone to flooding also enhances the resilience of these residences, protecting the homeowners and their belongings from potential future losses,” officials said.  

Although the homes that will be elevated in 2024 using this particular FEMA hazard mitigation assistance grant have already been selected from applications that were submitted following Hurricane Dorian in 2019, homeowners whose properties are located in flood-prone areas are encouraged to watch for grant opportunities that may become available following any future federally declared disasters.

For more information, please contact Dare County Grants and Waterways Administrator Barton Grover at 252-475-5628 or Barton.Grover@DareNC.gov.

Watch a short video released in May 2023 about elevating homes in Dare County through FEMA’s hazard mitigation assistance grant funding.

A study ordered by the legislature has scientists taking a deep dive into North Carolina’s fisheries management to help the future of state-regulated coastal marine species.

The North Carolina General Assembly in the 2021-22 state budget tasked researchers with a “Study of the Coastal and Marine Fisheries of the State” to come up with recommendations on ways the state might improve how it manages 13 regulated species.

To do this, researchers are examining a multitude of information gathered over the past few decades and study trends in everything from water temperatures to commercial harvest patterns.

The study, led by a team of nine researchers who fall under the umbrella of the North Carolina Collaboratory, is expected to wrap sometime next year. The legislature created the policy research entity in 2016. The Collaboratory is to share its recommendations to state lawmakers no later than June 30, 2025.

That deadline was bumped from June 30 of this year, which marks the 27th anniversary of the Fisheries Reform Act of 1997 and the 50th anniversary of the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA.

Estuarine ecologist Joel Fodrie, a professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City, is one of the nine principal investigators who began working on the study in 2022.

“It took the better part of a year I feel like for the (principal investigators) to be able to wrap our minds and some of our time around the vast amount of data that we could bring to bear on, but also drawing data from other states,” Fodrie told Coastal Review in a telephone interview last week. “We spent the better part of that year really focusing on building that library so that we could engage in a meaningful way and not be drawn in too many directions.”

The investigators have enlisted the help of post-doctoral and graduate students and technicians from their respective universities, which include UNC Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, UNC Wilmington and East Carolina University.

The team is studying bay scallop, blue crab, eastern oyster, estuarine striped bass, hard clam, kingfishes, red drum, river herring, sheepshead, shrimp, southern flounder, spotted seatrout and striped mullet.

Fodrie discussed in a webinar last week just how extensive the study is, explaining that researchers will weigh how North Carolina’s management of these species compare to other state and federal management programs of the same species.

“Are those states performing at a higher level in the conservation and management of those,” species, he said. “We view this as the way that we will contextualize and define the status of our resources at the moment.”

The North Carolina Fishery Management Plan is reviewed and updated annually for species under state, federal and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission management, where the state is directly involved in the management plan. Yearly updates are presented to the Marine Fisheries Commission.

The study is taking a novel, broad view of fisheries by looking at collections of data including things like river flow, rainfall, atmospheric temperature, water temperature and nutrient loading, and things like North Carolina’s coastal population boom over the past 40 years.

“We’re trying to manage the system as coastal populations in North Carolina are growing,” Fodrie said. “We’re trying to tease apart the effects of fishing versus habitat loss versus perturbations like storm frequency or intensity.”

Researchers are also factoring in the changing climate, looking at things like how warming water temperatures might affect where some species gather.

Commercial and recreational fishing trends are also being taken into account.

During the webinar, Fodrie shared a graph that showed the ratio of permitted small commercial vessels to large commercial vessels to illustrate the complexity of the data the researchers are examining.

“As you move down this graph, there’s relatively more large vessels. As you move up the graph, there’s relatively more small vessels and this changes over a 10-year scale for reasons that I don’t fully understand,” he said. “And how might this affect different aspects of the fisheries that we care about?”

The research team is to periodically update North Carolina Collaboratory Executive Director Jeff Warren of the group’s progress. Warren coordinates the center’s research and reports to the General Assembly.

Fodrie explained that the study is an independent analysis of “how things are going” on a broad scale and what may be potential drivers, either environmental or human, of management.

“However, having said that, it would be ridiculous not to want to seek out and receive knowledgeable stakeholder feedback,” he said.

Fodrie said that members of the public who have questions or would like to provide feedback may contact him or any one of the other principal investigators.

They include Janet Nye and Nate Hall with UNC-IMS, Elizabeth Havice with UNC Chapel Hill, Jim Morley and Eric Wade with the at the Coastal Studies Institute on the ECU Outer Banks campus, Rachel Gittman with ECU, Fred Scharf with University of North Carolina Wilmington, and Jeff Buckel with N.C. State University’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology, or CMAST.

Guest commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

MANNS HARBOR – Here, on the front lines of the battle against climate change, the war looks lost.

Point Peter Road leads straight into the Croatan Sound where rising seas, higher tides, and monstrous storms batter the fragile coastline. The saltwater poisons and erodes the peaty soil before what’s left disappears under the relentless waves. A man-made canal carries the seawater inland where it kills cypresses and pines and turns the forest into shrubby marsh. Freshwater, blocked from running into the bay by the rising sound, pools under trees and kills them.

This corner of the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge stands no higher than one foot.

“This particular stretch of the coastline, due to the hydrology, experiences extremely high rates of erosion,” says Sarah Toner, the visitor services manager for the Coastal North Carolina National Wildlife Refuges Complex. “This is ground zero.”

All, however, may not be lost. A healthy infusion of climate-fighting cash — $27.5 million — from the Inflation Reduction Act will likely help Alligator River and a handful of other nearby refuges and state lands keep the ravages of climate change at bay. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and partners will deploy “nature-based solutions,” including oyster reefs, marsh sills, dredge spoils, and re-wetted peatlands, to protect the coast from a steadily warming world.

“The threat is that more of these communities out here will become really challenging places to live with more flooding, more soil erosion, and more frequent wildfires,” says Chris Baillie, the climate adaptation coordinator for the North Carolina Coastal Federation. “There is a need to be really judicious in how climate funding is spent because there simply isn’t enough money out there to address all the climate vulnerabilities faced by people and nature.”

‘We’re trying to hang on’

The Alligator River refuge — “mile after uninhabited mile on both Highways 64 and 264,” reads a 1990 Service brochure – is an otherworldly expanse of dredged peat fields, fresh and brackish marshes, pocket forests, and lakes. Established in 1984, the refuge is surrounded by water and serves as the second line of defense, behind the Outer Banks, against a marauding Mother Nature. The 152,000-acre refuge is one of nine, low-lying refuges in eastern North Carolina, all facing varying degrees of climate-induced threats.

Its purpose: protect the pocosin wetlands, which provide ample habitat for the wintering waterfowl that fill the skies, the black bears in numbers found nowhere else on the East Coast, and the elusive, and federally endangered, Red Wolves. Another goal: to save the eastern black rail, “the most secretive of the secretive marsh birds and one of the least understood bird species in North America,” according to the Atlantic Coast Joint Venture, a federal-state bird conservation partnership.

The birds, federally listed as threatened, once flitted across salt marshes from Connecticut to Florida, including those alongside Point Peter Road. But habitat destruction, due to drained marshes and rising seas, has decimated the population by 90 percent. Maybe 350 breeding pairs remain, according to the Joint Venture, “a catastrophic decline over the past 30 years.”

Seas, worldwide, rose on average 1.2 millimeters a year for most of the 20th century. Since 1993, though, the rate has more than doubled to 3.2 millimeters, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yet reports show the seas have been rising three to four times as much as the global rate between North Carolina and Massachusetts which leads to more frequent inundations and salt marsh loss.

“We’re losing a lot of land,” says Fred Wurster, a Service geomorphologist who’s leading the climate-fighting project. “Not only is the shoreline retreating rapidly, but the habitat we manage is transitioning very rapidly to salt marsh or open water. It creates a situation where we’re trying to hang on to what’s here long enough to give species a chance to move further inland.”

Much of Alligator River, like much of the coastal plain, was logged of cypress and Atlantic white cedar and drained for farmland which dried out the peaty soils. When the mega-farms proved unprofitable, the scarred and desiccated fields became refuges and wildlife management areas. Yet the salty water from surrounding estuaries creeps relentlessly inland poisoning the soil and further drying the spongy peat bogs. Without rain, the carbon-rich pocosins become tinderboxes for wildfires that can last months and cause significant damage to the ecosystem, and global health.

In 1955, a fire on the other side of the Alligator River burned 203,000 acres. Thirty years later, the Allen Road fire burned 95,000 acres. The 2008 Evans Road fire, though, sticks most in locals’ craws. It burned — above and below ground in the deep peat — for seven months before it was extinguished. Air quality as far north as Norfolk, Virginia, suffered. More than 40,000 acres, mostly in the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, burned. The Service estimated that the fire released six million tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Peatlands cover only three percent of the world’s land mass, yet they store twice as much carbon as all the planet’s forests. They are enormous carbon “sinks.” Duke University calculated in 2022 that rewetting and restoring 250,000 acres of abandoned peat bogs across the Southeast could prevent 4.3 million tons of carbon dioxide from escaping into the atmosphere each year.

“Southern pocosin peatlands punch far above their weight in terms of their capacity for carbon storage,” says Curtis Richardson, founding director of the Duke University Wetland Center. “Acre for acre, they can store significantly more carbon than forests or grasslands.”

Largest climate-fighting act

Arch Bracher stood at the end of a long pier casting mullet into Rose Bay where the freshwater Pamlico River turns brackish at the Pamlico Sound. It was an unseasonably warm, Carolina-blue morning and the red drum weren’t biting. And neither was Bracher when talk turned to climate change.

“They talk about sea level rise, blah, blah, blah,” says Bracher, a charter boat captain who runs the Pelican out of Oregon Inlet. “But the ocean’s not getting higher. It’s just eating away stuff. They’re talking about the water rising one inch over the next 100 years. I think that’s just propaganda.”

A forest of dead, ghostly pines stood in the adjoining Swanquarter National Wildlife Refuge. Rising seas have eaten away the banks on both sides of the Bell Island Pier. A study a decade ago showed that an average of three feet of peaty soil disappeared each year due to ever-higher water. In 2012, The Nature Conservancy and the Service built a limestone sill 30 feet offshore. The reef reduces the power of the waves that pound the shoreline. Erosion slows. Sand and silt accumulate between the shore and the sill creating new beach for plants to take hold and marsh to reform. Oysters and mussels attach to the marl further strengthening, and renourishing, the reef.

“We’re building good oyster habitat, and getting recruitment, which helps with water quality as well,” says Aaron McCall, a regional land steward for The Nature Conservancy. “We don’t want to reach a tipping point where the system gets destroyed and it doesn’t provide any service to the environment or the local community.”

The Conservancy surveyed 10 sites — six protected by the reef, four unprotected — near the pier to determine whether erosion continues apace. Erosion stopped or slowed at all protected sites; it continued at the unprotected sites.

Limestone sills and oyster reefs are major components of so-called living shorelines and hallmarks of nature-based solutions to climate change. And they are precisely the types of projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act that will be built across eastern North Carolina.

The IRA, at $369 billion, is the largest climate-fighting package in U.S. history. Its goal is to move the country fully towards renewable energy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change. Billions of dollars are dedicated to agricultural conservation, forest protection, and wildfire risk reduction.

“There is often an assumption that tackling the climate crisis requires only technological solutions,” the White House said in November 2022 describing the IRA’s nature-based offerings. “Too often, the power of nature is overlooked and undervalued as a core element of a more just, livable world today and for future generations.”

The Service received $250 million; nearly half will help restore federal wildlife refuges and state wildlife management areas “that have been affected by adverse weather events.” No other project received as much money — $27.5 million — as the Albemarle-Pamlico region. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission will likely get $5 million of that amount for climate-fighting work at wildlife management areas across the coastal plain.

There’s really nothing new or radical about enlisting nature to solve nature’s problems. The Roosevelt administration, during the Dust Bowl, paid farmers to plant 220 million trees from Texas to North Dakota to reduce erosion, protect livestock, and create wildlife habitat. Oyster reefs have long been deployed off Florida. Sand is pumped on barrier islands across the Mississippi River Delta. The Service and partners also spent $38 million pumping sand, restoring marsh, and replumbing the hydrology at Delaware’s Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge which was decimated by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Nature-based engineering contrasts the coastal hardening tactics — sea walls, jetties, bulkheads, rip-rap — of centuries past. Sea walls, for example, only protect shorelines for so long against rising seas. More vicious storms and hurricanes easily top them. And the walls may protect one section of coast while causing erosion along another section.

“Nature-based solutions are definitely the way to go because you’re designing something that takes into account the natural hydrology and actual landscape in the first place,” Wurster says. “The things you’re building will be more stable in the long run. You’re not fighting against nature. Plus, these strategies tend to be more resilient and less expensive in the long run.”

Buying time

Climate change’s past, present, and alarming future unspools along Mashoes Road on the Alligator River refuge’s north end. A somewhat healthy marsh on the right gives way to shrub, pine, and oak on the left. In the distance, the skeletal remains of once-prominent trees hug East Lake. Eventually, inexorably, the salt water will reach the forest and destroy it too.

“We see, year after year, the forest retreating and turn into this ghost forest,” says the refuge’s Toner, a biologist by training. “We’re trying to keep what we have here for as long as we can.”

Help’s on the way. Much of the $27.5 million will be spent restoring fragile coastal ecosystems via shoreline protection and peatland restoration. IRA money could plug drainage ditches and add dikes, tidal gates, or wooden risers to keep saltwater at bay while restoring the natural flow of water over the land. Culverts may be dug to let water flow beneath roads. Restoration, or preservation, of trees, shrubs, and wetlands could provide habitat for Red Wolves, black rails, and other migratory birds. Communities near and far will likely benefit from a reduction in wildfires and a sequestration of carbon.

Oyster reefs, for example, could be built, or expanded, at Cedar Island and Pea Island refuges. A canal might be dredged, and a pump station added, at Lake Mattamuskeet. A logging road could be removed at Roanoke River refuge to let water flow naturally again. The marsh sill at the Bell Island Pier could be expanded.

Work is set to begin in 2024. Baillie, with the nonprofit Coastal Federation, says there’s no time to waste.

“It would be really disingenuous to say, ‘Hey, these funds are going to take care of all of our problems and let people live the way they currently do forever,’” he says. “There are tough decisions to be made. But these funds can have a big impact helping people and natural communities adapt while buying some time to figure out what’s the best way forward.”

See our guidelines for submitting guest columns. 

Explore the fundamental concepts of climate science, look under the hood of the computer models used in climate prediction, and consider how climate change might affect extreme weather events, particularly hurricanes on the coast, during this month’s “Science on the Sound.”

Atmospheric scientist Dr. Rosana Ferreira is to present “Navigating Climate Change: Science, Prediction and Extremes” at 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 18, during the monthly, in-person lecture series at the Coastal Studies Institute on the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus, 850 N.C. Highway 345, Wanchese.

The series brings perspectives from all over the state and highlights coastal topics is hosted by the Coastal Studies Institute.

Ferreira is professor of atmospheric science in the Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment and doctorate director of the Integrated Coastal Sciences Program at ECU. Her research integrates observations and numerical model simulations of the atmosphere to study the variability and dynamics of regional climate.

Recently through funding from the National Science Foundation, her research lead to the discovery of a monsoon-like signal in the precipitation in the southeast United States. She is currently working on a modeling study of how this monsoon-like precipitation signal may change in a future warmer climate.

There is no charge to attend. The program will be livestreamed on the CSI YouTube channel.

Guest commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues.

In 2018, one of my best friends, Ashley, moved from her lifelong home in northern Durham to Beaufort, North Carolina, a beautiful coastal town with gorgeous views, a walkable historic district and a peaceful, slow pace of life. I visited on numerous occasions, enjoying the fresh seafood, taking trips to sea on her family boat and falling in love with the old-world, Southern charm of North Carolina’s fourth oldest town.

Once college started and my academic and extracurricular obligations made trips to Beaufort difficult, I was not able to return to the town, until my girlfriend spent the spring 2023 semester at the Duke University Marine Laboratory, a small research facility and campus on Pivers Island in Beaufort. She took marine biology classes and conducted research, quantifying chlorophyll biomass variations at different depths in the water column. When I took a weekend visit, I was fortunate enough to learn about other research being conducted by bright Duke students and staff at the lab, including the measurement of ocean warming and acidification through year-round water samples, the evaluation of microplastic presence in oysters at their aquafarm and analysis on the impact of the decreasing fish population on local fishing economies.

These discouraging findings made me curious — how are these climate trends impacting the residents of Beaufort? And how can Beaufort residents play a role in mitigating these impacts?

Beaufort has faced worsening coastal and climate hazards, like sea level rise, flooding and hurricanes, threatening the homes, businesses and natural infrastructure of the “frontline community” and jeopardizing the well-being and prosperity of residents.

The alarming rise in sea levels and increased flooding during storms disrupts coastal communities like Beaufort. More than 1,300 residential and commercial properties along the North Carolina coast, valued at almost $340 million, are at risk of chronic flooding. If no climate action is taken, by 2045, this estimate increases to almost 15,600 properties, valued at almost $4 billion.

Beaufort has faced particularly severe flooding, especially on the historic Front Street, a bustling hub for local businesses, where the roads are becoming more frequently impassable, hurting the local economy.

The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events will continue to have disastrous effects on Beaufort and other coastal communities. Hurricane Florence in 2018 caused $1 billion in combined crop and livestock losses and $50 million in forestry losses in North Carolina. From 2004 to 2016, the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) spent an average of $65 million per year on storm cleanup. From 2017 to 2019, they spent an average of $222 million per year.

Warmer waters and ocean acidification are disrupting marine ecosystems, leading to declining fish populations and shifting habitats for commercially caught fish species. For example, the summer flounder, a species integral to the Beaufort’s trawling industry, is moving north, damaging the local economy and reducing the local food supply.

Commercial fishermen in Beaufort are also facing decreasing shrimp and blue crab populations.

Beaufort residents are not powerless in fostering change. In addition to embracing climate-conscious behaviors and sparking climate change discussion with family and friends, Beaufort residents must exercise their voting power to elect politicians that will protect wetlands and other vital climate-mitigating ecological systems, delegate resources to disaster relief and promote the executive branch’s ability to fight pollution.

In 2022, Beaufort received a grant to participate in the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management’s North Carolina Resilient Coastal Communities Program (RCCP), helping the town develop strategies for dealing with coastal and climate hazards. The public is a key partner in this project, as they can provide local knowledge and perspective on the coastal and climate hazards, informing the resilience strategies. Beaufort residents can help foster effective, equitable solutions and shape the responses taken through the program.

Beaufort is a beautiful, easygoing town with a captivating history spanning over 300 years. The town was organized in 1709. Blackbeard the Pirate ported in Beaufort frequently. The town played roles in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. The destruction of Beaufort is the destruction of history. Beaufort residents must take action.

See our guidelines for submitting guest columns. Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

Close to $7 million in federal grants will go to support the design and implementation of natural infrastructure projects to benefit coastal North Carolina.

The money is part of a total $144 million marked to support projects to enhance the resilience of coastal communities and improve habitat for fish and wildlife in 31 coastal states and U.S. territories, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Wednesday.

The 109 grants will generate more than $97 million in matching contributions for a total conservation impact of $242 million, officials said. Matching contributions in North Carolina total around $2.64 million.

The grants were funded through Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, congressional appropriations and private partnerships and awarded through the National Coastal Resilience Fund, or NCRF.

NCRF is a partnership between the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, NOAA, the Department of Defense, Shell USA, TransRe international reinsurance organization, the SalesForce software company, and the Oxy international energy company. The fund supports capacity-building and larger-scale planning, design, and implementation projects to help improve community and coastal habitat resilience and reduce risks and devastating impacts of rising seas, coastal flooding, and more intense storms.

NCRF uses a “pipeline” approach for funding all stages of project development, including planning, design, and implementation. The 109 projects announced Tuesday will support efforts of grantees across all stages of the pipeline, including 17 grants to support ongoing NCRF-funded projects that will help these communities advance to the next stage in developing a “restoration-ready” resilience project.

“This year’s grant slate continues our significant investments in nature-based solutions that are critical to increasing the resilience of vulnerable communities and protecting and restoring essential habitats for fish and wildlife,” National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Executive Director and CEO Jeff Trandahl said in a statement. “The NCRF supports the development and implementation of sustainable designs, plans and practices that integrate natural features into successful coastal resilience outcomes and that promote adaptation and resilience to storms, floods and other coastal hazards.”

The natural infrastructure projects supported by the NCRF not only buffer communities from more intense storms, they also provide vital habitat for fish and wildlife species. 

“NOAA is proud to work with NFWF and partners to help communities be ready and resilient to climate change,” NOAA administrator Rick Spinrad said. “Funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help bolster community resilience efforts and meet the demand we’re seeing for projects that address coastal hazards and enhance ecosystems that are important for wildlife, communities and the coastal economy.”

The following North Carolina projects were selected for funding:

• Advancing Community-Led Resilience Initiatives in a Sentinel Landscape. North Carolina Foundation for Soil and Water Conservation has been awarded $1.49 million, no matching funds. The project is described as a “collaborative and inclusive project with ecological, community, and military resilience benefits in key geographies across the Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape,” which spans nearly 11 million acres across a 33-county region in North Carolina’s Coastal Plain and Sandhills and is home to seven key military installations and ranges. The project will build critically needed capacity to support underserved and Tribal landowner enrollment in conservation practices, facilitate climate resilience planning, and work to reduce barriers for implementing emerging, nature-based flood mitigation practices.
• Building Capacity to Conserve Salt Marsh Habitat within Coastal Communities. California-based LegacyWorks Group consulting firm has been awarded $1.57 million, and matching funds are $175,000. The funds are to be used to build capacity within vulnerable coastal communities of the South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative region made up of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The project is to develop 20 to 25 nature-based solutions that are site assessment and preliminary design ready to buffer storm surge, mitigate sea level rise impacts while also protecting local food production, historic sites, bird habitat and cultural traditions.
• Building Community Capacity for Coastal Resilience Planning in Atlantic Coastal Plain. Anthropocene Alliance, a national coalition of communities fighting for environmental and climate justice, has been awarded $397,900, Matching funds are $308,400. The funds are for 10 community-based organizations in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina to address issues of climate risk, displacement, relocation and the deployment of nature-based solutions to provide protection from storm surges, high tides and sea level rise. Project will provide a detailed road map for each organization for community resilience development and implementation of projects that build off the existing priorities and plans for addressing coastal hazards.
• Ecological, Community and Military Resilience through Spoil Island Restoration in Bogue Sound. The North Carolina Coastal Federation has been awarded $297,000. Matching funds are $150,000. The funds are for nature-based solutions to restore dredge spoil island habitat mosaics in Bogue Sound. Project will finalize designs and secure permits for 2,200 linear feet of high-stability oyster substrate sills, salt marsh plantings and restoration of 2.5 acres of seagrass beds. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.
• Equity through Final Design and Permitting Technical Assistance for Coastal Communities. North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has been awarded $3.06 million, and matching funds are $2 million. funds will provide final engineering and design technical assistance for local government projects through the Resilient Coastal Communities Program.
• Final Design and Planning to Install Living Shorelines and Stormwater Management. North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries has been awarded $89,700, and matching funds are $5,500. The funds are to install a living shoreline and low impact stormwater retrofits. Project will increase community resilience from coastal hazards and improve habitats for fish and other species.

A groundbreaking for the $3.6 million project to raise and make repairs to the Double Keepers’ Quarters and other structures at Cape Hatteras National Seashore’s Ocracoke Light Station is scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 7.

The 15-minute event, which caps off the year-long celebration of the Ocracoke Light Station’s 200th anniversary, will take place by the Double Keepers’ Quarters.

Hosted by the National Park Service, there will be brief remarks followed by the breaking of ground by representatives from the National Park Service, Hyde County, the State Historic Preservation Office and the contractor, Terra Site Constructors LLC.

The Double Keepers’ Quarters will be open for public viewing immediately after the groundbreaking event for one hour and the base of the Ocracoke Lighthouse for will be open from 11:45 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. 

During the 12-month project, the contractors are to raise the Double Keepers’ Quarters more than 4 feet to protect against storm surge, and the Store House, Carpenter’s Shop, Generator House and Privy by 2 feet on concrete masonry piers with concrete footers. 

The contractors also are to repair interior and exterior storm damage and repaint all structures, remediate all structures for mold, lead based paint and asbestos containing material, and install a pathway from the existing boardwalk to a custom lift to the Double Keepers’ Quarters. The pathway and custom lift will meet Architectural Barriers Act, or ABA, accessibility standards. 

Groundbreaking event attendees are encouraged to park at the nearby Ocracoke Township Tourism Development Authority parking lot due to limited parking at the Ocracoke Light Station.

MOREHEAD CITY – The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries recently established a new state record for Seriola rivoliana, otherwise known as almaco jack.

Matt Frattasio of Massachusetts caught the 26-pound, 15.6-ounce fish Nov. 8 near the D wreck off Morehead City. There was no previous state record for the species in North Carolina. Georgia and Florida’s state records stand at 7 pounds, 0.7 ounce, and 35 pounds, 9 ounces, respectively.

Frattasio was aboard Riptide Charters fishing in around 80 feet of water. He landed the fish using live menhaden and 50-pound braid on a Daiwa Saltist MQ 14000 reel paired with a Hogy Tuna jigging rod, according to state officials.

Frattasio’s fish measured 36.4 inches fork length, from the tip of the nose to the fork in the tail, and had a 26-inch girth. The fish was weighed and identified by fisheries staff at the Division of Marine Fisheries headquarters in Morehead City.

For more information on state record fish, visit the division’s State Saltwater Records webpage or contact the North Carolina Saltwater Fishing Tournament staff at saltwater.citations@deq.nc.gov.

Of the $2.3 million going to 18 recipients in North Carolina this year through the North Carolina Department of Justice’s Environmental Enhancement Grant program, just shy of $1 million is going to projects either on the coast or for waters that eventually flow to the coast.

Attorney General Josh Stein announced the statewide awards last week.

The EEG program began after a 2000 agreement between the Attorney General’s Office and Smithfield Foods. Through the agreement, Smithfield provides $2 million to the state every year to be distributed among environmental projects across North Carolina.

Including the 2023 grants, the attorney general’s office has awarded nearly $43 million to more than 228 projects in the state.

Shoreline stabilization

The Craven County Department of Solid Waste and Recycling will receive $200,000 to stabilize shorelines and reinforce swales in the county to help prevent erosion.

“We’ve seen all too often the damage that flooding and erosion cause the homes and habitats in eastern North Carolina,” Stein said in a statement. “I’m pleased that this grant will help the people of Craven County prepare for and stay safe during storms.”

Craven County Planning and Community Development Director Chad Strawn said in the release that the county is grateful to receive funding through the EEG program to build a living shoreline at the confluence of the Neuse and Trent rivers in New Bern.

“This living shoreline will protect critical water and road infrastructure that is highly susceptible to erosion, wind tides, and storm surge,” Strawn continued. “The introduction of this living shoreline will prevent future road compromise or failure like we experienced during Hurricane Florence in 2018. From this highly traveled route, we will showcase to the public the positive effects of natural shoreline stabilization while enhancing the environment through newly created wetlands.”

Manure, flood risk management study

North Carolina State University will receive $176,391 to study improving the management of manure and flood risks on farms in eastern North Carolina.

“North Carolina’s farmers are the backbone of our economy and help us feed our families,” Stein said. “This grant will help them make the best decisions to ensure their farmlands stay healthy even as the climate changes.”

Dr. Mahmoud Sharara, the principal researcher on the project, said this project aims to minimize impacts of climate variability on North Carolina swine farms.

“To that goal, the project team will develop and make available a farm simulation tool to guide swine producers on optimal effluent management strategies to optimize nutrient use and reduce the risk of extreme weather events on lagoon stability,” Sharara continued.

Sharara’s research focuses on investigating pathways for the sustainable management of agricultural waste and byproducts to generate value-added products and reduce agriculture-related impacts on ecosystems, according to the university.

PFAS contamination in oysters

Coastal Carolina Riverwatch will receive $128,751 to study whether farm-raised and wild-caught oyster populations in the White Oak River basin are contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, dangerous, toxic chemicals that are harmful to health and do not degrade in the environment.

“I’m fighting to hold accountable the companies that polluted our air and water with dangerous forever chemicals,” Stein said. “But more research only strengthens our understanding of the harm that’s already been done. I’m grateful to the Coastal Carolina Riverwatch for studying PFAS closely.”

The White Oak River basin covers most of Onslow and Carteret counties, as well as small portions of Craven and Jones counties, and includes Bogue and Core sounds, according to NCDEQ.

“Coastal Carolina Riverwatch (CCRW) staff and partners are grateful for this funding that will help us conduct crucial research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and heavy metal levels in wild and farm-raised oysters,” Executive Director Lisa Rider said in the release.

“This project aims to reveal the impact of these industrial pollutants on coastal fisheries. The data obtained is pivotal for understanding the environmental consequences of these pollutants and will help us promote restoration and policy improvements through future planning and advocacy efforts. CCRW highly values the NC Environmental Enhancement Grant (EEG) Program, considering it essential for assessing pollution in local water bodies,” she continued. “This financial support greatly advances public knowledge of pollutants, promotes consumer safety, and urges effective pollution reduction measures in the State of North Carolina. It underscores the urgency of addressing pollution for both ecosystem health and public well-being, aligning with the goals of the NC EEG program.”

Land conservation

The Conservation Fund will receive $150,000 to protect 3,530 acres along the Lumber River, which will become a part of the Lumber River State Park in Scotland, Hoke, Robeson and Columbus counties.

“Preserving this land helps us to protect water quality in southeastern North Carolina,” Stein said. “That means folks will be safer and healthier. We’re also helping ensure that future generations can enjoy the beauty of their surroundings.”

The Lumber River basin is found in 10 counties, including Brunswick, and contains the coastal watershed of the Shallotte and Lockwoods Folly rivers, according to NCDEQ.

“The Lumber River State Park is a gem in Southeastern North Carolina,” The Conservation Fund’s NC State Director Guenevere Abernathy said. “It provides many public benefits, including outdoor recreation, wildlife conservation, economic development, and flood storage. The Conservation Fund thanks Attorney General Josh Stein for providing an EEG grant to help us expand the state park and increase public access in Robeson County.”

Wetlands preservation

The Wildlife and Outdoor Recreation Foundation will receive $200,000 to purchase 48.12 acres in Nashville, a part of the Tar-Pamlico watershed, to add to existing wetlands and implement measures to prevent flooding and erosion.

“Wetlands are crucial to keeping our water clean and helping habitats thrive in Nashville,” Stein said. “This grant will help increase North Carolina’s wetlands and safeguard against flooding.”

The Tar River begins in north central North Carolina in Person, Granville and Vance counties and flows southeasterly until it reaches tidal waters near Washington and becomes the Pamlico River, according to NCDEQ.

“The Environmental Enhancement Grant (EEG) played a crucial role in the success of the Wildlife & Outdoor Recreation Foundation securing the land for the Stoney Creek Environmental Preservation Project,” Wildlife and Outdoor Recreation Foundation Executive Director Tammy Rundle said. “The acquisition of the property was needed to preserve and enhance the wetlands within the Town of Nashville in an effort to help mitigate flooding, while conserving the native ecosystem biodiversity. Being awarded the EEG funding, this project can move forward, allowing for the restoration and preservation of these vital natural habitats that contribute to our clean air, land, and water.”

Feral swine population study

Catawba College in Salisbury will receive $28,875 to identify, study and map feral swine populations across central and southeastern North Carolina.

“Wild boars damage our environments, pollute our water, and threaten our farms,” Stein said. “This grant will help us better understand the challenges we face and how to effectively solve the many issues that stem from this feral population.”

The college will partner with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Resources and the North Carolina Feral Swine Task Force to find solutions to mitigate the environmental harms of feral swine.

“Feral swine are an increasing threat to North Carolina’s environment and economy. Mitigating their impact is an initiative that reaches ‘across the aisle,’ advancing the health and well-being of ecosystems and agribusiness in our State,” said Luke Dollar, chairman of the Environment and Sustainability Department and professor at Catawba College. “The Attorney General’s Environmental Enhancement Grant support of our efforts will greatly advance our ability to collaboratively address this growing hazard. We are grateful for this generous funding.”

Recovery, resiliency plans for underserved communities

East Carolina University will receive $44,656 to help local governments with largely underserved communities better develop and act on sustainability, resiliency and recovery plans.

“Eastern North Carolina has taken it on the chin in recent hurricane seasons,” Stein said. “This grant will help make small communities in the east more resilient to the challenges they face now and in the years to come.”

“Eastern North Carolina is a diverse and growing region, but it is one that also faces a number of environmental challenges including flooding and sea level rise,” said ECU Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science, Dr. Alethia Cook. “This project will aid communities to comprehensively develop resiliency plans that address a combination of air, water, and land quality concerns.”

The total number of Atlantic tropical cyclones that strengthened from weak Category 1 storms into major hurricanes within a 36-hour window has more than doubled in the last 50 years, a new analysis finds.

The observed maximum changes in wind speed for the lifespan of Atlantic tropical cyclones between 1971 and 2020 suggest that the intensification rates of these storms have increased as human-related greenhouse gas emissions warm the planet and oceans, according to the paper, “Observed increases in North Atlantic tropical cyclone peak intensification rates” published Thursday in Scientific Reports.

Historically, the most damaging tropical cyclones have been the most intense, with the majority undergoing rapid strengthening during their lifecycles.

Hurricanes Sandy in 2012, Irma, Maria and Harvey in 2017, Ida in 2021 and Ian in 2022 were the costliest U.S. weather and climate disasters in the last decade. All similarly strengthened rapidly, with most evolving from tropical storms to Category 3 or greater in under three days.

Because this strengthening can be difficult to predict and forecast, quickly intensifying tropical cyclones can create communication and preparedness challenges for coastal communities in a storm’s path, according to the study.

For the analysis, Dr. Andra Garner, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Science at Rowan University in New Jersey, broke the 50 years’ worth of data up into three periods: the historical era, 1971-1990; the intermediate era, 1986-2005; and the modern era, 2001-2020. Maximum intensification rates were calculated for 12-hour, 24-hour and 36-hour windows.

The maximum intensification value of each tropical cyclone was defined for the study as the greatest increase in wind speed across any window of time during the lifespan of the storm.

Garner found that between 2001 and 2020, average maximum tropical cyclones intensification rates increased 28.7% compared to storms that happened from 1971 to 1990. Additionally, from 2001 to 2020, it became more common for tropical cyclones to intensify most quickly in the central Atlantic off the U.S. Southeast Coast, the southern Caribbean Sea east of Central America, and the southeast Atlantic off the west coast of Africa, compared to storms that took place from 1971 to 1990.

The tropical cyclones that intensify at their fastest rate over the central part of the Atlantic basin could be particularly dangerous for communities along the East Coast, “an area already threatened by other evolving tropical cyclone hazards in a warming world, such as slower-moving tropical cyclones and changing tropical cyclones tracks,” the study says.

Garner told Coastal Review this week that part of her motivation for this work is knowing the fact that ocean surface waters, which are a key fuel source for hurricanes, have warmed substantially in recent years. 

She cited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s documented increases in sea surface temperatures of more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since the 1980s. The IPCC is a United Nations group that assesses science related to climate change.

“Since I knew that ocean waters are a critical component for hurricanes to intensify, and, in particular, for allowing hurricanes to intensify quickly, I wanted to see what kinds of changes might already have occurred in the observational record of Atlantic hurricanes over the past 50 years,” she said.

Garner said that the warm ocean waters are a vital source of fuel for hurricanes to strengthen.

“Think of it like your morning cup of coffee — for a hurricane, warm ocean waters act like the caffeine in our morning coffee that helps get us going. When we have abnormally warm ocean waters, it’s kind of like an extra shot of caffeine in the coffee, providing lots of energy for the storm,” she explained.

Keeping this in mind, and knowing that oceans have absorbed about 90% of the excess warmth human-caused climate change has generated in recent years, she said she set out to understand, broadly, how the intensification rates for Atlantic hurricanes has changed in recent years. 

Overall, the fastest average pace at which hurricanes strengthen has indeed significantly increased by more than 25% from 1971-1990 to 2001-2020. Also, during 2001-2020, it was about as likely for hurricanes to intensify by more than 57 mph in just 24 hours as it would have been for hurricanes to intensify by this amount in 36 hours in the historical era, she explained.

These kinds of changes have impacted how common it is for a hurricane to intensify from a fairly weak storm such as a Category 1 hurricane or tropical storm, into a major hurricane of Category 3 or greater.

In particular, between 2001 and 2020, the number of times that hurricanes intensified from weak storms into major hurricanes within 24 hours more than doubled compared to 1971 to 1990, “which is something that my results show would have been statistically impossible to have happen under historical climate conditions,” Garner said.

Her findings didn’t come as a surprise, rather, the analysis serves to quantify the phenomenon of strengthening tropical cyclones that is very much expected in a warmer climate, Garner said. The increased likelihood for hurricanes to transition from weak storms into major hurricanes in 24 hours or fewer was particularly striking, she said.

Garner stressed that her results indicate that there have been changes in areas where hurricanes intensify most quickly, increasing the likelihood of rapid strengthening in several locations, including along the East Coast.

“One of the main reasons these findings matter is that, when storms intensify quickly, they can become more difficult to forecast and to plan for, in terms of emergency action plans for coastal residents. We also know that many of the strongest, most damaging hurricanes do intensify particularly quickly at some point in their lifetime,” Garner explained.

“My work shows that we are already seeing overall increases to the fastest rates at which Atlantic hurricanes intensify, which means that we are likely already seeing an increased risk of hazards for our coastal communities,” she said, “Including, and perhaps especially, those in North Carolina, given that results showed an increased likelihood for hurricanes to intensify most quickly near the U.S. Atlantic Coast. This means that it will be especially important for our coastal communities to work towards enhanced coastal resiliency measures and emergency action plans that may be able to adapt to hurricanes that strengthen more quickly.”

Garner said that her findings should serve as an urgent warning. 

“The rates at which hurricanes strengthen — and the frequency with which they transition from relatively weak storms into major hurricanes — has significantly increased in just the last 50 years, over the same time when we see substantial increases to ocean surface temperatures due to human-caused warming,” she said.

“Without major changes in our behavior and a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, this is a trend that will continue to get more extreme,” Garner said. “There is hope — hope that comes from knowing that we are the cause of this problem, so we can also be the solution; hope that we could secure a more sustainable future. But that hope will only be realized if we take the necessary actions to decarbonize our economies.”

Last in a series.

The week after Hurricane Florence devastated eastern North Carolina in September 2018, Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center Executive Director Karen Willis Amspacher wrote in an online message to members and patrons that throughout the 13 unincorporated communities making up Down East and the entire county, “we’ve been putting back the pieces.”

But “in the midst of the damage and pain throughout Down East, the Museum has suffered far more damage than originally seen.” She continued that there were significant leaks in the facility, mold was growing on the carpet, floors were buckling and drywall was crumbling. 

By mid-October 2018, teams and equipment had been brought in to help manage moisture, and staff and volunteers had completely emptied the nearly destroyed building so the damaged floors, walls and roof could be replaced, Coastal Review reported at the time. The museum reopened May 2020, after the $3.4 million in repairs were completed. 

Hurricane Florence’s impact on Down East initially grabbed the attention of researchers, agencies, educators, students, advocates and others invested in adaptation and resilience, leading to research on ghost forests, sea level rise, inundation and flooding. They’ve formed the Down East Resilience Network to raise awareness and create a better understanding of the environmental changes to the area and find solutions. 

As part of that awareness effort, the network hosted a two-day community conversation Sept. 12-13 at the museum on Harkers Island to discuss Down East since the 2018 Category 1 storm and how to prepare better for “the next Florence.” 

Over the course of the two-day conversation, attendees were given tours of Cape Lookout National Seashore and Down East communities, they heard the science behind ghost forests and king tides, had discussions with representatives from the North Carolina departments of transportation and insurance, and area utilities.

There also was time for residents to voice their concerns including the everyday flooding plaguing Down East, the poorly maintained ditches throughout the area, and frustrations with new development. 

Upgrading transportation infrastructure

Department of Transportation Assistant State Hydraulic Engineer Matt Lauffer, Division 2 Engineer Jeff Cabaniss and Division 2 Deputy Engineer Jeremy Stroud explained during the conversation that the state agency is preparing for climate-related change.

Division 2 is responsible for eight counties, including Carteret, and manages preconstruction, planning and construction, and maintenance of roads, bridges and ditches and culverts along state routes. 

Cabaniss said the agency is one of the largest landowners in the state because it owns rights of way. 

NCDOT’s responsibility when it comes to drainage is two fold, he continued. First is to keep water off the road if possible and the other is to divert through pipes, culverts and bridges the water that is coming.

Since the department owns facilities in all communities, as communities face issues with flooding, so does NCDOT. “A lot of times, we have the ditches alongside the road. We can clean those out, but we can’t make (the water) go away from the road because that goes off the right of way. And we don’t have the permission, the funds or the people to make that happen,” he said. 

NCDOT removes debris from the roadways and to restore the network after emergencies and other catastrophic events, Stroud added.

But not all ditches are state-maintained, especially Down East where artificial drainage can also funnel water onto land as well as roadways.

To prepare for how environmental changes will affect transportation infrastructure, Lauffer said NCDOT is working with climate scientists to design projects that consider more hurricane surge and sea level rise, and the implications of those on a proposed facility, such as an interstate. Planners are also beginning to incorporate resilience methodology in new projects. 

 “We’re definitely looking at the hazards that can adversely affect that facility,” he said, and how to best design projects. 

The agency is using past flooding data for vulnerability assessments. An assessment that is nearly complete is for U.S. Highway 70 between the state ferry terminal at Cedar Island and Raleigh that will look at the vulnerability of that major corridor.

Cabaniss said that, on the maintenance side, NCDOT is replacing older, smaller drainage pipes. Recently, a 24-inch pipe in Davis was replaced with a 55-inch by 72-inch pipe. 

Stroud added that they get recommendations from the hydraulic unit for every pipe that is replaced, a requirement now for projects that receive federal funding. 

“If we have future events, we can show that we brought it up to the current standards,” he said. “Hopefully there is no damage to that structure, and even if there is, it’s not because we put an inadequate pipe size in that would not meet the criteria for that event.”

Lauffer said that after Hurricane Florence, there was a huge realization that NCDOT could do better to know what to expect during major storms and how they affect the larger transportation network.

To do that, NCDOT has partnered with other state agencies and researchers who have tools and programs in place to measure flooding across the state, like the Flood Inundation Alert Network. NCDOT is using that data to project what roadways could be inundated based on the forecast for a particular storm. The agency also has a system that continually monitors 15,800 major bridge structures and culverts statewide. 

“We have a better understanding of the vulnerability of our facilities and structures,” Lauffer said, which they’re trying to get a better handle on “so that we can potentially recover faster, respond better, and potentially save lives by knowing these things are coming.”

Girding utilities 

Heidi Smith, manager of energy services and corporate communications with Tideland Electric Membership Corp., which serves parts or all of Beaufort, Craven, Dare, Hyde, Martin and Pamlico counties, and Ethan Horne, field engineer with Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative’s resilience planning, both said the utilities they represent are working to prepare smarter. 

“We’ve just obviously had a lot of hurricanes. Practice doesn’t necessarily make perfect, but you get smarter and smarter each time around, there’s always lessons to be learned,” Smith said.

Horne said that flooding is always a big issue, especially because it makes reaching lines when they’re down more dangerous and difficult, but Carteret-Craven Electric Co-op is going to be better with the next Florence, starting with upgrades to the main office in Newport. 

A new fuel system that holds 10,000 gallons of diesel, a new radio tower for better communications, “because we always have problems communicating from Newport down to Cedar Island, Harkers Island area, especially when the towers are down,” he said. The co-op is working on improving response to outages, putting in a new substation in Otway, upgrading lines, and talking about bringing in different contractors with specialized equipment for hurricane response.

Smith said there’s a lot of challenges for underground infrastructure, including inundation, falling limbs and trees in ghost forests, and fires that burn and burn for months, especially for places like mainland Hyde County that are losing population. 

There’s so much technology, but “Here’s what I’m going to tell you, you’ve got to be prepared. We’re getting people back on faster than ever before. Our lives are more electrified, it is more inconvenient but what is shocking,” she said, is that in her 31 years with the utility, she’s seen a lot of hurricanes, but during Hurricane Florence, she saw communities flood that had never been flooded before. 

“When you’ve been flooded before, you’re better prepared than if you haven’t been,” Smith continued. She explained that she witnessed 900 of 2,000 homes in a community flood and “people literally died sooner because of that, because they’ve never been through it before. They didn’t have the mental infrastructure. They didn’t have the physical infrastructure. They didn’t have the family infrastructure –nothing to make them through it. And we’ve got to better prepare people. Because preparation makes us better. Preparation helps us emerge and resume our lives much more quickly. And we’ve got to do it. And we’re going to help lead the way.”

Understanding insurance

Jessica Gibbs, regional director for coastal northeast North Carolina with the state Department of Insurance, said the department has many services and is available to answer any questions. 

“We’re there to help you understand it, help you make sure you’re getting exactly what you need, and you’re not being overcharged, and you’re not being double-covered.” She reiterated that experts in the department answer the calls, not a recording. There are also resources on the department’s website to prepare and recover from catastrophic events. 

Also with the Department of Insurance, Tim Crawley, consumer complaints analyst, told those in attendance that if you run across issues in making a claim, he’s the person you contact. 

Here on the coast, he said during the community conversation, “Most companies will exclude wind and hail, so then you have to chase the wind and hail policy down” and if you have a federally underwritten loan, they’re going to require you to carry flood insurance on your home as well. “Those are the challenges you’re having to face here.” 

He added that it’s important to make sure your coverage is in sync with the current real estate market and adequate for your dwelling – don’t just base it on your tax records.

“When a claim is filed for, especially here, you’re having a multifront attack on your property. You’ve got water coming up from the ground to flood, and then you’ve got the wind assault from above,” he said, and the insurance company is going to have to determine how the damage occurred. For example, if the floor or carpeting is soaked, and there’s a saturation line coming up the wall, the insurance company’s going to say that’s flood related and will have to go through the flood policy. 

“The home policy is a covered-peril policy,” Crawley said. 

That means it only covers those perils that are expressly stated in the policy. 

“We all think, well, I have insurance, so I’ve got everything from hurricanes to lightning, to alien invasion, to my kid drawing all over the house with crayons, you know. It is written as a covered-peril policy for a very specific reason,” Crawley said.

Then there’s also the language used in homeowners policies. “It says they will repair or replace. The word ‘repair’ is first for a very specific reason: They’d rather put X-number of shingles on your roof than have to (replace) your entire roof.”

Ryan Cox, president of Insight Planning & Development consultant services, said he defined a natural flood as moving water covering two or more properties, and that could be your property and the road, which is state property. “If the road and your property are flooded, then that is two or more properties, but that is the definition of a natural flood,” he said. “Flood is water moving across the ground, that’s a flood. If it’s from the roof, that’s wind and hail.”

Your insurance agent is also a great resource to find out if you have the right coverage, Crawley added. But, he warned, agents sell policies, they do not adjust claims.

“Once the claim is filed with the insurance company, it’s the adjuster that’s driving the bus at that point,” he said, adding that the agent has to step aside to let the claims organization take over.

Crawley said he tells everybody before any storm that their smartphone is their best tool. He encourages residents to take photos of their insurance policies and expensive or bigger items, like bedroom and living room furniture and electronics, and make sure those are saved in online storage. 

“As a former claims adjuster, the easier you make it on the adjuster, the faster you’re going to go through the process,” he said, so have your policy information ready when you file a claim.

Cox added that just because you are not required to have flood insurance, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get flood insurance. Many residents don’t get flood insurance because they’re not in a special flood hazard area, or 100-year floodplain. A 100-year floodplain means there’s a 1% chance of annual flooding, or a one-in-a-hundred chance every year that an area could flood. 

“The gamble is, where is it going to happen? It can happen in the western part of the state for flash flooding. It can happen in the central part of the state through flash flooding or hurricane. It can happen either here from storm surge, or it can happen as a combination of storm surge and riverine flooding,” he said, which is when water from the ocean or sound – storm surge – and riverine flooding meet. 

He encourages residents to have flood insurance, whether in a floodplain or not, “the worst is having to tell somebody that there’s nothing I can do for you because you didn’t have flood insurance,” Cox said.

Identifying what’s next

Organizers spent the weeks after the community conversation compiling notes collected during the two days of programming to identify concerns and what actions are needed. 

The following are some of the comments provided to and compiled by organizers and shared in a spreadsheet with Coastal Review: 

“One person says that recurring flooding Down East is driven not only by sea level rise, but also by poorly maintained ditches – not enough, filled with debris, etc.”

“The tours through Down East communities were eye-opening and having residents leading the way gave me a lot of perspective on the issues they’re facing.”

“I’ll admit that when I first heard about global warming thirty years ago, I thought I’d never live to see it or feel it. Obviously, I was wrong.” 

And one comment said the realistic expectation is that it’s not possible to be able “to protect every parcel” but they “don’t have to run for the hills.”

“Environmentalists aren’t going to let us dump [referring to water] into Sound” later goes on to say that she understands that it may impact sea life, but says that “water needs to go.”

The spreadsheet also detailed notes where action was needed, such as Down East needs to look at all the options for community sustainability and have a “seat at the table” when it comes to planning for roads and other infrastructure, and for a readiness, response, recovery plan to work it has to be developed with the community. 

Amspacher told Coastal Review after the event that she believed everyone who participated went away feeling that the conversation was positive for all involved.

“The community learned about resources for adapting to the changes, and the researchers and agencies gained a firsthand look at the issues Down East residents live with every day,” she said. “These two days were the beginning of many more conversations that have taken place since this gathering, and more are underway for the immediate and long-term future. Those who helped plan see it as an excellent first step in connecting needs and resources.”

Among those who helped plan the conversation were North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency Resilience Planner Holly White, Western Carolina University geology professor Rob Young, and lifelong Down East resident Chris Yeomans, a retired educator. 

White told Coastal Review that resiliency staff attended the recent meetings of community leaders Down East to listen to their concerns about flooding issues and other hazards impacting these areas. 

“We want to understand the local perspectives as a continuation of NCORR’s recent community work in the eastern half of the state through a disaster resilience program called RISE. Through hearing the perspectives of those that live in the region, we hope to determine if NCORR or other partners can be helpful in increasing the resiliency of the communities,” White said.

Young, who is director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western, told Coastal Review that he became involved in the network three years ago when he met Amspacher. 

She shared with him the issues she saw for Down East and how the unincorporated areas of the counties seem to have trouble getting resilience funding and organizing for projects, “Even though it is clearly one of the most exposed areas to coastal hazards in the state,” he explained.

Areas like Down East have a lot of trouble developing projects and getting resilience funds because it’s not an incorporated municipality. It’s really easy for the state to work with a municipality that has lots of capacity, like planning and GIS departments, “but working with an area that doesn’t have any of that, you have to go through the county. And if the county is either not interested or if the county doesn’t have the capacity, then those folks end up at the end of the line.”

Young said meetings like the community conversation are important “even though we didn’t walk out of there with the projects developed and money on the way” and because the state agency representatives showed up and listened, they were reminded what and where the needs are “because ultimately, they are going to have to drive some of these solutions” by working with county governments.

Yeomans, a retired Carteret County principal, spoke to Coastal Review in a follow-up interview from the front porch of his daughter’s home on Harkers Island that she just purchased. He was helping with odds and ends that needed fixing. 

He said he sees how vulnerable Down East is to storms and sea level rise. 

“The water is higher than it was 20 or 30 years ago,” he said. Adding it’s the changing environment is just part of nature, “but I think we humans have sped up that process.” 

His question, which appears to be on the minds of most Down East residents, is “How can locals maintain their heritage and maintain where they live. Be able to stay here and thrive, too.”

When he was a young boy growing up on Harkers Island, before Down East was “discovered,” he could see development coming. He observed it on the Outer Banks, and knew it was imminent for Down East, he said. 

Now, what gets his attention is development in the unincorporated communities, and the associated septic systems and well water, especially in low-lying areas where there’s sea level rise, which is saturating the ground. 

When does development maximize our ability to sustain the natural environment and human interaction? He asked. “When do we put up a ‘No Vacancy’ sign? Who’s going to make that decision?”

That concern, Yeomans continued, runs parallel to Down East resilience efforts. 

“My heart is Down East. I love the Down East people. I love our culture. And I want to see it protected as much as we can with the changes that are happening,” and those changes need to happen responsibly, and in a way that protects the environment and the Down East heritage, he said.

Second in a series.

Aerial photographs that capture ghost forests, pilings jutting up from the water in Hatteras Inlet, the narrow two-lane N.C. Highway 12 at North River Bridge, and oceanfront homes with waves lapping at the front steps were hanging in the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island in late June 2018 as part of a multimedia exhibit showing climate-related change.

“Rising: Perspectives of Change along the North Carolina Coast,” featuring 15 photographs accompanied by firsthand accounts, was on display when Hurricane Florence lingered over eastern North Carolina just a few months later in mid-September, amplifying and exacerbating the changes focused on in the exhibit. 

In the very room where the exhibit survived the storm, its co-creator Ryan Stancil and a gathering of Down East residents, community leaders and academics in September revisited that scene from five years ago when the storm hit and then, its aftermath. Stancil and Dr. Barbara Garrity Blake had collected the oral histories to accompany Baxter Miller’s photography for the exhibit funded by North Carolina Sea Grant.

“Five years ago, this world changed swiftly,” Stancil said Sept. 13 to those participating in the two-day community conversation, coordinated by the Down East Resilience Network.

The network is made up of researchers, agencies, educators, students, advocates and others invested in adaptation and resilience was formed three years ago to raise awareness of the environmental changes taking place in the region.

“Florence sank her teeth into Down East – gnashing at the banks, shoving water up through the marsh and into the 13 unincorporated villages,” Stancil continued. “She dumped nearly 30 inches of rain and left in her wake damage and flooding like we’ve never seen. Homes destroyed, business at a standstill and livelihoods in jeopardy.”

People Down East were battered and bruised, “But, if you know anything about Down East, you know the people are strong, self-reliant and resilient,” and in the days, weeks and years that followed, they held close to each other, neighbor helping neighbor.

“So much has changed since Florence came ashore,” Stancil said. “10 years ago, we were asking what was happening around us. Five years ago, we were asking what we could do to fix it. Today, we are asking, ‘How can we buy more time?’”

Stancil said that the museum’s executive director, Karen Willis Amspacher, has said that “Rising” had inspired the community conversation.

“Sure, ‘Rising’ might play a small part in why we’re here today, the truth is, today’s conversation was inevitable,” he continued.

“There is a different sort of storm brewing – one of eroding shorelines, migrating fish, intruding saltwater, and inundated roadways. And Down East is smack-dab in the middle of that storm’s path,” Stancil said. “The people who live here aren’t the only ones who know it.”

In the last five years, Down East has attracted the attention of most of the state’s academic institutions and state agencies, and there’s at least a dozen research projects taking place in the communities.

“I’m grateful to see the interest and engagement of so many researchers as we all work to open doors of communication. We must work together to better understand the science and its intersection with place and people and policy. I believe the work we are doing here today can be a foundation for resilience building, in unincorporated communities across North Carolina and beyond,” he said.

What is changing?

The fishing industry is having to navigate changes in water quality, development and once-reliable species migrating.

Hardy Plyler with Ocracoke Seafood Co. said he had been told several times long ago by an Ocracoke fisherman that fish populations are controlled by natural cycles and are influenced by climatic events — hurricanes, freezes, salinity changes, droughts — many things that are in the natural world that affect these fish over and above regulations by the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries.

Fish also are influenced by environmental factors like pollution, agricultural runoff, municipal wastewater, and industrial pollution. When you have a big rainstorm in coastal North Carolina, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers wash off the farmland into sounds and rivers, he added.

Adam Tyler, owner of Harkers Island’s Core Sound Oyster Co., said one of the biggest challenges on the coast he’s seeing is development and hardened shorelines. He said that living shorelines, rather than seawalls or bulkheads, are an effective way to protect the coast and promote resilience.

Tyler said there’s a marshy property a half-mile from the water under development in Carteret County that he knows won’t perk, and is being backfilled. Tyler said he didn’t know how that could be allowed.

“And then I asked one of the guys who built the home down here, and he told me, he said, ‘son,’ he said, ‘When you know the right developer and you got enough money, anything can be done.’ That conversation was about six weeks ago,” Tyler said in mid-September.

Adding that the commercial fishing industry “always get blamed for everything,” Tyler said it’s not responsible for all the coastal environmental damage.

“It’s not all us. I’m not saying that we don’t bear some burden there, but it’s not all of us. It’s the people coming in here backfilling these marshes and destroying the ecosystem. I see that all the time.”

Tyler said his frustration with regulatory agencies encouraged him to transition to oyster farming to keep himself on the water and instill in his son the proud Down East heritage.

Raleigh’s Locals Seafood Market owner and co-founder Ryan Speckman said he’s seen the shrimp fishery change since 2010, and the company has been having a hard time getting the popular bottom fish — snapper, grouper, sea bass, triggerfish — that used to be reliable almost year-round.

Speckman said that, traditionally, they’d get their bottom fish from the southeastern part of the state, the coast from Carteret County south, but he’s seen more triggerfish in waters north of Hatteras than in the southeast during the last two years.

Because the Raleigh-based company sells fresh, local seafood bought almost daily from fishermen along the coast, Speckman said he hears feedback daily, including that some species once abundant on the North Carolina coast have moved north.

‘We don’t have to wait for these changes’

Ghost forests are another visible environmental change Down East, and in much of coastal North Carolina.

Duke University professor and ecosystem biologist Emily Bernhardt explained that these dead and dying trees are “an iconic symbol of rapid change” on the coastal plain.

“There’s always hurricanes blowing salt onto the landscape, and there’s trees dying. But in the past, those trees would come back,” Bernhardt said. “What we’re seeing now is that we’re having a lot of ghost forests forming, and the trees are often not growing back.”

When a coastal forested wetland is lost, and can’t grow back because the soil is too salty or too wet for trees to grow, it is a fundamental change to the ecosystem.

“The big question I’m interested in is, what is going to happen to the ecosystems and communities of the eastern coastal plain over the next century? What makes these systems and people and communities vulnerable? What is the impact that we’re already seeing? And that we can expect? And then the big question, which is not a scientific question, it’s a human question, is, what is going to happen next?” Bernhardt continued.

The conversation about rapid environmental change taking place in this country implies it’s going to happen in the future, Bernhardt said, but there are areas already subject to widespread tidal flooding, called recurrent or nuisance flooding. “We don’t have to wait for these changes.”

During hurricanes and tropical storms, areas Down East are extremely vulnerable to storm surge, which can bring not just water but also salt. Storm surge is a big component of how salt gets delivered to the system.

So is drought, which is a very confusing problem to explain to people, she said. Salt can penetrate the ground when it’s arid and when it’s extremely wet, and both are a risk for saltwater intrusion.

“We focus a lot of attention on hurricanes because they’re acute. But what we’re looking at with ghost forests is kind of more of a slow disaster. Those hurricanes might push you over the edge, but it’s a disaster that’s building over time as a result of the accumulation of salts in these exposed and vulnerable landscapes,” Bernhardt said.

Thermal expansion

Scientists have evidence that water levels are rising, another change affecting Down East now and in the long term.

“We’ve been measuring water level in many different ways, and yes, water levels are rising,” said North Carolina King Tides Project founder Dr. Christine Voss, a retired coastal scientist from University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences.

“Part of the whole sea level rise story is just the thermal expansion of water,” she continued.

Also affecting water levels are wind, the tides and the Gulf Stream.

Last year, federal agencies published a report saying that water levels are expected to rise within the next three decades, by 2050. “That difference for the East Coast is about 10 to 14 inches. And that’s kind of hard to comprehend,” said Voss.

King tides have always happened and are predictable, taking place when the moon is at its closest distance to the Earth, causing extremely high high tides, and extremely low low tides. “We use those high tide events to help us visualize what future higher sea levels will look like. It’s kind of giving us a glimpse of what future higher sea levels will look like,” Voss said.

In the last 20 years, sea levels have risen about 6 inches. Within the next 30, federal officials forecast sea levels up to a foot higher. 

Voss said other visible changes are related. “We’re having more and stronger tropical storms,” and know that these will be stronger.”

One of the biggest take-home messages, Voss said during the gathering, is that the changing environmental conditions are basically integrated into the coastal landscape, “and I’ll say in your seascape as well. You are the communities seeing these changes. And there’s a lot of complexity,” she said, referring to the numerous changes happening at once, including warmer temperatures and sea level rise.

Katherine Arnade is co-leader of the Sunny Day Flooding Project, which aims to monitor how often land is flooded due to sea level rise. Project scientists are measuring water levels and storm drains using special gauges they have developed. The sensors also take photos of the roadway and can measure flow in stormwater systems, including the contributions from rainfall and, in some cases, groundwater.  The first installation was in Beaufort in 2021.

“We’re committed to learning about flooding in Down East and collecting data that’s useful to your community for as long as long as we can,” Arnade said, adding the sensors will be there for at least five years. Right now, there are only four sensors in use but the program could expand.

Realtime sensor data is available online.

Priorities identified

Dr. Rob Young, a geology professor and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University, has been part of the Down East Resilience Network since its inception three years ago. Young recently worked with Cape Lookout National Seashore officials to assess its villages’ and historic buildings’ vulnerability and has piloted a program for vulnerability assessments of private homes Down East.

“I can’t tell you how many times in the last 24 hours I’ve had people come up to me frustrated with the nature of the new development that’s going on Down East, where folks are filling wetlands, building in places where we know that septic systems cannot possibly be perking,” he said the second day of the conversation.

Young said residents are frustrated. These folks who are generally suspicious of regulations, always seem to be regulated, while they see others not be held to the same standards. And elected county officials – the only local government representation residents of unincorporated Down East hamlets have – and county management were absent, despite being invited to the event.

“Unfortunately, a lot of the people who might answer some of those questions for us at the county level are not with us for these two days to help us find solutions or have that discussion. I don’t know how to fix that either,” Young said.

Young said his priorities are how to keep residents from being displaced by flooding, how transportation infrastructure and utilities will be maintained in the future, and how to deal with the public health implications of failing water treatment and septic systems.

“The final piece to all of this, I think, is trying to understand how we tap into some of those infrastructure dollars that have become available over the last couple of years that just don’t seem to make their way Down East,” Young said. “How can we tap into all of the new sources of funding available from the federal government that comes to the state and find a way to get some of those funds into a place like Down East, for meaningful projects? That’s what we really need to know, at the end of the day, from a meeting like this. We have to stop talking and start doing stuff. And we need our elected officials to really engage and help make that happen.”

Next: What is being done to prepare?

First in a series.

Nothing’s been the same since Hurricane Florence for the 13 unincorporated Down East communities in Carteret County.

The slow-moving Category 1 storm hovered over the state after making landfall Sept. 14, 2018, on Wrightsville Beach, causing record-breaking flooding and dumping dozens of inches of rain on eastern North Carolina.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that the tropical cyclone cost $24 billion, or $29 billion in today’s dollars, with the total damage from Florence in North Carolina being more than the combined cost of Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

The Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island, like much of Down East, was not spared. The 22,000-square foot facility suffered millions of dollars in damage.

After extensive repairs and being sidelined by COVID-19, the facility has been back open for a bit, but it isn’t back to normal.

To discuss the changes taking place over the last five years and to look ahead, the Down East Resilience Network coordinated in mid-September a two-day community conversation at the museum. 

The network made up of researchers, agencies, educators, students, advocates and others invested in adaptation and resilience was formed almost three years ago to raise awareness of the environmental changes taking place in the region.

To begin the conversation, tours were offered Sept. 12 of Cape Lookout National Seashore to learn about its resiliency strategies and of Down East communities to see the risks and realities of those living there. Attendees returned to the museum Sept. 13 to hear what’s happening with the commercial fishing industry, talks on the science behind flooding and ghost forests, North Carolina Department of Transportation infrastructure plans, and ways to navigate the ever-more-difficult insurance industry.

Guides on one of the Down East tours that hot September day were lifelong residents Chris Yeomans, Cheryl Lawrence and Richard Gillikin.

The trolley with about two dozen onboard meandered along narrow, two-lane roads lined with deep ditches.

Yeomans, a retired Carteret County educator who led the tour, began by encouraging passengers to observe Down East, “where we call home.”

He, along with Lawrence and Gillikin, pointed out throughout the two-hour tour where roads and properties tend to regularly flood, which seemed to be in more places than not, and the history of some of the older houses.

When the trolley paused on a corner in the unincorporated community of Marshallberg, Lawrence’s home of more than 40 years was just down the road.

She gestured out the window and said, “this is Core Sound.”

“I say I live on Core Sound, but actually, during a storm, I live in Core Sound,” Lawrence said. “I have sat on my front porch during a hurricane, and I have watched waves come across the banks from the ocean into the Sound, and I have had white caps in my front yard.”

She moved into her new home in 1981, and that summer, there was a strong northeast storm.

“From day one, I’ve always had flooding and never gotten help. I asked for ditches to be dug, we just can’t get the state to help us,” she said. And the flooding has changed over the years. It lasts longer and is higher, and when her yard floods, it “takes forever” for the water to recede.

In addition to the nuisance flooding that appears to affect everyday life for residents, the vegetation is suffering from saltwater intrusion, leaving a different kind of scar on the landscape.

“We have what we call ghost forests,” Lawrence said. Her road used to be full of greenery and now “the trees are nothing but sticks, no leaves or limbs or anything. The saltwater has taken over. I cannot plant flowers in my yard.”

Gillikin, whose family has lived for generations Down East, reiterated that everything has changed since Florence, especially the trees.

“I might hurt some people’s feelings here. I’m not so sure that I’m on board with global warming and all this mess, to be honest with you. But I do know things have changed. That’s all I can say. Places are flooding now that didn’t flood before,” Gillikin said.

“Trees are dying,” he continued. The “pines were just as green as you’ve ever seen a pine tree from top to bottom. Now, it looks like a nuclear bomb was dropped off here. People can say the hurricanes did it, but hurricanes have been around from the beginning of time as far as I know. When I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s we had hurricanes, and it never killed the trees like this.”

And the ditches along the roads rarely held water, but now they stay filled, Gillikin continued. “It’s an everyday deal. There’s water in these ditches all the time.”

Rob Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, made a few points about what the passengers were observing during the tour.

He began by saying that while it’s not his job to convince anybody anything about climate change, “I can tell you one thing we do know about change, and that is that sea level is rising. That one’s about as straightforward as you can get. We’ve been measuring it from tide gauges for over 100 years, everywhere on the planet. The volume of the ocean, the amount of water in the ocean, is increasing and sea level is going up.”

The rising sea level is doing more than eroding beaches, it’s raising the regional groundwater table.  “We’re talking about 16 inches over the last three or four decades. In a place that is as flat and low as this, a foot and a half makes a lot of difference.”

The rising water table also means that when it rains, there’s less space for that water to seep into the ground. “You take a rain bomb that’s dropping an inch or two of rain on you, and it can’t go into the ground anymore the way that it used to, it has to run off,” he said. “What we’re facing Down East is this gradual rise in the water table. It’s also the driver of the ghost forests.”

Yeomans, earlier in the tour, had spoken of his concerns about what will happen when the septic systems and drinking water wells Down East are ruined, when the ground is saturated so that fish and shellfish habitat die because of stormwater runoff and failed septic systems.

Young responded that failing septic systems are a public health issue.

“I would be stunned if there’s an in-ground septic system in this community around here that’s functioning. I would be stunned. Maybe there’s some mounted septic systems. Maybe there are some that have been modified, but septic systems that perked 20 years ago, 30 years ago, they’re not perking anymore,” Young said. “Your septic system is not treating the effluent that you’re putting into that septic tank.”

Young called it a threefold problem.

“How do we help folks keep their homes dry? And that’s on the top of the list for me, individual people,” he said. “Can they elevate? Can they afford to elevate? What would it cost? Is there a way to help them do that proactively, not after the next storm when they’ve had water in their house?”

Yeomans also has been thinking about what can be done to prepare for a storm.

“Before the storm comes, why can’t we have resources in various staging areas, either at schools or at fire departments, or somewhere that will be relatively safe? We don’t want our resource to be washed away — things that can be there before the storm,” he said.

Yeomans told the tour group that the official storm shelter in the county is in Newport, which is several miles and bridges away, but the community will open Atlantic School for people in flood-prone areas or in mobile homes. He formerly served as principal there.

His suggestion to help Down East residents was to have a generator for the entire school and turn Atlantic School into a storm shelter for residents who aren’t financially able to prepare, and the elderly who need electricity for their medical care. It would also keep the air conditioning running to prevent books and other supplies from getting moldy, and to preserve the refrigerated food in the cafeteria.

“There’s resources at the school where when bridges are washed away, and roads are washed away, you can have access to those,” he said. “I know it’s a pretty big measure and is going to cost the money up front, but it can save some lives.”

Community night

Following the tour, the museum hosted a community night to look back on the fifth anniversary of the storm.

Harkers Island resident Corey Lawrence opened the discussion. He said in 2018, 11 days after the storm when the power was finally restored, he wrote a Facebook post to capture his feelings.

Five years later, from the podium inside the now-repaired museum in front of about 60 or so, he read from that post.

Lawrence said he appreciated how simple it is just to flip on a switch and have light, for the fridge to be cold, to have hot water, and to have the air conditioner running again.

“If there’s anything good that comes from these storms is people I have never seen before and know I’ll never see again that came from places like Rocky Mount and Wilson, and Louisburg. And they showed up with pig cookers and randomly set up wherever, and you get word that there’s food,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.

“I appreciate people that did things like that. I’ve been reminded to use my manners even more than I usually do. I’ve said ‘thank you’ after standing in a line and I never meant it more in my whole life,” he continued. “Patience is gold, and so is water, a warm plate of food, ice, and gasoline. I believe that angels were everywhere, and the saints still exist. Giving is better, and oftentimes is easier than receiving. I learned that serving others brings joy. That warm food is soul food. That ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.”

The Rev. Robbie Phillips, former director of Carteret Long Term Recovery Alliance, told the crowd that “we are very much still in recovery tonight.” Five years later there are still people in the community who have not recovered, and might not ever recover. “To me, that’s staggering. Because 95% of the people in our community have (recovered), and they’ve long forgotten about the people who have not.”

The alliance was formed about five weeks after Florence and the organizers committed to helping until the last home is complete. “And I’m here to tell you tonight that the last home is not complete.”

As of mid-September, 623 families, or cases, had been to the alliance for help. Of those, 477 have been closed by working with agencies and partners, and the alliance directly closed 93 cases. There are still 146 cases open, with 73 being managed entirely by the alliance.

Phillips, a Presbyterian minister, said the biggest lesson she learned came shortly after Florence when Presbyterian Disaster Assistance met with the community.

“They gave us an image and I’ll take this with me always,” Phillips said. “They said a disaster, particularly like a hurricane, rips the roof off of a community, just like it rips the roof off of our homes, and it gives us an opportunity to stare into the community, like we’ve stared into our homes and find the weaknesses, find the things that need to be fixed. Folks, our roof on our community is still ripped off,” she said. “We are still staring in and finding the weaknesses, seeing where we need to fix things and adjust things. And I think we will be doing this for a very long time.”

State agency representatives and the audience discussed the greatest challenges for Down East, which included recovery inequity, infrastructure, insurance concerns, the role of federal recovery agencies, and how to get help on the county and state level.

More than one attendee spoke up about how deserted they felt by the county.

One resident asked if there were any county representatives attending the community night. Upon learning the answer was no, she said, “They need to come to the table with this community and have a real discussion about what we need here. As unincorporated communities in a large geographic area, how do we get our voice out there?”

Another resident added, “we need the county to be more active. We need somebody that will listen, that says, ‘hey, we’re really going to do what we say and when we can get this done.” He added that he’d been fighting for 20 years to get ditches fixed.

I’m living in the house I’ve been in for 67 years, and when I think about things changing, it’s changed,” he continued. “Because first of all, hurricanes, the frequency certainly has changed, the intensity has changed. So, something’s going on. I don’t know what, I’m not that smart. But I know it’s changed. And if we flood with a northeast wind, with just wind and rain, what do you think we’re going to have when a hurricane comes in?”

Next: What’s changed? What’s next?

The science panel that advises the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission is scheduled to meet at 11:45 a.m. Monday to assess recent studies concerning sea level rise.

The meeting is to place in the second floor Berne Room in New Bern Riverfront Convention Center, 203 South Front St.

Members of the science panel, which provides the commission with scientific data and recommendations pertaining to coastal topics, are also to review updates related to Inlet Hazard Areas, and discuss methodologies and data pertaining to oceanfront erosion rates.

The public can attend in person or listen by phone or online. To join by phone, call 415-655-0003 and use access code 242 502 93623. To join by computer, use webinar number 2425 029 3623 and webinar password SCI2023.

Comments can be made in person during the meeting or emailed to DCMcomments@deq.nc.gov, list “Science Panel” in the subject line.

A program to boost environmental initiatives, including green energy, and climate resiliency is being created in North Carolina.

Funding has been secured by the N.C. Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service, or VolunteerNC, to create the North Carolina Climate Action Corps, Gov. Roy Cooper announced Wednesday.

The program, a nearly $1 million investment, will begin this fall.

The Governor’s Climate Action Corps, created under the Climate Action Corps National Expansion Pilot through California Volunteers, will aid 25 Climate Corps members throughout the state to serve with existing NC AmeriCorps programs.

AmeriCorps is a federal agency that connects people through national service and volunteering to take on the nation’s most pressing challenges.

Climate Action Corps AmeriCorps members will tackle climate issues throughout the state including heat island effects, managing hazardous fuels, wildfire mitigation and flood risk.

Those climate-related issues will be addressed by planting trees to provide shade and educating communities about the benefits of trees in carbon absorption and air quality, reintroducing prescribed fire to protect against wildfires, and building and restoring living shorelines, managing riparian buffers and implementing land management practices to help protect communities at risk of flooding.

“In North Carolina, we have prioritized the transition to clean energy and this expansion will bolster our efforts,” Cooper said in a release. “This project will strengthen our clean energy workforce as we continue to lead the way toward a clean energy future.”

Gov. Cooper has in recent years signed three executive orders – Executive Order No. 246,  Executive Order No. 271 and Executive Order No. 218 – that support clean energy economy initiatives like offshore wind development and a move to zero-emission electric vehicles.

More than $3 million in grants is now available for locally-based environmental education projects.

The Environmental Protection Agency will award funds ranging between $50,000 and $100,000 from the 2023 Environmental Education Local Grant Program. A total of 30 to 40 grants will be awarded nationwide, according to an EPA release.

Up to $3.6 million will be dispensed to applicants with projects “that reflect the intersection of environmental issues with climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, preventing future water quality and human health issues, in addition to other environmental topics,” according to the release.

Grants will be issued in each of the EPA’s 10 regions. Applicants must apply to the region in which their proposed project would be located.

The grant program aims to support projects that design, demonstrate, and/or disseminate environmental education in a way that increases an understanding of the local environment and encourage people living within that community to do their part in supporting the environment.

“It is more important now than ever that we understand the environmental changes happening around us,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said in a statement. “Investing in environmental education is investing in America’s future, and these grants will ensure that communities have access to quality tools to get involved – and stay involved – at a local level.”

Grant funding is targeted to underserved communities, including high-poverty areas, persistent impoverished counties, disadvantaged communities as identified by the Council on Environmental Quality’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, and Title I schools.

The EPA has for more than 20 years distributed between $2-$3.5 million in grant funding through this program. More than 3,900 grants have been awarded.

For more information about the federal grant process, visit EPA Grants Community Library of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and the EE grant FAQ webpages. Background information on the grant program and applicant resources may be found on EPA’s EE Grant Homepage. 

The Office of Environmental Education is hosting a minimum of one webinar during the solicitation period that will explain to participants how to write a competitive application as well answer commonly asked questions.

Webinar registration details when available may be found on the EPA website. Anyone interested may subscribe to the EE Grants Listserv to receive the latest news on the program. Applications are due Nov. 8.

A study of the country’s two largest estuaries reveals that inshore coastal waters are not necessarily experiencing what scientists say is a worrisome global trend of increasingly acidic oceans.

The recently published paper is the latest in a small collection of studies highlighting the complexities of coastal zones onshore.

In this case, researchers looked at trends from data collected more than 20 years within the Neuse River Estuary-Pamlico Sound waters and Chesapeake Bay and found that things like nutrient pollution and algal blooms play a role in how carbon dioxide is dissolved in inland coastal waters.

Research Assistant Professor Nathan Hall with the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City and co-author of the study explained that eutrophication is effectively causing, in some cases, estuarine waters to have lower acidification than that of the ocean.

Eutrophication happens in waters that become overloaded by nutrient runoff, leading to harmful algal blooms, fish kills and areas of low oxygen where aquatic life cannot survive.

“We think of ocean acidification as bad, eutrophication as bad,” Hall said. “But eutrophication also in these estuaries can prevent, at least in the surface layers, the effects of ocean acidification from showing up. So, it adds a lot of complexity in the coastal zone. It’s not just as simple as gauges going down everywhere because we’re pumping CO2 into the air. In a lot of cases estuaries, because we load them with so much organic matter and the rivers feeding into them usually have more CO2 than they can take to begin with, they usually are releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere.”

The release of that CO2 into the atmosphere means that the carbon dioxide does not often have the same influence on the pH — or measure of how acidic or basic water is — alkalinity, in an estuary.

The measure of pH ranges from 0-14. A measurement of 7 is neutral, those less than 7 indicate acidity and those greater than 7 indicate a base.

Scientists say increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere driven by human activity is causing the ocean to absorb more carbon dioxide, which decreases pH, causing the ocean to become more acidic.

Increasingly acidic seas are threatening species like oysters, corals and some calcifying planktons. Threats to these species, scientists say, will create a rippling effect up the ocean food chain.

The Neuse River Estuary-Pamlico Sound and Chesapeake Bay study corroborates previous findings of how production of phytoplankton, or microalgae that float in the upper layer of fresh and marine waters, swamp out from estuaries signals that detect acidification in the ocean.

But the study also found something Hall was not expecting.

Scientists assess the amount of phytoplankton in water by measuring concentrations of chlorophyll. Phytoplankton contain chlorophyll to carry out photosynthesis by absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide to create sugars for fuel.

“If chlorophyll is going up we assume that there’s more production,” Hall said. “And, in most cases, we think that should increase the pH as CO2 is taken out of the water from phytoplankton production. But what we actually saw in both of these estuaries is that, during the summer, periods of high chlorophyll were correlated with low pH water and that was a real headscratcher. The pH is going down during these phytoplankton blooms.”

Researchers think that, during the summer, nutrient loading that cause algal blooms also load a lot of dissolved organic carbon, which is fuel for bacteria. As the bacteria break down that organic carbon that produces CO2.

“So even though the phytoplankton are growing on the nutrients that came in from the pulses of runoff, the bacteria are growing and producing more CO2 than phytoplankton are taking the CO2 up,” Hall said. “It’s not something that I think had been seen or really shown before. It just makes things complex. The more you learn about something the more you realize, holy cow, this really is not straightforward.”

He theorizes that swamps in the watershed inundated by flooding from tropical cyclones load a lot of that organic matter into the estuary while, at the same time, dumping a lot of nutrients into the estuary that cause algal blooms.

“I think that’s fuel and the production of all the carbon dioxide that ends up making the pH go down,” he said.

This complicated system makes it challenging for researchers to provide definitive answers for how to try and manage these waters.

As Hall sees it, the study reveals eutrophication in estuaries as a kind of double-edged sword, a trade-off.

“I think that’s something that people are really just starting to talk about,” he said. “I think another thing the study shows is we have this global pressure of higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but how that affects pH is very estuary-specific and so we just can’t make assumptions that estuaries are going to decrease in pH. A lot of estuaries are probably not going to be really sensitive to the increase in atmospheric CO2 and some may be. We’ve really got to take it by an estuary-to-estuary basis to really understand which ones are going to be more sensitive and which ones are not.”

A new collaboration of coastal flood monitoring efforts in Virginia and North Carolina could offer a broader view of how king tides affect coastal communities along both states’ coastlines.

The North Carolina King Tides Project, an international initiative to document extreme high tide events with photos, and Wetlands Watch, an environmental nonprofit organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, began a concerted outreach last week, just ahead of the late-August king tides that began Sunday.

For the North Carolina King Tides Project, the public can upload photos of flooding and water level gauges to illustrate water depths to the Coastal Observer app. Using Wetlands Watch’s sea level rise app, volunteers can drop GPS pins while walking along the edge of floodwaters to map how far water encroaches inland, or the horizontal extent of flooding. Tutorials on using the apps are available on both websites.

Organizers hope these complementary collection tools will lead to more comprehensive data on these highest high and lowest low tides of the year.

The North Carolina King Tides Project was established to help visualize how normal high tides could look in the future. It was created with support from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grant from 2015 to 2019, but the project has relied on volunteers ever since.

Project founder Dr. Christine Voss told Coastal Review in an email Thursday that the initiative was glad to welcome Wetlands Watch and their team to North Carolina.

“We are grateful to have them here. I think we can learn more about the impacts of coastal inundation and salt intrusion along coastal NC by using both of our apps to document the extent of flooding during king tide events, which are natural events that have always occurred, but give us a way to visualize how future, higher sea levels will impact our coast,” she said.

Though the initiative has been unfunded for several years, Voss said the project “has been able to continue by the grace of several dedicated volunteers, whom we appreciate. It is a community science project for NC coastal citizens, by NC coastal citizens and they continue to submit images and data, and help one another learn how to deal with the impacts and complexities of rising sea levels along our coast.”

Wetlands Watch Executive Director Mary-Carson Stiff told Coastal Review in an interview Thursday that she was also excited about the combined effort.

“We have some shared watershed projects through green infrastructure and conservation, landscaping, training professionals at certifications for maintenance of a lot of those practices,” she said. “We do a lot of work with different states and have benefited tremendously from cross-state partnerships in the policy space too. So, seems like a no-brainer.”

Wetlands Watch and the North Carolina King Tides Project held a virtual information session Wednesday to explain their goals and review how the apps work.

Wetlands Watch Community Engagement Project Manager Gabi Kinney explained that king tides occur when the full or new moon’s orbit is closest to Earth, called in perigee. The moon’s gravitational pull effectively raises these high tides.

These tidal events provide a glimpse of future tides, Kinney said. “We can study king tides of today to get a feel for what it might look like in the future with sea level rise and all of these projections.”

Kinney said Wetlands Watch connected with the North Carolina King Tides Project after NOAA’s climate program office approached the organization to expand its annual “Catch the King” weekend effort to document king tides in coastal Virginia.

Catch the King is an annual tide-mapping event that encourages volunteers to collect flooding data during the highest tides of the year. This year’s is Oct. 27-29 in coastal Virginia.

Wetlands Watch selected North Carolina for a few reasons, Kinney said. A graduate of the University of North Carolina Wilmington and previous intern with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, she has connections with the area and is familiar with the flood risk that Wilmington faces, and she learned how flooding is impacting other North Carolina coastal communities through Voss.

Voss is a coastal ecologist who retired about a year ago from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City. During the webinar she explained that while she’s officially retired, she’s still helping with the project.

She said that one of the reasons the King Tides Project was launched was because imagery is powerful in communicating what is taking place with flood events and sea level rise “because it’s hard to imagine what the scientists are telling us.”

Though the project technically is no longer funded, “there’s a core group of volunteers who are very passionate about it, and the public seems to be remaining passionate about it. So, we’re trying to keep everything going, and thank you, with help from Wetlands Watch,” Voss added.

Kinney explained that she and Voss had discussed how to meaningfully merge the two programs. They kickstarted the joint effort in June. Since then, Voss has published a king tides calendar for 2023 and program information. Kinney has connected with nonprofit organizations, local and state agencies, and others working in the flood resilience monitoring space in North Carolina to establish interest. She is also available for training and questions for interested groups and residents.

“With the merging of the two programs, it’s actually been a really nice collaboration because we kind of complement each other’s datasets rather than overlapping,” Kinney said.

Kinney said one of her goals is to foster bigger and broader partnerships between North Carolina and Virginia.

“We each do a lot of flood risk and resilience building work,” Kinney explained. “I think that this is such a great segue for Wetlands Watch to get a view on what’s going on in North Carolina, for us to provide our support wherever we can, and for us to learn from you all in terms of collaboration.”

Another goal is to build awareness about sea level rise and flood risk. “Through community science, we can give people a tool like an app to use and actually go out in the field and feel like they’re part of a climate solution,” she said.

“Once we collect all of this king tide data, we want to try to figure out more pathways to get the data in the hands of people who can use them, how can we export this data and how can we use them to contribute to planning decisions, climate adaptation, even just more public awareness,” she said. “Eventually, later on in the project, we’ll kind of take a look back at all of our data that we collected and then see what we can go from there.”

Volunteers are encouraged to collect data during this week’s king tides that continue through Sept. 4, with particular interest in the super full moon in perigee Wednesday. Though there is no formal event, volunteers are encouraged to download both apps and submit what they observe.

Organizers said that safety is a key priority and to avoid unsafe conditions such as heavy rain, winds, and rapid flood waters.

Remaining king tides for this year are Sept. 25-Oct. 4, Oct. 27-Nov. 1, and Nov. 26-28.

To become involved, email Wetlands Watch Community Engagement Project Manager Gabi Kinney at gabi.kinney@wetlandswatch.org.

Update Sept. 5: The town hall meeting originally set for Aug. 31 by the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology in Swansboro has been rescheduled for 6-8 p.m. Sept. 14.

Update Aug. 29: Due to the threat of inclement weather, the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology will postpone a Town Hall meeting planned for Thursday, Aug. 31, in Swansboro. The meeting to gather local knowledge of the area’s historic sites, cemeteries, community ties and local history will be rescheduled.

Original post Aug. 18:

North Carolina Office of State Archaeology staff are holding a town hall meeting in Swansboro to collect local knowledge about Hammocks Beach State Park.

The meeting has been scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 31, in the Swansboro Area Heritage Center, 502 W. Church St.

The town hall is about the agency’s project to identify, document and assess archaeological resources along the shoreline between 200 feet inland and 200 feet outward from the mean tidal zone in hurricane-impacted, state-owned and managed lands across the coastal counties.

This project will provide a baseline for understanding different climate change and storm effects on day and waterlogged sites, as well as broaden our understanding of coastal communities’ experiences and ways of life, officials said.

Researchers are hoping to identify at-risk sites associated with North Carolina’s maritime industries and African American communities.

Hammocks Beach State Park in Swansboro is one of the project areas.

Hammocks Beach, which began as a private park for African Americans, was donated to the state in 1961. The park is made up of a mainland area and three barrier islands, including the 4-mile-long Bear Island, according to the State Library of North Carolina.

Previous surveys identified archaeological resources ranging from prehistoric shell middens to historic industrial sites, and additional research indicates that there are other unidentified resources in the park. The state archaeology office is conducting another survey in the area to assess damage to the previously identified resources, and document erosion along the shorelines.

The town hall will begin at 6 p.m. with an hourlong open house. Attendees will be able to view maps of the project areas, a slideshow of the types of sites that are likely to be in the park, and chat with project researchers about the project.

The second half includes a presentation by AECOM, a resource management firm. This presentation will formally present the project goals, objectives, and methods for the project.

An Emergency Supplemental Historic Preservation Fund grant, money appropriated by Congress in response to hurricanes Florence and Michael in 2018 and administered by the National Park Service, supports the project.

Guest commentary

We in the Carolinas share space with a wonderful but imperiled plant, the Venus flytrap.

People everywhere know and love this unique carnivorous plant for its remarkable ability to ensnare insects within toothed, snap-trap leaves with a hair-trigger, allowing them to snap shut around a struggling insect within milliseconds. A century before “Little Shop of Horrors,” Charles Darwin was so enchanted he had collectors send him these “most wonderful” plants for experiments. 

Although they are known around the world, we only find wild Venus flytraps in a few special habitats scattered across the coastal plains of North and South Carolina within about 100 miles of Wilmington. This highly restricted range reflects the flytrap’s needs for open, sunny, nutrient-poor, and wet habitats scattered among seasonally flooded depressions in longleaf pine savannas and along small creeks with shrub thickets in the Sandhills. Flytraps also need recurrent fires. Without them, woody shrubs quickly overtop and shade out these plants.

Development has shrunk the range of the flytrap and extinguished many populations. If you’ve driven to the beach in recent years, you’ve seen golf courses, housing, and commercial areas where flytraps once grew. In addition, poachers who illegally dig up the plants to sell them have depleted many flytrap populations.

The flytrap’s highly restricted range makes it particularly vulnerable. Remarkably, more than 75% of all wild plants occur in just four large populations on Marine Corps Base Camp LeJeune, NC state game lands, and in the Green Swamp (owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy). Small populations on private lands are vulnerable to losing the habitat patches or the fire and water regimes that sustain them.

These threats and concerns led botanists and conservationists to petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in 2016 to list the Venus flytrap as federally endangered. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) assigned the plant to “Vulnerable” status on its Red List in 2020.

Despite these threats, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has ruled that the Venus flytrap “is not facing an imminent threat of extinction now or in the foreseeable future” (July 25, 2023, decision). They point in particular to eight “highly resilient” populations they rate as stable, protected, and well-managed, which should suffice to sustain this species, eliminating any need for federal regulatory protection.

We hope the USFWS is right. We fear they acted on incomplete information and with more optimism and confidence than is warranted. They pin hopes for this species on land managers’ abilities to successfully protect and manage a few remnant populations. History is littered with failures to sustain large and apparently stable and well-managed populations of other species that crashed unexpectedly from unforeseen threats.

In making this momentous decision, the USFWS underestimated the risks Venus flytraps face from climate change. The large flytrap populations that the USFWS rates as most resilient and crucial for viability grow at low elevations along the coast. Sea level is now rising faster than predicted even a few months ago, increasing risks from saltwater flooding during storm surges (which are also increasing). Prolonged droughts are also becoming more common, threatening the moist habitats flytraps depend on. 

The pace of development has accelerated on the Carolina coastal plain. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled in its Sackett decision that isolated wetlands beyond navigable waters are no longer protected from development. This halves the area of wetlands formerly protected. Compounding this threat, the North Carolina Farm Act of 2023 (Senate Bill 532) strips North Carolina wetlands of longstanding safeguards and compensatory mitigation. This further frees developers to drain ephemeral wetlands like those that support flytrap populations on private lands. The USFWS’s decision did not anticipate how these actions would threaten flytrap populations.

The smaller flytrap populations on private lands play important roles by connecting large and small populations that enhance viability and slow inbreeding. They also provide the pathways for flytraps to migrate north and inland as climates change.  

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service decision not to federally protect the Venus flytrap doesn’t mean this unique species is secure. To ensure that wild Venus flytraps remain part of our Carolina natural heritage, consider what you might do:

• Ask landowners with Venus flytraps on their property to request assistance at Venus Flytrap Champions. This organization recognizes and assists landowners and land managers in the Carolinas who want to ​care for populations of this rare species.
• In North Carolina visit Carolina Beach State Park and The Nature Conservancy’s Green Swamp Preserve and in South Carolina visit Lewis Ocean Bay Preserve to learn about the Venus flytrap.
• Donate funds to support the ongoing habitat protection and restoration efforts (see www.VenusFlytrapChampions.org website).
• Support the North Carolina Plant Conservation Program, which also maintains properties where Venus flytrap grows, via Friends of Plant Conservation.
• Spread concern for the Venus flytrap among your friends, social networks, and the media. Encourage writers or newspaper editors to cover this story in depth.

Extinction is forever. If these populations vanish, we lose a unique branch of life and the world’s most popular plant.

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. See our guidelines for submitting guest columns. Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

Amid the shifting tides of change sweeping our planet, the North Carolina coast finds itself at a pivotal juncture, confronted by the increasingly familiar specter of extreme weather events.

While hurricanes have historically been the primary concern, the recent wildfire that engulfed Maui, Hawaii, serves as a chilling reminder of the mounting menace posed by wildfires. Although North Carolina may appear worlds away from the tropical havens of the Pacific, the aftermath of the Maui tragedy underscores the stark plausibility of a similar catastrophe unfurling along our shoreline.

The scorching flames that devoured Maui’s landscape underscore the raw power of wildfires; their ferocity capable of unleashing destruction with minimal notice. Fueled by a lethal blend of drought, soaring temperatures, and invasive plant species, the inferno raced across thousands of acres, sparing none in its path. These unsettlingly familiar conditions echo along North Carolina’s coastline.

I recall the scary events of April 1985, when firefighters fought a wildfire along a 20-mile-long fire line. Flames roared through 6 miles of the Croatan National Forest and forced 600 people to evacuate, including 60 kids at a wilderness camp. The fire blanketed Carteret County in dense smoke for weeks. Persistent northerly winds propelled this fire to the shoulders of N.C. Highway 24, threatening homes and to leap the road and reach Bogue Sound. Yet, as the sun vanished behind dense black plumes, a fortuitous shift in wind direction miraculously drove the flames back into already charred forest areas. The intense glow of the flames illuminated the night sky. Helicopters tirelessly shuttled water in large hanging buckets from Bogue Sound to douse the fire’s lingering embers.

The following May, nearly 73,000 acres — about 114 square miles – of Onslow and Pender counties burned for nearly two weeks in the Topsail fire, which charred more than 80% of the 48,000-acre Holly Shelter Game Land.

There have been others. The 2008 Evans Road fire, which burned for more than six months, consumed 50,000 acres in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. The Pains Bay fire in May 2011 and the Whipping Creek Road fire in April 2016, both in Hyde and Dare counties, each raced across the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge toward the Air Force’s Dare Bombing Range.

Each year, a slew of fires along the coast serves as a stark reminder of our vulnerabilities, including this year’s 32,000-acre Great Lake fire, which showered Craven County with ash in April. Also this year, wildfires scorched 16,000 acres of the Green Swamp Preserve in Brunswick County and 5,200 acres in Tyrrell County.

These fires are stoked by the undeniable force of climate change, a factor that has upended conventional weather patterns, amplifying extremities to unprecedented proportions. Escalating temperatures, enduring droughts, and erratic winds have woven an environment where wildfires ignite and rage with disconcerting ease. Our coastline, adorned with fragile ecosystems and a delicate interplay between human endeavors and natural grandeur, stands more susceptible than ever. The looming specter of a “Maui” fire scenario in North Carolina transcends conjecture; it is a distressing reality, particularly as our population burgeons within working lands and forests.

In confronting this imminent threat, proactive measures are imperative. Coastal communities must unite around comprehensive fire management strategies, encompassing early warning systems, defensible home perimeters, and well-coordinated evacuation plans akin to those devised for hurricanes. Synergistic cooperation between local, state, and federal entities forms the bedrock of effective wildfire preparedness and response.

Equally vital is a proactive stance on land management. Routine controlled burns, a practice embraced by the Croatan National Forest, along with targeted removal of both native and invasive vegetation, serve to curtail the accumulation of combustible materials, thus diminishing the risk of an unstoppable blaze. The expansion of controlled fire usage as an ecosystem management tool, harkening back to the practices of indigenous communities, stands essential to striking a balance between human progress and natural habitats.

In parallel, public awareness campaigns emerge as another pivotal component of preparedness. Fostering widespread comprehension of fire safety, evacuation protocols, and individual responsibilities empowers residents to safeguard the properties and loved ones. Swift recognition of the gravity of the situation is paramount, a comprehension that can galvanize citizens to champion policy shifts that accord priority to wildfire prevention and mitigation.

In the aftermath of the 2023 Maui wildfire, the alarm bells toll more resoundingly than ever. The prospect of a “Maui” fire scenario along the North Carolina coast might appear remote, yet the convergence of environmental factors necessitates our attention. Through a holistic and prudent approach encompassing community initiatives and policy reforms, we can collaboratively diminish this menace and shield the pristine beauty and communities that define our coast.

Tara Hinton, a rising junior at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, spent her summer in the archives room of Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island listening to hours and hours of recorded oral histories for quotes about the environment and change.

Funded through the university’s Office of Undergraduate Research’s accelerated research program, Hinton told Coastal Review that she is working on a two-part project that began with mining the archives at the museum.

“We have hundreds of oral histories in here and a lot of them haven’t been transcribed,” she said on a recent sunny afternoon in the archives room, which is tucked away in the museum’s library.

“That’s the first part of my job, mining through those to look for evidence of environmental change, because they are great historical and cultural records,” she said. “But they also have a treasure trove of scientific knowledge. I found a couple of quotes on the impact of Hurricane Floyd on the fisheries. In 1999, a lot of the crabs were wiped out and the crabbing wasn’t good because you had all this runoff.”

There were scientific papers published on the storm’s impact on the crab industry, but those papers came out about five years later. “That knowledge was there in 1999,” she said, adding there’s so much that you can actually find if you look locally.

Hinton is listening to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Local Fisheries Knowledge Pilot Project, as well, which she described as a collection of oral histories with local fishers about changes that they were seeing. “Some of the richest stuff that I’ve been getting has been from fishers in this NOAA project. There’s been a lot of change.”

For the second part of the project, she interviewed community members about the environmental changes they’ve observed. She had eight interviews, a few of them with couples.

“I think climate change is a global issue, but there’s not a whole lot of local narratives about it,” she said. “I think the important part of getting those local perspectives is that you get a finer-scale view of the changes that are going on.”

During the interviews she asked about their background, everyday changes related to environmental factors they’ve observed, such as the daily and long-term impacts of every day flooding, about ghost forests, recovery and adaptation since Hurricane Florence hit in 2018, the role of Down East churches in that recovery, and what those in the fisheries industry have observed, because “you get that immediate perspective, especially with fish ranges changing with climate change.”

Some of the main lessons coming out of the interviews, Hinton said, are that climate change is felt most by the people who are already economically, physically and socially disadvantaged, and access to local community resources, like the Carteret Long Term Recovery Alliance, drastically impacted recovery times after Hurricane Florence, with those not having access to those resources having the longest recovery times. The alliance provides assistance to survivors who sustained damage or loss as a result of a disaster affecting the Carteret County area.

One thing she observed during the interviews is that recovery means something different to everyone impacted by Florence. “Some people feel like they have their lives back together, while others are still struggling to regain a sense of stability.”

Another interesting thing coming out of the interviews is everyday adaptations, Hinton continued. “Whether it’s a high-rise chicken coop, a detachable birdhouse, or putting in a workspace below a newly raised house, everyone seems to find their own unique ways to adapt to storm events and recurrent flooding. Every day I am blown away by the strength and resourcefulness of Down East communities.”

She interviewed Robbie Phillips, past disaster recovery director for the Carteret Long Term Recovery Alliance. This was the second interview for Phillips by the museum. The first was not long after Florence.

Phillips said a lot has changed since that first interview.

“I wanted to document the changes and how much I’ve learned over the years working in storm recovery. I also think it’s a great idea to document the stories about the disaster experience of individuals. The stories show how a community works together in difficult times,” she said. The stories show how God can work and inspire people in these times as well. It’s a great project to capture this type of work.”

Phillips hopes that her interview will help raise awareness about the unequal and unjust disaster recovery process across the economic divide. “Those with more financial resources recover quicker, better and with far less hassle, particularly with insurance companies.”

Phillips said she also hopes this project and her input will help encourage conversations about appropriate housing for the workforce.

“A community’s health can be measured by the way we take care of the less fortunate and our workforce. It would be beautiful to see those with more resources being put to the end of the line for insurance settlements, contract labor, work teams,” Phillips said. “We need to learn to see through the lens of those who suffer more in a disaster and recovery and work to relieve their suffering first. That’s what the Carteret Long Term Recovery Alliance has tried to do. The elderly, the poor, families with special needs children in them, and families with children in them get resources and help first. We have it backwards in this country.”

Hinton plans to work on this project through the next school year. Long term, she intends to create a living, digital archive of these quotes that can be accessed online.

“I think the main goal is to document how people Down East are seeing and understand climate change. And then to do more rigorous research on oral histories that have already been done. But ultimately, it’s to make the story of climate change relevant to people here. And maybe get hopefully give them more tools to, to like, address climate change at a local level,” she said.

Hinton headed back home to the mountains this past weekend, before the fall semester starts at Chapel Hill, where she is currently majoring in environmental studies with a minor in statistics.

From Sylva, she heard about the museum from her neighbor Rob Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. He connected Hinton with the museum’s executive director, Karen Willis Amspacher, who welcomed Hinton on board. She began the research project in early June.

Amspacher told Coastal Review that Hinton has done a great job of going through the oral history collection to identify references to environmental change that people have been talking about for the last 20 to 30 years, especially the fishing for fishermen.

“We have a ton of fishing interviews that were done for different projects. She’s listening to pick up on the references to change in the temperature in the water, change grass beds, changing in the landscape, plus she’s doing interviews with people of all ages to learn more about what they’re seeing as environmental change,” Amspacher said.

“She’s so gentle about it, she understands the connection between the culture and the environment,” Amspacher continued, adding she has the right approach, and she’s knowledgeable of the subject. “We’re planning to continue to work with her through the school year and hopefully next summer again.”

Amspacher said the research will go into the museum’s collection, and will use quotes Hinton collected for an exhibition.

“We’ll be using the full transcriptions to inform researchers who are coming here trying to understand how people are reacting or responding to ghost forests or more frequent flooding. We plan to use it in a multitude of ways,” she said.

Federal officials want input from the public on how to equitably provide data, information, science and tools to diverse communities to help them prepare, adapt and plan for the effects of climate change.

The U.S. Department of Commerce, via the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has published in the Federal Register a request for information on how the agency can increase capacity and access to climate services for climate preparedness, resilience and adaptation planning in historically underserved communities, including Tribal and Indigenous communities. The agency also wants input on how it can better include Indigenous and local knowledge in its climate services.

Responses are due on or before Sept. 21 and may be submitted in English or Spanish.

A series of regional- and topic-based listening sessions to gather public comments began Thursday and continues through Sept. 14. Registration details and additional information about how to participate in the public listening sessions is available at  https://www.eventbrite.com/​cc/​equitable-climate-service-delivery-2404789.

The feedback will be used to develop a plan to make NOAA’s climate services more accessible, understandable, usable and inclusive of the social and economic impacts of climate change, officials said.

The plan will also address complex hazards and build capacity for and support users of all disciplines and backgrounds, particularly historically underserved communities and Tribal communities, by expanding science literacy and successfully applying climate services to science-based decisions about climate risk and resilience.

You may submit comments on this document by email to climate.input@noaa.gov. Include “Request for Information on Equitable Delivery of Climate Services” in the subject line of the email.

Attachments will be accepted in plain text, Microsoft Word, or Adobe PDF, or recorded formats only, not to exceed a file size of 25 MB. If comments are submitted via recording, they must be in .mpg, mpeg, or .wav file formats. All comments submitted via email in recorded format will be transcribed.

Comments may also be submitted in writing only by visiting www.regulations.gov/​, entering “Request for Information on Equitable Delivery of Climate Services” in the search box and clicking the “Comment” icon. Enter “N/A” in required fields if you wish to remain anonymous.

Submit written comments via U.S. Mail to Ella Clarke, Room 58010/HCHB, 1401 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20230. Include “Request for Information on Equitable Delivery of Climate Services” in the written response.

Comments submitted in Spanish will be translated to English for public posting.

RODANTHE — Dare County commissioners voted last month to provide about $1.5 million to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study the feasibility of a beach nourishment project in Rodanthe, where five oceanfront houses since 2020 have succumbed to the sea, with more still at risk.  

North Carolina 3^rd District Republican Rep. Greg Murphy told the county that the three-year study is required to obtain any congressional funds for a beach nourishment project, and the county must pick up half the tab.   

“I am delighted to work with Dare County to provide the funding necessary to advance beach nourishment for Rodanthe,” Murphy said in a prepared statement dated July 27. “Preservation of the Outer Banks and its vibrant communities is one of my top priorities in Congress, and I’m grateful to work on delivering the resources necessary to do so.”  

Although commissioners expressed uncertainty about how the study would proceed, Murphy said through a spokesman that the study has been authorized since 1990 and the Corps has assured that it is committed to conduct the study if it is funded.    

The Corps would be able to begin work once the first increments of the study are funded, Murphy’s spokesman Alexander Crane said in a July 29 email response to Coastal Review. The county’s share would be expected after the Corps has the federal funds in hand, he explained. 

“Yes, the study is a precursor to requesting federal funding for beach nourishment,” Crane wrote. “The amount of federal funding for beach nourishment will be determined later on by Congress and the results of the feasibility study.” 

Crane said that the next step in the process would be an appropriations request by Murphy in the February-March time frame of next year, to be included in the fiscal 2025 budget. Those dollars would fund the federal portion of the feasibility study. 

Property owners along the severely eroded shoreline on the north end of Hatteras Island started asking for the project years ago and with dramatically increased urgency as erosion worsened, especially at Mirlo Beach, the village’s northernmost subdivision. Even before the $145 million “jug-handle” bridge opened last summer, bypassing Mirlo and the section of N.C. Highway 12 that was frequently damaged by ocean and sound storm tide, the houses located farther south near the Rodanthe pier started collapsing into the ocean.  

For months, federal, state and local officials have struggled to address a multitude of issues exposed by the tenuous and ongoing situation — property insurance, private property rights and liabilities, public safety and health, governments’ roles and responsibilities to protect public shorelines and accelerating climate change hazards — with few answers.  

For numerous reasons, nourishment has not been considered a viable option for Rodanthe. Some coastal geologists have long argued that with Rodanthe’s extraordinary erosion rates on both ocean and sound sides, the village had no business being developed in the first place. 

 “An aerial view shows that Rodanthe is actually on a small, deteriorating cape extending out to sea,” according to a description in “The North Carolina Shore and Its Barrier Islands, Restless Ribbons of Sand.” “Rodanthe is an extremely high-risk community.” 

The book’s six authors, coastal scientists who included Orrin Pilkey from Duke University and Stan Riggs from East Carolina University, now both semi-retired, warned that Rodanthe was rapidly narrowing, with an average annual erosion rate of 5 to 22 feet, and was at risk of becoming an inlet.   

“THIS AREA IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND SHOULD BE AVOIDED!” the authors wrote, emphasizing the statement with an unusual use of bold, uppercase letters.  

And that was the assessment of coastal scientists 25 years ago, when the book was published in 1998. Since then, the average annual erosion rate in Rodanthe has not only increased, it seems as if it has worsened faster in some areas, such as where the houses are falling.  

In May, Columbia, South Carolina-based Coastal Science and Engineering released an updated report requested by Dare County on a sand analysis it had done in 2014 for the county at Rodanthe. According to the report, a 5.7-mile-long critically eroded area between the south end of Pea Island and the north end of the village of Waves, has a baseline deficit of 2.3 million cubic yards of sand, and it’s losing about 300,000 cubic yards a year. At that rate, it would require about 3.8 million cubic yards of sand at today’s cost of about $40 million to offset five years of erosion.  

Patrick Barrineau, coastal scientist and project manager for Coastal Science and Engineering, said the report, which compared the condition and the location of the beach in 2023 to that of 2014, was intended as an initial step toward a more comprehensive analysis.  

For instance, he said, if the Corps does its study, it will likely include an economic cost-benefit analysis, a sea level and climate analysis and analysis of more physical surveys. Also, the report looked qualitatively at what to expect with different sea levels.  

“A more complete modeling analysis would put quantitative measure on those predictions,” he told Coastal Review.    

In looking at the changes in volume of sand, which is measured from the beach out into surf, there was still some sand remaining — “Probably not very much,” he added — from an emergency nourishment project the Corps had done in 2014 to protect N.C. 12 until the new Rodanthe bridge was built.   

The volumetric changes were measured out into 40 to 50 feet of water, which details “sort of a three-dimensional change in the beach surface,” he said. Horizontal changes are just looking at the high-water line. Most people would describe the erosion rate with the horizontal measurement. Today, the annual erosion rate in the critical area ranges from 14 feet to about 20 feet.   

According to the report, the variations in volume can be attributed to the coastal dynamics: Overwash at Pea Island draws sand from the beach system and stores it, reducing it in Rodanthe; and the most eroded shorelines are situated near closed breaches, such as at Mirlo, making them vulnerable to again becoming inlets. 

Bottom line, it would take a lot of sand and frequent nourishment to keep a wide beach in Rodanthe, Barrineau agreed.

“Yes, definitely,” he said. “I mean it’s going to take on the order of millions of yards of sand to maintain the shoreline in a place where it’s naturally eroding at the rate that we see at Mirlo Beach just to accommodate for that and year-to-year change in the sand volume on the beach.”  

Adding the impacts of sea level rise, especially where there is minimal dune, could exacerbate the issue with storm-cut channels and overwash, he said. But unlike for some beaches along the southern North Carolina coast, Barrineau said he doesn’t think there’d be a problem finding sand borrow areas to keep up with the nourishment demand.  

“There’s a lot of sand out there,” he said.   

If a groin — a wall that traps sand — were to be added to the project, it would cost about $15 million and could prolong the length of time the beach would stay put. Over a 30-year period, the report said, a nourishment-only management strategy would cost about $40 million more than a strategy using groins as well as nourishment. 

“We’ve seen that in other sites where the groins can slow erosion along a project site and in doing so, they can extend the project lifetime,” Barrineau said. “And so, while it’s more expensive up front, it may be cheaper over a 30-year time horizon to have those in place.” 

Hardened structures like groins and jetties, however, are not permitted in North Carolina. They were included in the analysis to “have in the tool box,” he said.   

But barring a change in state law, groins aren’t going to be an option if a beach nourishment project ever does get approved and funded for Rodanthe. Barrineau said that the best chance for such geologically vulnerable locations to keep its beach is more substantial dunes that are taller and wider to be able to withstand pounding waves.  

“It’s pretty unlikely that an entire project would be removed from a site in one storm,” he said. “Now, that being said, major Category 5-type storms do strange things. And it can be difficult to predict.” 

Corps projects are not eligible for emergency federal funds for renourishment after storms, he added.  

Dare County Manager Bobby Outten said that the county has about $8 to $10 million available for a new project from money set aside for beach nourishment done in the county and its oceanfront towns.  

The county’s beach nourishment fund is restricted by state law to use a 2% share of Dare County’s occupancy tax, which totals 6%, for the placement of sand and planting of vegetation to widen the beach. In addition to the county fund, beach nourishment projects may also be funded by property and municipal service district taxes, and state and federal public assistance program funds.  

“In our preliminary modeling, if we had a $40 million project, then in three to five years, we would have enough money to build the project and maintain it,” he said, calculating on the fund’s current rate of growth.  

Outten said the county did not specifically ask consultant Coastal Science and Engineering to include data about the potential impact of sand-trapping groins on a beach nourishment project. 

“They know we can’t do groins,” he said, referring to the fact that “hardened structures” on shorelines are not permitted in North Carolina. But he doesn’t rule out asking in the future.  

If the feasibility study or a federally funded beach nourishment project do not move forward, then Outten said that the county would continue to look for other funding sources.  

Along with other coastal counties in North Carolina, he said, Dare County has asked the state to update the Beach Inlet Management Plan to help pay for shoreline-widening projects.  

“The idea is, we need a state fund for beach nourishment,” Outten said.  

Five coastal communities are in line to receive a total of $1.1 million in grants to carry out resilience projects.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management announced the grants Tuesday. The funds are awarded through the four-phase Resilient Coastal Communities Program. The communities are in the final phase, which is to implement a project identified and planned during the previous three phases.

Belhaven will be awarded $263,200 for its project for tidal gates and flood attenuation at Wynne’s Gut on Pantego Creek.

New Bern will receive $175,320 for Duffyfield resilience improvement and Rose Street basin restoration and enhancement.

Pine Knoll Shores will be awarded $215,000 for tree street swales.

Vandemere will receive $250,000 for draining improvements.

Washington will receive $263,200 for Jack’s Creek floodplain and greenway improvements.

“Thanks to the proactive work of these communities in earlier phases of the Resilient Coastal Communities Program, they are ready to take advantage of grant funding to implement shovel-ready resilience projects that will protect their residents from coastal hazards,” Secretary Elizabeth S. Biser said in a statement.

The program supports communities in developing and implementing locally driven resilience strategies, and implementing projects or activities which reduce the impacts of coastal hazards like flooding and storms, and receives funding from a combination of state and federal sources.

HARKERS ISLAND – About a quarter-mile along the Soundside Loop Trail behind Cape Lookout National Seashore’s visitor center is a two-board wooden fence, indicating that hikers need to make a sharp left turn to stay on the path.

In addition to guiding foot traffic on the 0.8-mile-long trail through maritime forest, the fence at the bend is where a new public science project called “Chronolog” was recently installed. The online tool helps track changes in the environment. In this case, the ghost forest on that side of the island.

When hikers walk by, they can place their smartphone in the gray bracket attached to the top of the fence post to align their photo, take the shot, then email it to Chronolog. Once received, the photo will be added to that location’s time-lapse almost immediately.

Chronolog houses crowd-sourced time-lapses of parks, nature centers, wildlife organizations, schools and museums. Currently, there are more than 500 Chronolog stations in 45 states. The Cape Lookout station is the 18^th on the coast and there have been 10 submissions so far in the month since it was installed.

On a breezy morning in late June at the visitor center, Nate Toering, Cape Lookout’s chief of interpretation and education, explained that the Chronolog allows them to make informed decisions for managing that area of the park and provides “a better understanding of what’s going on in the environment around us.”

This Chronolog is part of a bigger project with the National Park Service, North Carolina State University and Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center. Four NC State undergraduate students worked with three mentors at the university on a ghost forest communication strategy for a senior-level course. The students wrote and designed a brochure as well as a “glideshow” that’s similar to a slideshow, called “Ghost Forests: The Dead Trees Down East.” Down East is a group of more than a dozen rural communities east of Beaufort. 

Ghost forests occur when healthy coastal forests are repeatedly exposed to saltwater through high winds, tides or storms, making the plants, or trees, with low salt tolerance die off, eventually being replaced by salt marsh habitat.

From the Chronolog photo station down the trail, Toering pointed out the gradual transition of the dead trees that are rotting and breaking, but farther inland, there are super healthy trees.

He said that they’re finding at the National Seashore more salt-tolerant species in areas that didn’t have salt-tolerant species before, and are interested in observing the growth of the ghost forest and potential erosion in that area.

Jutting past the ghost forest, several yards away from the existing station, are the jagged remnants of a walkway across a salt marsh that had been destroyed by Hurricane Florence in 2018.

Toering said there are plans to rebuild the walkway, hopefully by the end of the year. When that build is complete, there will be a second Chronolog installed looking toward the ghost forest in the direction of the existing Chronolog, to provide a panoramic view.

Long term, especially after the second Chronolog is installed, there will be a more site-specific assessment of the growth of the ghost forest, such as how fast an area that used to be a forest is transitioning into salt marsh, he explained.

Toering said that as a ranger, he provides frontline messaging on ghost forests and encourages visitors to participate in this public science project. Adding, he’s trying to get people engaged, more knowledgeable about their environment and more caring about what’s going on around them. “Because one way or another, it impacts all of us.”

Part of that frontline messaging is providing to visitors the brochure, “Ghost Forests: What are they and how can you spot one?” that the NC State students designed for their senior course, called a capstone project.

Dr. Erin Seekamp, distinguished professor of resilience and sustainability and director of the Coastal Resilience and Sustainability Initiative at NC State, coordinated the project.

Seekamp has been working with the Down East community since 2015 on adaptation planning for Cape Lookout’s historic districts, and had discussed with Core Sound Museum and Heritage Center Executive Director Karen Willis Amspacher that ghost forests are a good indicator of the vulnerabilities in these communities. 

When Seekamp was approached by a colleague to design a capstone project for the interdisciplinary degree, environmental sciences, she said she immediately connected the two. 

Serving as community liaison, Seekamp brought in as a ghost forest expert for the project Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources associate professor Dr. Marcelo Ardón, who has been behind installing Chronologs on the coast, and science communicator Michelle Jewell with the Department of Applied Ecology and president of the Science Communicators of North Carolina.

Seekamp said that this project helps students recognize how applied science is important, and integrating that with community engagement. Engaging students in the process of observation opens the door to being more aware of your environment and watching change, as well as using science to understand the changes that are occurring.

The idea is to grow the project in future semesters. “We really want to embed the next phases to include integration of schools and that intergenerational learning component,” with parents and grade-school students, and have further conversations about the future and adaptation, Seekamp said.

Amspacher said Core Sound is dedicated to learning and sharing more about the changing environment along the coast and especially Down East.  

“Partnering with NC State and other universities has opened doors for us to be involved with the important research taking place around us. We are very thankful to bring the community into this conversation. We look forward to working with local students to use this Chronolog project as a way to increase their — and their families’ — understanding of how saltwater is already impacting our landscape.”

Students on the project were Rachel DeChicio, Andrew Barfield, Jordan Strickland and Arden Lumpkin, who each graduated this year with a bachelor’s in environmental sciences.

DeChicio told Coastal Review that one of her biggest takeaways from this project is how important it is to focus on a community’s culture and values when communicating about climate change topics such as saltwater intrusion and ghost forests. 

“Harkers Island has an amazing community that loves their home and has deep ties to the land, so it is important to create educational materials on climate change that inspire curiosity and not fear,” DeChicio said. “I hope people who visit the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center are able to learn a little bit about saltwater intrusion and ghost forests from our products, and are then able to identify why their coastal forests are dying. I hope seeing the formation of ghost forests on Harkers Island and having the knowledge to name that occurrence empowers people to learn more about combating climate change.”

Barfield added that he learned through this project how ghost forests are a very visible aspect of our changing climate. 

“It is my hope that ghost forests can be used as a tool to further educate the public on the many ways that our world around us is changing. The more involvement that we get from local communities, then the better chance we have of adapting to these changes moving forward,” Barfield said.

Strickland said in an email that the two main things he learned while working on this project are the technicalities of designing and developing science communication products and ghost forests in general. 

“One of the main reasons why I chose this project as my top pick when we were deciding teams, was because I never heard of the term ‘ghost forests’ before,” he said. “Of course, I knew they were not referring to an actual haunted forest, so it intrigued me.”

After learning what ghost forests are, and how they have begun to spread on the coast of Harkers Island, he said he wanted to help provide the community with information about what ghost forests indicate.

“I knew if me, as an environmental science major, didn’t know much about ghost forests, then that means most of the general public doesn’t as well. Ghost forests are not only an indication of climate change and sea level rise, but also foreshadow how our coastal forests could end up as these two factors continue to impact the NC coast in the coming years,” Strickland added.

Lumpkin said the project taught her the importance of properly communicating climate science through the lens of who it impacts. The ghost forests that are popping up and growing quickly along the coast of these Down East communities are a tangible example of the effects of sea level rise and saltwater intrusion. Viewing this issue through the eyes of a community member gives you a wider perspective on the best way to communicate it. 

“The Down East community has a rich, generational history and connection with their land and have persevered in the face of many challenges,” she said. “My biggest hope with our project is that it will spark curiosity and conversation about climate change among the community. The Core Sound Waterfowl Museum is such an important place visited frequently by residents and I hope that our project can, at the least, be the start of a conversation about climate change impacts.”

Jewell explained to Coastal Review that this type of class project works all the way around: “The community’s needs are heard and answered, the students receive training and experience in co-creation and science communication, and the researchers will get more data from this changing landscape. Truly encapsulating the N.C. State mission of research, teaching, and extension.”

Science communication is an iterative process, and the hope is that this piece is the first of many touchpoints, Jewell said. “Our aim is to create a space for community members to engage with the changes happening around them. And that engagement can come in many forms,” from submitting photos at the Chronolog site, to being able to identify and understand ghost forests. 

The Chronolog station on Harkers Island is one of the nearly 20 that Ardón with NC State has either installed or helped coordinate the installation along the coast.

He said in an interview that the idea to have the public help monitor ghost forests dates back a few years and was asking the public to submit photos through an online platform before discovering Chronolog while on vacation on Bald Head Island.

Chronolog’s process appealed to Ardón. Rather than photos being submitted from all over, have the public take photos of the same location to make tracking the changes easier to observe.

He explained that these forests and marshes change on the scales of decades to centuries, but they’re probably changing a lot faster, on the scales of years to decades, “but that’s still pretty slow for us to see on a regular basis. I think the idea was if we have these photographs, then maybe it’ll become a little bit easier to see the change of these ecosystems.”

Ardón said in addition to looking at change over time, he wants to use the photos to study how the seasons change the landscape. 

With a grant through the National Science Foundation, Ardon began in 2021 installing Chronolog stations at Goose Creek State Park, Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, E. Merle Waterfowl Impoundment, and Swan Quarter National Wildlife Refuge.  

After installing the first round, he said N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources officials liked the project and decided to fund 11 more stations. He worked with the site managers to determine the best location for each Chronolog, depending on what they wanted to document, such as a marsh or a living shoreline.

“For the ghost forests, I’m really interested in looking at how long the snags, the standing dead trees, actually last, because there’s been some studies of those snags but there’s not a lot of good fine-scaled information of: How often do they fall over? Is it just after big storms? Is it small storms? Is it just after time that eventually they fall over? So those are the kinds of questions that I want to answer with these stations,” he said. 

Part of a series for the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide Connected Coastlines reporting initiative that Coastal Review presents in partnership with NC Newsline. The reporting also was made possible with support from the Solutions Journalism Network.

In 2019, an N.C. State Magazine assignment sent me to Princeville, North Carolina, where I met Marquetta Dickens and her cousin, Kendrick Ransome. We stood in the Tar River where their enslaved ancestors were brought ashore and forced to work on plantations in Edgecombe, and I made their portrait. I knew right away I had met some special people in a special place.

It’s been two years since I published “Tide and Time,” a story about a small cemetery in the village of Salvo on North Carolina’s Outer Banks that was eroding into the sea. The same storms that erode the Outer Banks threaten to erase historic communities 100 miles from the coast. I wanted to learn about that story.

Read “The Whales of Fishing Creek”

“Origins” is a three-part photography and reporting project that explores how climate change is exacerbating Tar River flooding in Princeville — the oldest town in America founded by formerly enslaved Black people. The series investigates Princeville’s ambitious plan to become more climate resilient, as well as natural climate solutions in eastern North Carolina.

Over the past 150 years, Princeville has survived at least eight major floods, including two “500-year” floods in 17 years: Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. According to scientists, the town’s neglected, insufficient levee and climate change threaten to cause more frequent and catastrophic flooding and erasure from this marginal land.

The stories explore the origins of climate change born from colonialism and chattel slavery, how Princeville’s floods aren’t natural disasters at all, and how our ecological-climate crisis is interconnected with other justice issues.

But it’s not enough to report on the symptoms and causes of climate chaos. All of the stories detail climate adaptations and natural solutions, and the ordinary people experimenting with them.

In the NC Newsline stories you’ll meet Princeville Mayor Bobbie Jones, and learn about the town’s ambitious recovery plan and all the obstacles the town faces. You’ll get to know Marquetta Dickens, a local and college basketball standout turned pro, who eventually moved back to Princeville to run a nonprofit to help the town’s recovery. You hear from Ann Adams, who has been displaced from her Princeville home for two years after ReBuild NC delayed its demolition and elevation. Finally, you’ll meet Kendrick Ransome, Marquetta’s cousin, who runs an organic farm near Princeville with his ancestral farming techniques that prevent carbon from escaping into the atmosphere by sequestering it in the soil.

A lot of ink has been spilled about Princeville and I wanted to take readers places they’ve never been before. Photography of climate change is often a pantheon of destruction: starving polar bears, wildfires, and houses crushed by hurricanes. But like in “Tide and Time,” climate change photojournalism should also show us why places are worth saving. It can show us the ordinary people making a difference, as well as daily life and joy, which are true forms of resistance.

Related: Outer Banks ties inform photojournalist’s climate reporting

I also believe that climate change storytelling can do more. I’ve wondered how I can tell a story about solutions while transporting readers across time and space, and expand their imaginations so they can envision other worlds.

Fast forward to 2022 and I’m standing in one of the Tar’s biggest tributaries, Fishing Creek. I’m fossil hunting with Marquetta and my friend Megan. In my muddy hand is a whale vertebrae the size of my head that I dislodged from the creek bottom. I looked up and in my mind I could see the whales swimming over the tree line.

This final chapter takes us to the prehistoric past, to the Pliocene Epoch, 3 million years ago, when the Atlantic Ocean covered the coastal plain and prehistoric whales swam over Princeville. When the old whales died, their bones settled in the ancient seafloor and fossilized over millions of years. The same intense storms that cause the Tar River to flood Princeville erode these fossils from the creek and river bottoms, revealing the remains of this ancient marine world.

Current atmospheric carbon levels are around 421 parts per million — higher than they’ve been in about 3.6 to 4.5 million years, when temperatures were 3 to 4 degrees Celsius (5.4-7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer and sea levels were 70 to 80 feet higher. According to the International Panel on Climate Changes, temperatures are on track to climb to nearly 3.2 degrees Celsius, to Pliocene temperatures — or higher — beyond 2100, without immediate climate action.

The whale fossils buried under Princeville reveal what prehistoric climates can tell us about our future, what whales can teach us about natural marine climate solutions, and about how the fates of Black people and whales are an interconnected justice issue. The spirits of these prehistoric whales still inhabit the landscape of eastern North Carolina. They have something to teach us about climate resilience and solutions, and about ourselves: We are of the land, we are of the deep past.

With this Pulitzer Center Connected Coastlines grant, I wanted readers to reimagine human geographic boundaries, connect the coast with the coastal plain, and to never see the eastern North Carolina landscape the same way again. The next time you drive down U.S. 64, or N.C. 33, look out over the cotton fields and imagine the whales.

Explore the rest of the series

Homecoming Part I
A Black town in a floodplain persists and forges its own future despite unnatural disasters, policy failures, and white supremacy.

Homecoming Part II
Can Princeville’s recovery plan succeed despite obstacles? A resident displaced by flooding fights to return home to Princeville.

The Soil Farmers
Black farmers heal the soil, fight climate change and provide healthy food to their rural communities.

Note: “The Whales of Fishing Creek” is not available for reprint.

Guest commentary

This scene is all too familiar along North Carolina’s coast: houses and roads underwater, beaches washed away, lives and livelihoods threatened. Massive weather events often leave us feeling helpless, and even hopeless.

From harsh hurricanes to rising sea levels, North Carolinians have experienced firsthand the devastating impacts of climate change. Indeed, the recently published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2023 Report shows dire circumstances and catastrophic effects if drastic action is not taken now to mitigate the climate crisis. An all-of-the-above approach is required, including strategies to both reduce carbon emissions and remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.

What if there were a nature-based climate restoration solution that may eventually be able to safely capture 1 billion tons or more of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year while reducing harmful ocean acidity and helping to protect coastlines?

This is exactly the kind of promising carbon dioxide removal strategy that my lab at the University of North Carolina Wilmington is exploring in collaboration with scientists from Vesta, as well as the Coastal Studies Institute, UNC-Greensboro, and researchers at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

Vesta is a Public Benefit Corporation conducting research into the efficiency and scalability of a climate restoration solution called Coastal Enhanced Weathering: a method that places carbon-removing sand made of the naturally occurring mineral, olivine, into seawater, reducing ocean acidity and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Olivine reacts with carbon dioxide in seawater to sequester it as bicarbonate, raising ocean alkalinity and releasing silicate, an important nutrient for near-shore phytoplankton. Olivine is one of the most abundant minerals worldwide with natural deposits occurring across the United States including in North Carolina.

Vesta is currently seeking permits for a 2024 field pilot project to place a small amount of olivine sand 1,500 feet offshore of Duck on the seafloor in 25 feet of water. This sand placement is about 2% of the volume of coastal beach nourishment projects such as the recent 500,000-cubic-yard Shore Protection Project conducted by the Town of Duck earlier this year. As part of the pilot project’s multi-year environmental monitoring program, we are planning to conduct measurements and experiments to study responses of nearshore phytoplankton and zooplankton to this real-world deployment of olivine sand.

I’ve studied important marine microbiota that support the base of ocean food webs both in the lab and in the field for decades. I have also studied their responses to coastal nourishment projects in North Carolina that similarly place sand in coastal zones to counteract erosion. We have found that “standard” beach nourishment projects have no long-term effects on nearshore phytoplankton and zooplankton at the base of the food web.

Moreover, we know that nearshore primary productivity is almost always nutrient-limited, including by the nutrient, silicate, which is necessary for the growth of diatoms, a very important food source for zooplankton and other herbivores in the surf zone. Given the small scale of the potential 2024 field pilot project, particularly relative to typical coastal nourishment projects in the area, and the extensive laboratory research to date, no impacts to marine plankton are expected. Nevertheless, it is critical to test this thinking through rigorous scientific study, as we plan to do.

Vesta teamed up with the Town of Southampton, New York in a pilot study in 2022 to contribute a small amount of olivine sand to the town’s beach renourishment effort, equaling 5% of the total nourishment volume to restore the eroding shoreline. After the first year, preliminary results showed no changes to in-field chlorophyll A concentrations (an indicator of phytoplankton abundance) following the placement of olivine. Additionally, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Southern California, Vesta recently released this preprint for peer review, in which they conducted a laboratory study showing no negative responses of numerous phytoplankton groups upon exposure to extremely high levels of olivine constituents.

This laboratory experiment created an extreme scenario of exposure to olivine dissolution products to represent a large olivine deployment and still observed no negative impacts. Other lab-based research supports the safety of Coastal Enhanced Weathering with olivine (Guo et al. 2022). Collectively, these data are very compelling as to the safety of this climate mitigation method.

The project in North Carolina would further the research and development of this important work in direct alignment with North Carolina’s Climate Goals. In coordination with the Coastal Studies Institute, UNC Greensboro, and scientific researchers at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Field Research Facility, we will gain critical, real-world data that will advance the carbon removal industry and in turn, our ability to mitigate against climate change and the worst of its impacts.

The work has big promise. Together, we can find a solution and craft a better future for North Carolinians for generations to come.

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. See our guidelines for submitting guest columns. Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

State-by-state emergency plans aimed at minimizing the impacts of natural disasters overwhelmingly understate extreme heat as a hazard to human health, according to a Duke University analysis.

The recently released policy brief, “Defining Extreme Heat as a Hazard: A Review of Current State Hazard Mitigation Plans,” highlights the need for states to better evaluate the growing threat of extreme heat as the climate changes, identify populations of people most vulnerable to high temperatures, and implement plans to educate and assist those populations.

Ashley Ward, a senior policy associate with Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability and co-author of the brief, said the report is not a critique, but rather a guide to help states’ emergency management departments better incorporate extreme heat in their hazard mitigation plans.

“We want to give them some easy-to-pick-up roadmaps about how they can do so,” Ward said in a telephone interview. “Our hope is to make their job easier and to supplement what’s already happening at FEMA. We want to be of assistance. That’s what we’re trying to do here.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently announced states must incorporate climate change into their hazard mitigation plans, a move Ward called a “really big deal” in part because it prioritizes extreme heat as a hazard.

Extreme heat is when daytime temperatures rise above 95 degrees and nighttime temperatures do not dip below 75 degrees.

Unlike natural disasters such as hurricanes or tornadoes, extreme heat is not a Stafford Act hazard.

The 1988 Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Act, which amended the Disaster Relief Act of 1974, authorizes the president to declare disasters and provide financial assistance to state and local governments.

The law mandates states update their hazard mitigation plans every five years. Many states are in the process of renewing their plans, Ward said.

So, the report focuses on current states’ plans, half of which lack a dedicated section to extreme heat, the analysis found. 

Ward and co-author Jordan Clark, a postdoctoral associate for the institute’s Water Policy Program, used a scoring system created by the National Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, to assess each states’ plan.

The NRDC used the scoring system to look at the incorporation of extreme heat in southeastern states’ hazard mitigation plans.

“As we know, this is certainly a pressing problem in the southeast, but we know the southeast isn’t the only region in which heat is a problem,” Ward said.

Heat, she said, is one of the most misunderstood weather events.

Ten years ago, researchers in her field focused on something called the urban heat island effect, which is created when natural landscapes are replaced with pavement, buildings and other surfaces that absorb and retain heat.

This effect is very important and very real, Ward said, but its sole focus is on urban areas, leaving out whole populations impacted by extreme heat.

“In North Carolina, heat illness rates are about seven to 10 times higher in rural areas than they are in urban areas,” she said. “And, in fact, what we’re seeing in the small amount of research that’s coming out of the southern part of the United States is that’s not a North Carolina phenomenon. A recent study came out of Florida that showed the same thing. There’s a lot of reasons this is the case, but that just gives you one example of how broadly heat has been misunderstood.”

North Carolina has an enhanced hazard mitigation plan, also referred to as the 322 Plan, which includes natural hazards as well as man-made, technological and human-caused hazards.

The plan addresses different populations identified by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, which narrows down the largest group of people who suffer heat injuries as men between the ages of 18-34 either involved in athletics or outdoor work such as farming and construction.

The plan was updated last year and approved by FEMA in February. The current plan expires February 12, 2028, according to Chris Crew, North Carolina Emergency Management mitigation plans manager.

Crew explained in an email responding to questions that the plan’s definition of extreme heat is taken from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and National Weather Service, which identify extreme heat as hotter and/or more humid than average summertime temperatures and unusually hot and humid weather lasting at least two days.

The first recommendation offered in the report is for states to establish their own, specific standard definition of extreme heat.

“That is because extreme heat in North Carolina is not the same as extreme heat in Oregon and it’s important that people think about their geography with respect to how we define extreme heat,” Ward said.

That and other recommendations are intended to provide education and awareness about the complexities of heat, she said, how things like how extreme heat correlates to effects on human health.

Take temperature metrics. Heat index, a metric that combines air temperature and humidity, is a common metric decision makers use to define extreme heat, but it is less robust in determining potential adverse health outcomes than a metric known as wet bulb globe temperature.

Wet bulb globe temperature, or WBGT, measures heat stress in direct sunlight and includes temperature, humidity, wind speed, sun angle and cloud cover. This standard metric is used by the military and high school athletic associations, Ward said.

“And that’s important because if you’re sweating outside and it’s very humid there’s a lot of moisture in the air so your body is not evaporating that sweat off of your skin,” she said. “However, if it’s windy outside then the wind is drying the sweat off your skin and that mimics that evaporative cooling process and actually provides a protective factor for you.”

Therefore, in coastal counties especially, it’s important to think about wind speed, Ward said.

North Carolina’s Sandhills region has the highest rate of heat-related illnesses in the state. Roughly 75% of those who go to emergency departments for treatment are men between the ages of 15 to 45, Ward said.

Counties within that region, including Bladen, Hoke, Robeson, Sampson and Scotland counties, are included in a heat-health alert system through the N.C. Building Resilience Against Climate Effects program.

This CDC-funded program is tailored to vulnerable populations, including low-income and elderly communities, farmworkers, and youth in sports, according to the state’s plan.

“The State’s position is ‘Extreme’ heat is more of an individual and regional value than a specific value for everyone across North Carolina,” Crew said in an email. “Setting a statewide definition of extreme (heat) would limit the State into responding to a single type of weather scenario statewide when the State health agencies need the flexibility to respond to different weather conditions in different regions to the State.”

Ward praised North Carolina’s emergency management department, calling it a “gold star in the nation.”

While the state does include an assessment for heat hazard, it could better incorporate socially or medically vulnerable populations and teach residents how to protect themselves from extreme heat, she said.

Some ways to cool off after being exposed to extreme heat include taking a cool shower then sitting in front of a fan or placing your feet in cool water.

North Carolina’s plan notes the North Carolina Climate Science Report, which projects that much of the Piedmont and coastal plain will experience a jump in very hot days by 10 to 20 days per year between 2021 and 2040 as compared to the 1996-2015 average.

The number of warm nights in those regions is projected to increase anywhere from three to 15 nights a year. Some areas within those regions could see an increase by 18 or more nights a year.

Nearly $21 million in federal funds has been recommended for five climate change resilience projects in coastal North Carolina.

Vice President Kamala Harris announced Friday the $20.9 million from the administration’s Climate-Ready Coasts initiative funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. 

The Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, administers the initiative. The award recommendations must be reviewed within the agency before final approval and fund distribution.

“North Carolina’s recommended projects focus on protecting undeveloped shoreline, restoring oyster habitat, removing abandoned vessels and other debris from waterways, and deepening the relationship between people and their environment,” NOAA Administrator Dr. Rick Spinrad said in a statement. “NOAA is proud to recommend and support such projects, which represent multiple approaches toward building healthier, more resilient coasts and coastal communities.”

The North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, was recommended to receive $19.4 million for two projects, to complete the Pamlico Sound oyster sanctuary and remove storm-related debris, lost fishing gear and derelict vessels along the coast.

The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor was recommended for $536,000 to support habitat restoration and resilience.

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission was recommended for $500,000 to conserve land along Bay River in Pamlico County.

The National Audubon Society was recommended for $499,000 to work with coastal communities to identify and propose nature-based solutions in Columbia and Tyrrell counties and two communities in South Carolina.

Coastal Federation Executive Director Todd Miller said in an interview Friday that the two funded projects would transform and accelerate the nonprofit organization’s capacity to restore fishery habitats vital to the coastal economy and environment.

“NOAA recognizes past successes of long-term partnerships that built the foundation to make these two projects solid investments,” Miller said. “The large magnitude of these projects is feasible because so many diverse interests are working together, including people who fish and shellfish, community groups, businesses, local governments, universities, the N.C. General Assembly, N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, and the N.C. Department of Commerce.”

Funded through Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience Grants, the $14.5 million project called “Completing the Pamlico Sound Oyster Sanctuary and Training the Next Generation of Restoration Professionals” is to restore nearly 120 acres of oyster habitat in Pamlico Sound, completing the 500-acre goal for the Sen. Jean Preston Memorial Oyster Sanctuary. The North Carolina General Assembly voted in 2015 to establish the network of oyster reefs named after longtime coastal legislator and retired teacher who died in 2013.

“Oyster restoration will provide direct benefits to key recreational and commercial species such as striped bass and wild oysters thereby supporting commercial and recreational fisheries and tourism businesses throughout the state’s coast,” NOAA officials said about the project.

As part of this project, the Coastal Federation will join with North Carolina State University’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology, or CMAST, and North Carolina Central University to provide hands-on opportunities for under-represented graduate and undergraduate students studying marine sciences.

The $4.5 million “North Carolina Large-scale Marine Debris and Abandoned and Derelict Vessel Removal” project is funded by the Marine Debris Removal Competition. In addition to removing storm-related debris, lost fishing gear and derelict vessels throughout coastal North Carolina, the project aims to prevent marine debris from future storms through outreach and education.

The National Audubon Society’s $499,000 award through the Coastal Habitat Restoration and Resilience Grants for Underserved Communities is for its “Co-creating Inclusive Community Resilience with Nature-based Solutions in the Coastal Carolinas” project.

The National Audubon Society will work with coastal communities on nature-based solutions that increase resilience to extreme weather and climate change, officials said. The proposed projects will address the goals and challenges of and Columbia and Tyrrell counites, as well as Awendan and McClellanville, South Carolina. They will also hire community planners for the process and help coordinate future restoration.

“This funding will drive critical resources to ecologically important and historically underserved areas at the frontline of climate change in the Southeast. Just as importantly, it will support the co-identification of nature-based solutions that give as much weight and value to community members’ lived experiences as it does to the data–helping ensure those solutions are both equitable and sustainable,” Sherri Fields, Audubon South Carolina’s Director of Conservation, told Coastal Review.

The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor award through Coastal Habitat Restoration and Resilience Grants for Underserved Communities will go to “Capacity Expansion to Support Habitat Restoration and Resilience in the Gullah Geechee Corridor” project. These funds will support new positions with the goal to create a plan for restoration and resilience across the corridor that stretches from North Carolina through Florida.

The new positions will help build relationships between restoration organizations and Gullah Geechee communities, identify resilience priorities, and create local advisory committees to support future restoration efforts, officials said.

The Wildlife Resources Commission’s $500,000 through the Coastal Zone Management Habitat Protection and Restoration Grants, will go to “Bay River Coastal Land Conservation” project. These funds will help the Bay River Coastal Partnership purchase ecologically significant coastal property within the more than 400-acre Bay River Tract for sale in Pamlico County.

Conservation of this area will protect an undeveloped natural shoreline and rare coastal forest communities, minimize the loss of life and property by directing development out of a high risk area, and safeguard coastal water quality along the Bay River, officials said.

“I fought to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act because I knew these transformational laws would create lasting progress in North Carolina and beyond,” Congresswoman Deborah Ross, D-North Carolina, said in the release. “North Carolinians are all too familiar with the burden of extreme weather, and this funding from the Climate-Ready Coasts Initiative will help our coastal communities better prepare for and respond to high-impact weather events.”

These projects are part of NOAA’s nearly $6 billion total investment under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law with additional funds leveraged from the Inflation Reduction Act.

Two scientists in the Raleigh-based North Carolina State Climate Office were curious about how land, weather and water have shaped the geology, cultural history and climate of the coastal plain.

Associate Director Dr. Sheila Saia and Assistant State Climatologist Corey Davis, in collaboration with N.C. State’s Coastal Resilience and Sustainability Initiative, decided to take a deep-dive into the topic and find out.

To do this, they interviewed more than a dozen experts on topics like oceanography, geography, anthropology and climate science, then took what they learned and wrote the series, “Our Curious Coast” that they published in the office’s Climate Blog.

The series is broken up into the following five blog posts: geography and coastal climate, soils and agriculture, the ocean and our coastline, rivers and wetlands, and adaptation and resilience.

The series along with other weather and climate news written over the last decade are on the State Climate Office’s website.

Saia and Davis presented their findings during the recent N.C. Water Resources Research Institute annual conference at N.C. State University’s McKimmon Center in Raleigh.

For two days in March, professionals, students, consultants, local, county and state representatives and others shared new research, restoration, planning, stormwater management, hydrology, community engagement and more water-related topics. WRRI is a federal/state partnership funded by U.S. Geological Survey and the UNC System. Susan White is executive director of WRRI as well as for N.C. Sea Grant. The two programs regularly partner together, including on the conference.

Davis began the presentation by explaining that the climate office is a public service center for North Carolina, which means “we try to provide data or information or decision support” to answer weather- and climate-related questions.

One way the office does this is through its Climate Blog, he said, calling it a “timely avenue” to share weather news, monthly climate summaries and recaps of big events, both now and in the past.

“I really do think they’re very readable, very accessible, and actually may be a little bit fun,” he said, and, occasionally, they pursue a topic, which is how the series on the coast came to be.

Davis told Coastal Review last week that the “Our Curious Coast” series first started taking shape around seven or eight years ago as the result of discussions within the office.

“At that time, we realized there were some things we didn’t know about the coastal plain in North Carolina, like whether the cold Labrador Current actually makes it all the way to our northern coastline. As we learned from oceanographers we talked to for the series, it doesn’t,” Davis said. “That idea sat on the back burner for a few years, but when we brought on a new associate director, Dr. Sheila Saia, she and I revisited the idea, and with her background and connections within the hydrology and water resources sectors, it felt like the right time to finally write those posts.”

The series gave them a chance to step back from only talking about the weather, and allowed for a deeper dive that began with answering the question, “What do we mean by ‘coastal plain?’”

Davis said they use the term in practically every blog post, “but it felt kind of enlightening, both for us and for our readers, to actually explain what it is and where it is and why it is the way it is.”

According to the blog, the term, “coastal plain,” itself, “says a lot about what it is: coastal, because it’s adjacent to the ocean; a plain, because it’s broad, flat land that gradually decreases in elevation until it dips beneath the waves at the ever-shifting shoreline.” But the definition doesn’t stop there. The blog delves into the specifics of what makes the coastal plain … the coastal plain.

After defining the term, Davis said they could then write about how its geography affects the climate, and vice versa, like winds and waves and storms shifting and eroding barrier islands. And how those factors presented opportunities and challenges for human civilizations, from the earliest Native Americans to the cities and communities that dot the region today.

Davis said they knew it would take a lot of work to write the posts well, from identifying experts who could answer questions and organizing that information into readable blog posts. It took several months but he thought the end result was well worth the effort.

“One of the best parts, which we heard in the feedback, was that these posts were getting seen and read by a very broad audience. There were people in climate science, in earth science, in agriculture, in oceanography — all the same topics we covered in the posts — who read and shared them with their own circles, and it seemed like we were able to pretty seamlessly connect all of those areas within the context of the coast of North Carolina,” he said.

Saia said during the conference that the hope was that the reader takes away from the series a sense of how water is important to the coastal plain in terms of climate, geology, geography and to the communities that live there, and that in the face of climate change, water poses a threat to these communities.

“We spoke a lot about how communities are actively preparing and responding to and preparing for the future,” she said. Many of the experts really emphasized the importance of community engagement and involvement.

The office has been producing the climate blog for more than a decade and the goal is the same today as it was then, Davis said.

As editor, he wants to include interesting, informative content that is accessible to anyone and available in a timely way — within a day or two after the month ends, or after a big weather event happens — “to put our weather and climate into perspective.”

While the climate blog is only one of his duties, Davis said it is a high priority, knowing that people rely on that information. The office’s director has been a big supporter as well and “that support and growth were among the reasons why we felt like we could do something a bit different and more ambitious like the ‘Curious Coast’ series.”

Davis began working with the climate office as an undergraduate intern in 2008.  At that time, the staff was producing a monthly newsletter with summaries and statistics about the previous month’s weather.

The main issue with the monthly newsletter was timing. “For instance, if a hurricane came through in the beginning of August, our August summary might not go out until the middle of September, more than a month later. By switching to a blog format, we could more easily push out information anytime we wanted to, without being bound by the limits of the newsletter format,” Davis said, adding that another big factor in starting the blog was “my own procrastination.”

During the fall of 2012, when he should have been engrossed in his master’s research, he said he be drawn into climate-related side conversations with co-workers and other grad students.

“Several times we found ourselves wishing we could share that information with a wider audience — beyond even scientists, and going all the way to the general public — and a blog, again, seemed like a great way to do that,” Davis explained.

Near the end of 2012, the office launched the Climate Blog and published its first winter outlook series, which “encapsulated everything we wanted from the blog,” he said, including “explaining concepts like El Niño or La Niña and their impacts on North Carolina in ways that anyone can read and understand.”

One challenge is balancing when and how much to simplify information for some readers without making it feel too simple for others.

“I think we have found a nice balance since we hear great feedback from both the public, like grandmothers who heard about the blog from their gardening club, and from other atmospheric scientists. The National Weather Service and North Carolina Emergency Management have both told us that they really appreciate the blog because it puts our weather into a historical context, and because our turnaround time in getting those summaries ready is so quick,” he said.

Davis added that they publish winter outlooks every year, “and I think that has become our most highly anticipated content. Starting in October or early November, we’ll get questions about when our winter outlook is coming out. It’s usually the week before Thanksgiving, by the way.”

Though some of the blog’s content, like the monthly climate summaries and winter outlooks, are standard, Davis said he tries to find ways to keep those posts feeling fresh “so every hot July doesn’t sound exactly the same as the one before it.”

The Climate Blog has featured a few other series including the 2019 “Stormy Summer” series that looked at several notable hurricanes.

“One of my favorite parts of that series was talking to and telling the stories of people who experienced those events first-hand. That sort of narrative format served as an inspiration for the ‘Curious Coast’ series as well, since I think it’s more meaningful to hear directly from people at the heart of an issue than to read a paraphrased version of their comments,” he said.

Davis said that with this year is the 20^th anniversary of Isabel, and the fifth year since Florence, they’re working out how to tell the stories of both events. His plans are talk to those who experienced these storms and their impacts, and then share that with readers.

He finds the storytelling aspect of the blog to be valuable because “any given day or month or weather event is more than just the data that describes it. It’s also how we personally experience it, and the impacts it has on our society. I like to think that the blog gives the best of both. It captures the essence and importance of the data but wraps it in the story of how it evolves over time and how it affects us. I think — or hope — that’s the unique perspective that the Climate Blog is able to give that you might not find from many other sources.”

Davis has an obvious passion for creating accessible science content for all readers.

“Science communication, when done well, is always rewarding because it feels like you’re unlocking peoples’ brains to new knowledge or understanding. It’s especially rewarding when you can do that with a technical topic,” Davis said. “To some people, science can seem like a totally different language, so this style of writing is like being a translator and giving meaning or context or a cause-and-effect relationship to those technical things, whether it’s what La Niña is or how climate change affects us locally.”

Have you seen an armadillo ’round these parts? State wildlife officials would like to know.

If you think you have spotted a “possum on the half-shell” or “armored pig” in the Tar Heel State, you may be right. This Central and South American native has gradually expanded its range northward, especially as North Carolina experiences fewer lengthy stretches of below-freezing conditions.

As of last year, officials had confirmed the presence of armadillos in 28 North Carolina counties, from Cherokee to Dare. And while most confirmed sightings have been in the western part of the state, their presence is likely in more counties, officials said, citing both credible and unconfirmed observations.

Now, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission asks that folks report any sightings of nine-banded armadillos to help commission biologists determine how far their range has expanded in the state. Since 2007, the commission has received more than 898 reports in 70 counties.

“Whether armadillos continue spreading beyond their current range will be largely determined by climate,” said Colleen Olfenbuttel, the commission’s black bear and furbearer biologist. She said it was likely the armadillo is expanding its range naturally throughout North Carolina, “rather than being helped by human intervention.”

Wildlife officials said that armadillos lack thick insulation and must dig for most foods. Freezing conditions can cause them to starve or freeze to death, so mild winter temperature conditions are ideal for them.

If you observe an armadillo in the wild and are able to capture a photo, you can upload and share your images at the iNaturalist NC Armadillo Project website.

You can also download the iNaturalist app available for iPhone and Android.

Another option for reporting an observation is by emailing armadillo@ncwildlife.org and including the following:

• A photo of the armadillo, if available.
• The date and time when it was observed.
• The location where it was observed, including GPS coordinates if possible or a detailed location description.

Five of the 13 college students who recently received the G. Herbert Stout Award for Innovative Student Papers attend coastal universities or their projects were on coastal and environmental issues.

The award presented during the North Carolina Geographic Information Systems Conference recognizes students that have completed an “outstanding project using geographic data to analyze or solve a problem regarding an issue of their choosing,” according to the North Carolina Department of Information Technology.

The NCGIS Conference, held every two years, offers opportunities for professionals and students of geographic information systems and computer mapping technology to network and learn about advancements and new applications for GIS software.

“College and university students represent the next generation of GIS professionals that will be future leaders in both the public and private sectors. Rewarding their academic achievement not only benefits the individual students but ultimately the GIS community as a whole,” Tim Johnson, conference chair and N.C. geographic information officer, said in a statement.

Colleges were able to submit one undergraduate and one graduate student for the award. Winners presented their papers at the NCGIS Conference. Each student received free registration to the conference, recognition at the awards luncheon ceremony and a cash award of $200.

The handful of projects related to the coast or could impact coastal residents looked at environmental justice, sustainability, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.

NCDIT provided the following information on the projects.

Cate Arnold, University of North Carolina Wilmington undergraduate student, was awarded for “Analyzing Impacts from Hurricane Florence on Gentrification in New Hanover County, North Carolina.” Arnold conducted research to determine a correlation between the gentrification process in New Hanover County and the flood impacts of Hurricane Florence. The project aims to identify natural disaster impacts, community resilience and environmental justice issues and will be presented to local policymakers.

Elijah Dalton, UNCW graduate student, was awarded for “Leveraging the Power of Google Earth Engine and Earth Observation Data to Create a Green Infrastructure Suitability Index for the Wilmington Metropolitan Urban Area.” Dalton’s research aimed to assess the benefits of green infrastructure as a strategy for enhancing sustainability and resiliency and the vulnerability of coastal resources. The project uses satellite data to develop a methodology for the effectiveness of green infrastructure in southeastern North Carolina.

Mike Wallace, North Carolina Central University graduate student, was awarded for his work, “COVID-19 Rates and Proximity to Meat and Poultry Processing Plants in North Carolina.” Wallace’s project examines the impact of economic inequalities and population distribution for rural and urban areas on the rate of COVID-19 cases. Wallace used data from the NC COVID-19 dashboard, created by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

Eliza Merrit, Appalachian State University graduate student, was awarded for “Using Interactive Maps to Understand the Content of Second-order Climate Change Beliefs.” Merrit’s study used public opinion maps to examine why people have certain beliefs about climate change. The study used an interactive map of N.C. climate change opinions to evaluate how GIS can be used for effective communication regarding climate change policy.

Caroline Fehlman, Appalachian State University undergraduate student, was awarded for “Exploring Characteristics of Community Resilience Using a Logistic Regression Model.” Fehlman examined the ability of communities to withstand or adapt from disturbances using data on climate variables, socioeconomic damages and community resilience. The study used maps to help communities determine what they need to do to prepare for and prevent damage.

Statewide awards

• Madison Eaton, Elon University undergraduate student, “The Impact of Soil Compaction and Land Cover on Soil Carbon Sequestration at Elon University.”
• Sarah Followill, UNC-Chapel Hill, undergraduate student, “Geovisualizing Urban Sprawl in the Atlanta Metro Area.”
• Ross Jensen, Fayetteville State University undergraduate student, “War Impacts on Landscape Change in Mariupol, Ukraine.”
• Andrea Saravitz, N.C. State University undergraduate student, “Modeling the Invasion of the Spongy Moth.”
• Neylan Visnius, Warren Wilson College undergraduate student, “Intersections of Food Insecurity, Medicare Spending, and Non-Health Interventions in Western North Carolina.”
• Cambria White, N.C. Central University undergraduate student, “Identifying Sources of Methane Leaks in the Bountiful/North Salt Lake Area.”
• Jeremy Davis, N.C. State University graduate student, “Town of Matthews, N.C.: Tree Canopy Assessment Tool.”
• Grey Shipman, UNC-Chapel Hill graduate student, “Transportation Equity in Chapel Hill.”

The conference is sponsored by the North Carolina Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, the N.C. Geographic Coordinating Council, and Carolina Chapter of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association. The NCCGIA is part of the N.C. Department of Information Technology. Its mission is to advance the use of GIS technology as a tool for better decision-making in the state.

A study recently published in Nature Climate Change found that the global food sector alone, the way it is now, could add nearly 1 degree Celsius to global climate warming by the year 2100. But over half of this anticipated warming could be avoided if there were simultaneous changes made to production and food waste systems, the energy sector, as well as universal diet changes.

It is exceedingly hard to estimate warming associated with agriculture at the global level. One of the biggest reasons for this is that the agricultural sector emits multiple climate pollutants, things like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Often, to make it easier to estimate emissions, a strategy is used called “carbon dioxide equivalents.” This puts all emissions on the same comparable scale, making it easier to measure aggregate impact.

The downside of this method is that different pollutants spend varying amounts of time in the atmosphere and trap different amounts of heat. So when you only look at these emissions through the lens of carbon dioxide, you risk blurring the picture of what agricultural emissions actually look like, and what can be done to address them. This study aimed to paint a clearer image.

Previous research has shown that one of the biggest pollutants from the agriculture sector is methane, which stays in the atmosphere for a far shorter amount of time than carbon dioxide but has a stronger warming effect on the atmosphere per mass. So looking at a long-term timescale in carbon dioxide equivalents would really downplay the role of methane emissions in the agriculture industry.

In order to get a better idea of how different pollutants could impact warming by the year 2100, the researchers had to look at the emissions individually, not as an aggregate.

“It just made it very apparent that when people are doing lifecycle assessments and when they’re doing this kind of work, the need to report those emissions in the explicit gas emission rather than an aggregate it is really essential,” said Catherine Ivanovich, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and lead author on this study. “And the more that people can do this type of work can reduce future uncertainty.”

The researchers analyzed literature on the food sector including agriculture, fisheries, ranching and more. One of the findings of this study was that consumption of meat and dairy will be responsible for more than half of food-associated warming by the year 2030, and continuing through 2100.

The researchers explored four different possible arenas in which to mitigate anticipated warming: production, consumption, the energy sector and food loss/waste.

Optimizing agricultural production practices could contribute 25% of possible reductions by 2100. Decarbonizing the energy sector by 2050 would decrease the anticipated warming from the food sector by 17% by the end of the century.

A global diet shift based on health recommendations could decrease projected warming by 21%. Finally, if the world were able to cut consumer and retail food waste in half by the end of the century, it would decrease anticipated warming by 9%.

Changes to production, the energy sector and food loss/waste would all be largely structural or systemic changes, while changing the ways in which people consume food through diet is more of a behavioral shift. The limitation of this method is that making any kind of change on a global scale is very difficult and maybe unlikely. But the benefit is that taking a simplified approach allows people to see the full extent of what could be possible with these kinds of shifts.

“We can really just think of it as a very theoretical test of the rough magnitude these storyline scenarios might be expected to trigger,” Ivanovich said.

Regardless, Ivanovich says that both supply-side and consumer-side interventions, at multiple scales, are going to be critical to reduce anticipated warming in the food sector.

Questions about how to advance in the food sector are made even more complicated when moving beyond consideration of greenhouse gases. Other important factors to consider are how different food production techniques impact the environment and space use on the land and in the ocean.

“In order to make meaningful change in this sector, which is a really essential aspect of human life — supporting people, ensuring that we’re pursuing global food security and also sustaining economic livelihood for people who are producing our foods — we really need a multi-angle approach,” Ivanovich said. “We can really work towards increased food security, and providing people with nutritious diets, all the while working towards a more climate-safe future.”

According to the North Carolina Local Food Council, climate change poses a notable threat to the state’s food system. But a more resilient local food system focused on food waste recovery, local food infrastructure, better support for cultivators and addressing racial inequities in the food sector, among other things, would make the state less vulnerable in the face of pressures like climate change. There are resources on the Local Food Countil’s website toward that end.

There are also reasons to be optimistic, said Ivanovich. When you separate the different pollutants, you can see that nearly 60% of the warming by the end of the century is because of methane. And since methane is a short-lived emission, making rapid changes in that sector now could make a big difference in slowing down the rate of warming associated with the food sector.

It also underscores the urgency for action, according to Ivanovich.

“Everyone has to eat,” Ivanovich said. “We have to ensure that we can sustain our global population with nutritious food that supports people at a local scale. This is the problem that we can’t really shy away from.”

You may have noticed that the sneezing, runny nose and itchy, watery eyes that come with seasonal allergies are beginning earlier in the year.

That’s because climate change is making allergy season longer and worse for the 26% of adults and 19% of children in the U.S. that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says suffer from seasonal allergies, a new study finds.

Climate Central, a policy-neutral nonprofit of scientists and communicators who research and report on the changing climate, released Wednesday the report, “Seasonal Allergies: Pollen and Mold” that states, “A growing body of research shows that warming temperatures, shifting seasonal patterns, and more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere –all linked to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions — are affecting the length and intensity of allergy season in the U.S.”

Climate Central Meteorologist Lauren Casey explained to Coastal Review Tuesday that as a thickening blanket of carbon dioxide, or CO2, in the atmosphere traps heat and warms the planet, winters are shortening and there are longer growing seasons. This leads to allergen-producing plants pollinating both earlier and later in the year. 

“So, allergy sufferers feel the effects for weeks or even months longer than they did before,” she said. “But as CO2 concentrations rise, many plants respond by producing more pollen, and pollen with higher concentrations of chemical compounds that trigger allergic reactions. So, it’s not just higher temperatures and shorter winters that make allergy season worse.”

Essentially, the warmer temperatures increase the length of the growing season, which begins with the last freeze of spring and ends the first freeze of fall, leading to plants releasing more allergy-inducing irritants like pollen and mold spores for a longer period of time. 

The report also found that there’s a connection between thunderstorms and increased asthma. 

“A number of studies have shown associations between thunderstorms and asthma attacks or asthma-related hospitalizations — a phenomenon known as ‘thunderstorm asthma’,” according to the report.

For the study, Climate Central scientists looked at temperature data since 1970 for 203 U.S. cities. They found that the freeze-free season is lengthening across the country, giving plants 15 days longer on average to grow, flower and release pollen. 

Of the cities analyzed, 85%, or 172, saw their freeze-free seasons lengthen during the study period, including four of the five studied in North Carolina: Asheville by 33 days, Greenville by 25 days, Raleigh by 29 days, and Wilmington by six. Charlotte’s season shortened by nine days.

Since 1970, the freeze-free season lengthened the most in the West to 27 days among the stations analyzed. The season lengthened in the Southeast by 16 days, the Northeast to 15 days, and in the South to 14 days. The Central region saw the freeze-free season lengthen by 13 days.

Casey said that in the Southeast, depending on what triggers their allergies, many are experiencing an extra month of allergy season compared to the 1970s, such as Greenville and Raleigh residents.

“That means allergy symptoms, which can heighten the risks of asthma attacks, can appear earlier than they used to, catching people by surprise,” Casey said. 

With the association between thunderstorms and asthma attacks or asthma-related hospitalizations, while the science behind the connection isn’t fully understood, research shows that pollen and mold spores are playing a part.

“Thunderstorms bring pressure changes and winds that blow around pollen and mold spores — breaking them into smaller, more easily inhaled particles and transporting them through the air. Studies have shown high pollen and mold counts around thunderstorms correlate with increased asthma symptoms and hospital admissions,” according to the study.

“Because researchers are still learning about this meteorological health risk, it’s difficult to predict who might be affected or where another thunderstorm asthma event might occur. There is enough evidence for some health professionals and researchers to caution people with asthma or seasonal allergies to be alert for symptoms when thunderstorms are approaching,” the study continues.

Casey said that Climate Central pursued the study because climate research has documented the change in growing seasons, which affects many pollen producers, “thus it made sense to look into what longer seasons meant for allergy sufferers.”

Regarding the results of the study, Casey said “the longer and more intense pollen seasons weren’t a surprise, and neither was the role that molds play in allergy season, even outside conventional growing seasons. But we didn’t expect to find as much documentation of the connection between allergens, thunderstorms, and asthma risk. Particularly in the East, where thunderstorm potential is rising, the link to allergy-related asthma reactions might surprise people.”

She added that rain can be a double-edged sword when it comes to pollen and mold. 

“It does serve to cleanse the atmosphere initially, however rain also causes the pollen grains and mold spores to break into tinier bits – more likely to be airborne once dry and reduced to a size that can easily enter the nose and sinuses,” she said.

Managing allergies can be expensive and can have significant health impacts, such as triggering or worsening asthma. The report notes in the U.S. that the total cost of allergies is more than $18 billion a year. During 2008-2013, the annual medical cost of asthma was just over $3,200 per person. Additionally, one study suggests that pollen exposure can increase susceptibility to respiratory viral infections, including COVID-19. 

“And the health effects from allergies and asthma can be compounded by other environmental pollutants linked to our warming climate, including ozone and diesel fuel pollution,” the study states.

To help avoid the worst impacts, Casey recommended those with allergies purchase quality air filters and limit their time outside during seasonal peaks. “But of course, reducing CO2 emissions is the only long-term way to limit the warming and seasonal changes we’re experiencing.”

Before joining Climate Central, Casey was a broadcast meteorologist for more than 15 years, most recently at the CBS station in Philadelphia, when she said she collaborated with Climate Central on several climate-related stories. She has also been working toward her master’s with much of her coursework centered around climate change, “this in combination with Climate Central’s powerful mission inspired my transition to the organization last spring.”

Registration is open for a policy conference being offered virtually June 6-8 that examines the connection between ocean and climate change.

Convened by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, Capitol Hill Ocean Week, or CHOW, also will be offered in person in Washington, D.C. The theme this year is CHOW 2023: Ocean x Climate.

CHOW brings together scientists, policymakers, scholars, businesses, and conservation leaders to address pressing conservation, science, and management issues facing the oceans and Great Lakes, organizers said.

The agenda for the conference is available on the website and shaped by the members of the CHOW 2023 Advisory Committee, which is made up of marine science and policy leaders from around the country.

“The ocean is critical to maintaining life on earth. A thriving ocean in the future requires we address climate change head-on, and make ocean and coastal communities front and center in all national climate strategies,” said Shannon Colbert, vice president for external affairs for the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, in a statement. “CHOW 2023 will dive into how this nexus will shape the future for our ocean, and our planet.” 

The week will begin with CHOW Hill Day June 6 when members of the ocean and climate communities will speak with elected representatives about the policy issues relating to our ocean, coasts and Great Lakes. 

The conference will wrap up with the foundation’s Ocean Awards Gala set for June 8, which recognizes champions of marine and Great Lakes stewardship with Leadership, Lifetime Achievement, Conservation Innovation, and Sanctuary Wavemaker awards.

Second in a series. Read Part 1.

PONSER — While thousands of acres in Hyde County have produced lucrative crops for centuries, the uncultivated peatland in the county with one of the lowest population densities in the state has the potential to offer a new kind of profitable produce: carbon credits.

Sequestration of carbon dioxide, or CO2, on agricultural and forest lands has become more urgent as atmospheric levels of the potent greenhouse gas continue to rise. And Hyde’s pocosin soil, a unique type of peat, can hold enormous amounts of carbon — peatlands are one of the largest carbon stores on Earth. That means that landowners could be paid for the amount of carbon that is locked into their soil.

According to a recent State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets Briefing by nonprofit Ecosystem Marketplace, the voluntary carbon market in 2022 topped $2 billion. But joining the carbon market is far more complex and arcane than buying stocks.

“There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity,” Eric Soderholm, the Albemarle-Pamlico restoration specialist with The Nature Conservancy, recently told Coastal Review. “There’s 250,000 acres of private peatland in North Carolina alone.”

Blacklands, as pocosin is broadly known in Hyde and neighboring northeastern North Carolina coastal counties, refer to rich, black, organic matter that has accumulated for millennia in swampy fields and forests. Starting in the 1700s, the land was ditched and drained for agriculture and timber, but now scientists are studying how to rewet and restore pocosin as a way to mitigate climate change.

Carolina Ranch, a privately owned, 15,000-acre site adjacent to Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Hyde County, is currently working with several academic and engineering partners on restoration of 10,000 acres at the ranch with a goal of qualifying for carbon farming, which would be valued based on measurements of the level of CO2 that the soil holds.

Carbon credits, or offsets, represent the amount of greenhouse gases removed from the atmosphere, or the amount of reduced emissions. Those credits can be sold or traded to buyers, such as large corporations, seeking to offset their carbon emissions.

Accessing the fairly new market, however, is a rigorous and expensive process that is nearly incomprehensible to most people, even those who understand the complexities of Wall Street or cryptocurrency trading.

Soderholm, who had done extensive hydraulic restoration work for The Nature Conservancy in Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Hyde County, boiled down the following requirements:

• A greenhouse gas project plan is submitted to the American Carbon Registry, which determines whether the proposal aligns with its standards and methodology.
• Next, a third-party auditor examines the proposal.
• Then, site data is analyzed.

“It’s sort of a step-by-step process,” he explained. “Some edits may have to be added before it’s validated.” 

Pocosin and wetland restoration is part of The Nature Conservancy’s climate change work in the Albemarle peninsula, including reducing saltwater intrusion and mitigating flood and stormwater impacts.

Of the 110,106 acres in the Pocosin Lakes refuge, which spans land in Washington, Hyde and Tyrrell counties, about 101,600 acres are pocosin, an Algonquin term meaning “swamp on a hill.” With about 44,000 acres of the pocosin ditched and drained, over time the peat had become dried. The refuge’s natural water system is dependent on rainfall, and periods of drought had severely degraded habitat and made the land susceptible to wildfires.

Working with The Nature Conservancy and other partners, refuge officials have restored more than 37,000 acres of pocosin, making it one of the largest peat wetland restoration projects in the country, according to the refuge’s website. Restoration involved rewetting the pocosin by raising and maintaining water levels using risers and other structures in the canals to allow water to be absorbed.

“Healthy pocosins are foundational to healthy ecological and human communities,” the website explained. “The restoration is benefiting wildlife and people by maintaining high quality wetland habitat. When pocosins function as nature intended, seasonal water level fluctuations moisten the soils, protecting against catastrophic fire, easing the impacts of storm flows, and repelling the ever increasing threat of salt water intrusion in surrounding lands.”

Pocosin, described as “nutrient-poor, freshwater evergreen shrub bogs,” had developed over the last 10,000 years and had once covered nearly 1 million hectares on the state’s coastal plain, according to Curtis J. Richardson, director of the Duke University Wetland Center. By 1980, after years of drainage and peat mining, the natural wetlands were reduced to 281,000 acres.

“This development has resulted in a shift of hydrologic output from evapotranspiration to runoff,” he wrote in a research paper.   “… and a reduction in habitat for rare and endangered biota, while dramatically increasing the economic value of these lands.”

In a document about the conservancy’s work, Soderholm said the restoration of the Clayton Blocks area of Pocosin Lakes served as a valuable model. Located south of Phelps Lake, bordering private land and a shared drainage canal, the project involved creating a new canal and a separation berm to control floodwaters. Water-control structures were installed that allow the refuge to manage wetland hydrology and prevent wildfires. The conservancy also worked to monitor the project’s greenhouse gas flux, which is the amount of carbon exchanged and is typically measured in gigatons per year, in carbon pools such as atmosphere, living plants or roots, land and the ocean.

TerraCarbon, an advisory firm that helps develop carbon offset projects to fund natural climate solutions, worked with The Nature Conservancy at Pocosin Lakes to develop the first peatland carbon accounting methodology that is applicable to any peat-restoration project in the Southeast coastal plain.

In its healthy state, peat that is inundated with water lacks oxygen, so microbial activity is limited. But when peatlands are drained, they’re exposed to air, the microbes kick in, consumes the peat, which is then emitted as carbon dioxide. Over the years, the drained peatlands have created an ongoing emission of CO2.

TerraCarbon’s technical director David Shoch said that the methodology he developed serves as a standardized accounting framework for tracking greenhouse gas emission benefits from restoring coastal wetlands.

“These projects are all about stopping that ongoing mission by raising water tables to where they had historically been before under natural conditions,” he told Coastal Review. “And so the water table should be much closer to the surface.”

By raising the water levels, as was done at Pocosin Lakes and is underway at Carolina Ranch, he said, the natural hydrology can be restored and emission of CO2 into the atmosphere can be stopped.

Prior to TerraCarbon, Shoch had worked for The Nature Conservancy and Winrock International.

Roughly estimated, Shoch said that raising the water tables at Pocosin Lakes would prevent about 5 to 6 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per acre, per year. A metric ton equals 1,000 kilograms or about 2,205 pounds.

But the actual amount, he said, is dependent on determining the level of emissions from the pre-drained state and those water tables and comparing the numbers to reduction of emissions achieved by raising water tables and restoring the natural hydrology. TerraCarbon has leveraged research done by East Carolina University, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Duke University wetlands lab.

Sonderholm, with The Nature Conservancy, said that the nonprofit is interested in working with private landowners not only for habitat- and ecosystem-restoration purposes but also to help them reach goals in mutually beneficial climate projects.

Private property owners own about 40% of U.S. forestland, which includes forested pocosin in northeastern North Carolina, but the process of enrolling in the carbon market has been cost-prohibitive, requiring much time and expertise.

The Family Forest Carbon Program, developed by The Nature Conservancy and the American Forest Foundation, partners with family and individual owners to manage their forests in ways that increase their health while also fostering their ability to sequester and store carbon. The program then provides income to owners by selling verified carbon credits to companies seeking to confront climate change.

“We’re doing the work on the front end, laying out these practices … (with) models and quantifications specific to that region,” Aimee Tomcho, senior forestry manager for the Southern region of the American Forest Foundation, or AFF, explained for Coastal Review.

Although the foundation has focused on hardwood forests adjacent to peatland, she said, it has not yet delved into conservation of pocosin and has limited engagement in the region.

“I do anticipate that AFF will be community-based in the South, so that may happen organically.” she said, adding that the foundation knows how to reach out to landowners of small acreage.

“I’m really excited about the research about pocosin.” she added.

Erin Swails, postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Forestry Research, said that until recently she had worked with Shoch at TerraCarbon on the technical carbon aspects of developing a documentation and monitoring system for qualifying the climate benefits of the restoration project and applying David’s methodology to that project.

Swails said she plans to publish new research that will provide more accurate emissions data generated by projects such as those at Pocosin Lakes.

“The main idea is that to get a relationship between the CO2 emissions from peat and easily measurable parameters in the field,” she told Coastal Review.

In other words, more data from different studies covering a broader range of environmental and climate conditions was needed, she said, to fill knowledge gaps and “to get a sufficiently robust relationship to apply the methodology.”

Even for those who may have taken some college-level science classes, it’s difficult to comprehend the concepts involved in measuring carbon levels in soil. As Swails explained it, in addition to figuring out carbon levels in pocosin before and after rewetting, it involves measuring the contribution of living plants, root respiration and total CO2 flux.

Scientists also have to create cushions in carbon offset calculations to account for carbon released if there is a fire. And if there’s prolonged flooding, that won’t affect the carbon releases, but it could create methane emissions, another greenhouse gas.

“I think something else that is important is restoring the vegetation of these ecosystems because it’s one thing to raise the water table level to stop the microbial decomposition of the peat, but to build the (land), to increase the carbon storage of peat, you need carbon inputs from vegetation,” Swails said. “So besides the many environmental benefits that restoring native vegetation would bring one of them is to help restore the natural function of the peat by promoting carbon storage.”

If pocosin land in northeastern North Carolina finds its place in the burgeoning carbon market, much of it will depend on the integrity of the science that has been done at Pocosin Lakes and Carolina Ranch.

The largely unregulated voluntary carbon market can play an important role in finding funds for sequestration projects and helping the world achieve net zero carbon goals, according to a Nov. 10, 2022, blog on the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund website.

“But the voluntary carbon market can only thrive if it is backed by standards that ensure high integrity of emissions reductions,” according to the blog. “That’s because companies will only invest in forest carbon credits to meet their net zero goals if they’re confident in the credit’s integrity.

“They don’t want to risk greenwashing.”

A new study out of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication investigated the differences in how Americans perceive the phrases “carbon pollution,” “carbon emissions” and “greenhouse gas emissions.”

Colloquially, these three phrases are often used interchangeably regarding climate change. The research, published in Environmental Communication, showed that “carbon emissions” and “carbon pollution” ranked similarly in terms of how they were perceived to impact human health, the environment and air quality. But the phrase “greenhouse gas emissions” was consistently perceived as less of a threat than the other two.

“It’s essential to understand what people think about these words, concepts, ideas — in order to best shape our efforts to educate, inform and motivate the public,” said Dr. Matthew Goldberg, associate research scientist at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and co-author of the paper.

The research team at Yale used a mixed methods survey to collect data from 2,859 participants. They recorded demographic data such as political background, gender and age. They asked each participant a series of open-ended and closed questions to determine how they perceived each term. This approach allowed the researchers to get at the specific thoughts that each term triggered for participants, while also capturing the spontaneous “top-of-mind” associations. This mixed-methods approach created a nuanced portrait of each phrase.

“Reality is complicated,” Goldberg said. “And we try to reflect it as best we can.”

The study intended to represent specifically how Americans respond to these terms.

“You want to have your research be as relevant as possible to the largest audience as possible,” Goldberg said. “But that also makes it difficult to understand sub-audiences more deeply.”

Still, the researchers had an opportunity to see some of the ways that things like political views impacted reception of each term. The differentiation between terms was fairly consistent across people who identified as either Republican or Democrat. Both parties saw “carbon pollution” and “carbon emissions” as more potent words than “greenhouse gas emissions.”

While the terms “carbon pollution” and “carbon emissions” appear to carry more weight in conveying the threat to human health, in some circumstances, “greenhouse gas emissions” is the more appropriate phrase. It’s the only term of the three that encompasses other emissions that lead to climate change, such as methane.

These insights can inform climate change communication, Goldberg said, as long as they aren’t taken within a vacuum. Larger context, the messenger and other factors also play a significant role.

“It’s just one important piece to a larger set of communication factors,” Goldberg said.

This research underscores the importance of language and wording when communicating a message.

From the archives: Signs Of Change Are Clear, If Language Is Not

“This phenomenon is called framing,” said Dr. K.C. Busch, assistant professor of STEM education at North Carolina State University. “It’s this concept of framing, which is that language matters. And language is not accidental. And that even though different words might refer to the same phenomena, we react differently to different words, because it elicits a different schema in our head as to what this issue is about, or who’s responsible.”

Busch has also conducted research examining how wording impacts climate change communication. In one project, she took a real school textbook and slightly altered the text. The original version conveyed high uncertainty about climate change and its causes, and the new text conveyed more certainty. For example, “not all scientists agree about the causes of global warming” became “97% of scientists agree about the causes of global warming.”

She found that middle school and high school students who read the different texts were affected by the implications from the wording differences, regardless of their prior knowledge or understanding of climate change. Many of the students, she found, took the credibility of the textbooks as a given, even though the altered text was more functionally correct than the original.

“I think my greater concern, especially with adults, is that they’re no longer subjected to school textbooks,” said Busch. “They’re subjected to the landscape of climate change rhetoric out there, which is even worse.”

As there is a never-ending stream of information out there on the internet, the best approach, said Busch, is to make sure people are equipped with the ability to discern both credible sources and the nuance of language.

“I don’t think it’s disingenuous or manipulative to be conscious of the language that you’re using with different audiences,” Busch said. “I just think it’s good communication. As long as it’s still truthful and honest information, I think word choice is just an act of being a good communicator.”

Guest commentary

The Cape Fear River is a historic and important body of water in North Carolina, flowing through the communities of Wilmington, Leland, Belville all the way to Southport and beyond. This river is our primary source of drinking water. For centuries, eons for that matter, it has been home to valuable wetlands and floodplains, diverse wildlife, and fish, and more recently a history steeped in our unique heritage and culture. Unfortunately, due to development and population growth, many of these historically important and scarce resources are rapidly being lost or adversely altered forever.

On my occasional trips to and from Wilmington along the U.S. route 74/76/17 causeway to the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, I have often wondered what the Ghost Tree stands on Eagles Island would say to us about this history they have seen. These trees were once part of a healthy and flourishing 1,700-year-old cedar forest ecosystem that spread throughout the region … but is now dead or dying.  

I wonder what stories could these trees tell us if they could speak? Would they warn us about the loss of our valuable wetlands and floodplains, rapid sea level rise, degraded water quality, and the future impacts of flooding in and around our lowlands? Would they speak on their opposition to the past and future development in our floodplains, the plowing under of our culture and history, or the future damage to our Lower Cape Fear ecosystem?

Somehow I feel that long ago when these trees were healthy they were witness to horrific tragedies of the enslaved West Africans, the Gullah Geechee, who toiled and died in the hot sun to grow Carolina Gold … the rice that helped to make plantation owners wealthy and Wilmington one of the richest seaports along the Atlantic Coast in the 1700s and 1800s. Were these trees witnesses who silently watched those who were enslaved, struggle for their freedom, and be robbed of their right to define their own identity?

For me, these trees serve as an ever-present reminder of our past, as they stand quietly along the banks of our river. They have witnessed hundreds of years of history that have unfolded since long before our area was developed. In our present rush to find economic prosperity, they are also a constant reminder of the dramatic alterations we have caused to our ecosystems. Changes made with the belief that humans could out engineer mother nature.

While it is true that the ghost trees hold a certain enigmatic charm to some of us, it is also true that they are a powerful reminder of the human and environmental cost that the river has borne. They serve as a testament and a bellwether, if you will, not only to the human violence of our past but a forewarning of future natural calamities coming to our shores.

I believe that at the intersection of preserving and protecting our environment and cultural history resides the universal language for all of us to tell our stories; it is the ultimate storyteller on a personal and public level. It truly defines who we are as individuals and as a community. It is the hallowed ground of what defines our society’s fundamental values and can serve as the “tree stump” upon which we can sit and tell this story to our children, grandchildren, and generations beyond.

We should be encouraged by the great and tireless work currently underway by many of our citizens and nonprofits, like the Beatty brothers of Navassa, to preserve, protect and celebrate the history and culture of our area. The stories of the enslaved Gullah Geechee are certainly ones of hardship and tragedy and yet it is the message of their resilience and determination that deserves far more than just a passing reference in our history books.

We have much to celebrate here in our area of eastern North Carolina: the dedicated efforts of the Cape Fear River Watch, the Southern Environmental Law Center and a host of dedicated volunteers who keep watch over our environment; the Coastal Land Trust and others restoring Reaves Chapel in Navassa; the annual Rice Festival in Leland; the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission; the Cameron Art Museum; and the Eagles Island Nature Park Task Force to name but just a few … each committed to preserving, protecting, and celebrating our collective history and offering great platforms for all of us to get to know the importance of our connection to the Lower Cape Fear River. I hope that future generations see and act upon the message of the ghost trees. We need to listen and heed their warning. 

Finally, let me summarize by sharing a poem that I have been working on for a very long time.

Ghost Trees of the Cape Fear River

As I gaze out o’er the Cape Fear River,
Where ghost trees seem to have eyes.
Enchanted sights from a haunted giver,
Spirits of old come alive.

Hear the whispers through the trees,
Of stories told within their rings.
Silted waters brown meandering,
Within this ancient course it brings.

Rice harvested in the heat of day,
Trees – their stories tell.
Relentless work, no time to play,
Ironic transition from heaven to hell.

Songs of fields, songs from souls,
Fade with twilight, just memories now.
As Cape Fear ghosts roam the shoals,
Like kindred spirits that never bow.

Watered with blood, watered with sweat,
Here is where gold was grown.  
With ancient hands cold and wet,  
Shadows dim of those unknown,

Darken sky, an evening’s chill,
As the veil of dusk descends.
Night brings fear and mystery,
Ghost trees’ presence lends.

Murmured messages of the old,
For all the moons they have seen.
Miseries’ waters that flooded their souls,
Speaks truth to what has been.

Silhouettes take root along the shore,
Revealing this, a solemn sight.
A languorous vision of ghosts before,
Frail branches of the night.

Listen to the whispers of ghost trees,
For they know this story well.
Through the ebb and flow of time,
They stand as the last farewell.

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. See our guidelines for submitting guest columns. Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

Nature-based solutions, like living shorelines to help slow erosion in estuarine waters and permeable pavement that allows stormwater to seep through the ground and protects water quality, can be spotted in a growing number of North Carolina’s coastal communities.

The strategy, which encourages more natural approaches to solve environmental problems that are made worse by climate change, has been adopted on the state and federal levels.

In November 2022, the White House announced its “Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap for the United States,” a report to the National Climate Task Force. The report calls for the accelerated use of nature-based solutions across the federal government, including through potential policy, guidance and program changes, and outlines five areas of focus.

Two authors of the report and its accompanying resource guide were joined online Wednesday by representatives from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to discuss the strategy. The webinar was part of the fourth session of the series, “Nature-Based Solutions: Current Issues,” hosted by Duke University’s National Ecosystem Services Partnership and the Resilience Roadmap Project.

The report includes “an outline of strategic recommendations to put America on a path that will unlock the full potential of nature-based solutions to address climate change, nature loss, and inequity,” White House officials said. It’s the first time the U.S. has developed a strategy to scale up nature-based solutions, and it’s a commitment to invest in the fight against climate change. 

“Nature-based solutions, like protecting forests or restoring coastal marshes, are a fundamental pillar of fighting the climate crisis, just like reducing greenhouse gas emissions, deploying renewable energy, and increasing energy efficiency. Natural solutions can reduce emissions, remove carbon from the atmosphere and lock it away, make ecosystems more resilient, and lower climate change risks for people,” according to the report.

Why nature-based solutions?

Sarah Mason, senior policy associate at the Nicholas Institute for Energy Environment and Sustainability at Duke University, was moderator for the webinar. She said there’s been a growing interest in nature-based solutions coming from both the public and private sectors, along with a strong desire to scale up implementation. The webinar is an effort to inform the growing interest.

Heather Tallis, assistant director for Biodiversity and Conservation Sciences with White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, explained that in the context of the report, nature-based solutions are actions to protect, sustainably manage or restore natural or modified ecosystems to address societal challenges.

“And, very importantly here, simultaneously providing benefits for both people and the environment,” she said.

In addition to nature-based solutions being used for their mitigation, risk reduction and adaptation benefits, there’s a broader framing and a clear recognition of other social benefits from these solutions, including jobs, water quality, food production, wildlife and biodiversity support, community development, health and many others, Tallis said.

Nature is “absolutely critical” to the economy and lives as well as reaching national goals on several major administration priorities, including climate change, equity and economic prosperity, Tallis said.

One goal already in place is Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful initiative, one of President Biden’s first acts when he took office. The initiative released May 2021 outlines a nationwide conservation goal of 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. Other efforts she noted are the complementary American Conservation Stewardship Atlas that tracks the America the Beautiful’s initiative, and the National Nature Assessment by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

President Joe Biden called for the National Nature Assessment in an executive order signed on Earth Day April 22, 2022, to take stock of U.S. lands, waters, wildlife, biodiversity, ecosystems and the benefits that they provide, Tallis explained. There is a public comment period open through the end of March asking for input on developing this assessment.

In that same executive order, Biden called for a report identifying opportunities for accelerating nature-based solutions across the country. In response, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Council on Environmental Quality and the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy co-led a large interagency effort to produce the nature-based solutions roadmap and worked with representatives from 15 agencies and many departments, Tallis said.

“This is really a very broad, all-of-government effort, and this is the first time that there has been a set of strategic recommendations addressing all federal agencies on where the biggest opportunities are to unlock the full potential of nature-based solutions,” she said. The main takeaway from the report is that nature-based solutions should be go-to options for climate equity and prosperity. “And we know how to get there now with a strategic roadmap and the steps that are laid out here.”

What’s in the roadmap?

Lydia Olander, director of nature-based resilience at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said that with the roadmap, “We wanted to give agencies a strategic path to unlock the full potential of nature-based solutions and to shine a light on the different opportunities to implement nature-based solutions in newer areas, such as hazard reduction and infrastructure that have large federal investments moving forward from the infrastructure and climate bills that recently passed.”

The following are the five strategic areas for action identified in the roadmap:

• Update policies and guidance related to federal planning, decision-making, cost sharing, risk management processes and benefit-cost analysis to better facilitate nature-based solutions.
• Prioritize nature-based solutions and funding decisions for domestic and international projects, increase and ease access to funding, and catalyze private investment.
• Expand using nature-based solutions in the design, retrofitting and management of federal facilities, lands and waters, including incorporating nature-based solutions more fully into building standards.
• Improve resources and training for a nature-based solutions ready workforce.
• Advance research, innovation and knowledge to incentivize continual learning about how and where nature-based solutions work best, and build needed models and tools for implementation.

A resources guide with nature-based solutions was released alongside the report. The guide includes more than 30 different examples of specific projects and programs that use nature-based solutions, and collated information on over 175 different agency resources, data, tools, training and technical assistance that are available from the federal agencies already.

The administration has already taken several actions that will help accelerate deployment of nature-based solutions, Olander said. “First, there’s a number of large investments, for example, in forest health and fish passages that have come through recent bills that are currently being implemented.”

There are a number of different things we’ve identified that we think partners can do independently or in partnership with federal agencies to support this work, Olander said.

“First is to review the roadmap for relevance to your own programs and your own projects and create your own roadmap for action. Second is to raise awareness of nature-based solutions and potential funding sources for your local and state officials to permitting officials and communities that you work with,” Olander added. “This report lays out the national roadmap for federal action but ultimately, also hopefully, provides entry points for academics, private sector, NGO and other partners in advancing nature-based solutions. We need an all-hands-on deck approach to move at the pace needed.”

Federal agency input

The NOAA and EPA representatives who spoke during the webinar both reiterated that the agencies had been investing in and supporting nature-based solutions for some time and the roadmap reinforces the need for continued investment.

Kim Penn, acting manager for the Communities Program with NOAA, said that the roadmap helps to support and justify some of the directions in which the agency was investing.

The roadmap has been what she called a great opportunity to process and to connect more closely across the federal agencies. The roadmap also allows for NOAA to connect with other agencies working on or investing in similar projects. This ensures that the agency knows they’re coordinated with other agencies moving forward.

Penn said one of the threads that weaves across much of NOAA’s work, and that they believe is a critical component of resilient ecosystems, communities and economies is natural infrastructure. “We believe that nature is essential. We study it, we restore it, we invest in it and have been for decades.”

The agency has been investing in interdisciplinary research, which Penn said is “helping to close the knowledge gaps and better understand nature-based solutions, the services they provide such as carbon sequestration, erosion control or critical habitat, and efficacy of those different approaches to reduce coastal hazards, impacts and build community resilience.”

The roadmap lines up with and builds on NOAA’s current investments in research and education, and directly relates to a lot of the investments that the agency intends to make through federal funding.

Penn said the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided nearly $3 billion for NOAA to take action over five years in habitat restoration, coastal resilience and weather forecasting. Of that, almost $1.5 billion will be for natural infrastructure projects that build coastal resilience, restore habitat, create jobs and store carbon. Additionally, There’s habitat protection through the coastal zone management programs at $207 million for five years, and National Estuarine Research, $77 million over five years.

The law’s appropriations to the National Coastal Resilience Fund under the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation will provide additional support for the most vulnerable and historically disadvantaged communities, she added.

Stephanie Santell, senior climate adviser with the Office of Policy in the Office of the Administrator for the EPA, said the agency and many others have been supporting the use of nature-based solutions to protect and restore critical ecosystems, improve water quality and air quality, address climate patterns, and support overall community wellbeing.

In the EPA’s climate adaptation action plan released October of 2021, the agency committed to help advance nature-based solutions. Since the release of the plan, EPA offices have been working together and with other federal partners on actions that can build community resilience and address climate impacts, and that’s including through the application of nature-based solutions, Santell said.

“We’re integrating climate change considerations throughout EPA’s funding and financing programs to encourage projects that increase adaptive capacity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also leveraging a variety of those programs to help invest in natural infrastructure such as supporting state’s innovative use of their state revolving funds or SRF as they’re commonly called, to help communities build resilient water infrastructure and adapt to climate change,” she said. “The SRF support a very wide range of eligible uses and projects including for green infrastructure and nature-based solutions that can serve multiple community goals like building green space and nature-deprived communities, energy efficiency, climate adaptation for impact, drought, wildfire, soil health.”

She said most of the infrastructure law’s water infrastructure funds, about $43 billion, will be distributed to states through SRF capitalization grants.

Across all the agency’s efforts, the EPA is focused on building resilience in communities that are going to be disproportionately impacted by or already experiencing impacts from climate change, she said.

Santell added that she felt it was important to acknowledge that the report was also written for the National Climate Taskforce, and “so there will be outcomes right from the report coming out itself.”

Regional response

Division of Coastal Management officials said in an email response for a request for comment that nature and nature-based projects take advantage of the various benefits that natural resources already provide along the state’s coast, including protection from flooding, storm surge and erosion, while at the same time providing important habitat areas.

“The Division of Coastal Management (DCM) is working to advance these approaches and to build our own capacity to serve communities through the Resilient Coastal Communities Program (RCCP) and other initiatives. DCM’s work in these areas mirrors the Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) Roadmap in several ways: we have worked with partners to develop and provide policy guidance on funding and implementing resilience projects, we are investing in community capacity building, raising awareness of nature based solutions and incentivizing their use, and addressing regulatory uncertainties on topics like thin layer placement and wetland restoration,” officials said.

“DCM appreciates the federal leadership on coastal resilience and adaptation that is benefitting our state and coastal communities, including both technical assistance like the NBS Roadmap and financial assistance through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. The federal programs align very well with State leadership and investments planning and implementation, and we’re working very hard to be good stewards of these critical resources.”

North Carolina Coastal Federation Deputy Director Lauren Kolodij told Coastal Review she thinks it’s promising to see that the roadmap calls for expanding the use of nature-based solutions at the federal level. 

She added that efforts have been taking place in the state in recent years to promote nature-based solutions.

“In 2021, the Action Plan for Nature-Based Stormwater Strategies was developed by the North Carolina Coastal Federation with the support of The Pew Charitable Trusts, and input of four expert workgroups focusing on opportunities to advance the use of nature-based stormwater strategies across North Carolina in new development, stormwater retrofits, roadways and working lands,” she explained.

More recently, she added, with the July 2022 Executive Order 266, Gov. Roy Cooper is calling for an update to the state’s Uniform Floodplain Management Policy. According to the order, the policy is supposed to address considerations for including nature-based infrastructure to reduce flood risk.

The federal endorsement of nature-based solutions will complement these efforts in North Carolina.

“These federal advancements coupled with current actions in North Carolina could position nature-based strategies to become more standard practice. This is great news considering the fact that these strategies are proven and cost-effective tools for resiliency,” Kolodij added.

Bailey Recktenwald began her new role Jan. 9 as the climate change policy adviser for the North Carolina governor’s office.

Recktenwald is responsible for policy development, project management, stakeholder engagement, strategic planning and other duties to support Gov. Roy Cooper’s climate agenda, Sam Chan, press secretary for governor’s office, told Coastal Review. She will primarily focus on climate resiliency and leveraging North Carolina’s Natural and Working Lands for climate solutions, working with the governor’s climate and clean energy team.

Before joining the governor’s office, Recktenwald served as the chief strategy officer at the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. Previous roles include policy development analyst at the North Carolina Department of Administration and Policy Assistant within Cooper’s policy office.

“I’m happy to share that I have joined Governor Cooper’s Climate Team to serve as a climate change policy advisor! I look forward to working on resilience policy and the Governor’s other climate priorities in this new role. I am so grateful for my time at DOA and DEQ, and for everyone that supported me along the way,” she wrote in a social media post.

Recktenwald received degrees in geography and public policy from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and is currently working toward a master’s in public administration with a focus on regional sustainability from Clemson University.

First of two parts.

BELHAVEN — Fourteen years separate two lightning strikes that sparked wildfires in nearly the same spot of private land near Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.

The first blaze in 2008 consumed about 50,000 acres and took more than six months to extinguish. The second, in June 2022, burned just under 2,000 acres and was out in 10 days.

To Angie Tooley, manager of Carolina Ranch, the 10,000-acre site where both fires ignited, those contrasts illustrate the critical difference between toasty dry pocosin and spongy wet pocosin. Tooley credits the ranch’s work that rewetted the pocosin by raising water levels in the canals for suppressing the June fire.

But moist pocosin can also translate to income, she is quick to add. When peatlands are restored to their naturally boggy health, their thick mats of decayed plants sequester many tons of carbon. Carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas that is threatening to destroy our planet. 

It’s an opportunity for ecosystem restoration that kills two birds with one stone — wildfire prevention and climate change mitigation — and Tooley intends to seize the ring. In recent years, she has reached out to environmental nonprofit group The Nature Conservancy, or TNC, and Charlottesville, Virginia, consulting firm TerraCarbon for expertise to help Carolina Ranch — and possibly neighboring properties — meet strict criteria to qualify for the burgeoning carbon credit market.

Carbon credits, or offsets, refer to the amount of greenhouse gas removed from the atmosphere, or the reduction of carbon emissions. Carbon farming creates credits based on the carbon dioxide, or CO2, held or drawn down into the soil.

“We are all looking for ways to work together in showcasing the private landowner use of the pocosin carbon offsets methodology funded by TNC and written in part by TerraCarbon,” she said in a text message after representatives of the groups had visited the site Jan. 11.

Wetland research

The Duke University Wetland Center, which is led by founding director Curtis J. Richardson, had conducted a three-year research project on pocosin in Carolina Ranch and, earlier, at the Pocosin Lakes refuge. In a paper released in September, the research data showed that rewetting and restoring 250,000 acres of previously drained peatlands could prevent 4.3 million tons of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere – equaling 2.4% of the total annual reductions in carbon dioxide emissions needed for the U.S. to be carbon neutral by 2050.

“Thus, management of hydrology and fire intensity in natural and degraded shrub/tree peatlands will be principal to maintaining peat/litter quality (phenolic/black carbon), enhancing long-term carbon accumulation, and preventing downstream (dissolved organic carbon) losses to coastal waters,” according to the paper.

In September, Richardson told Coastal Review that the Duke center is no longer working with anyone at Carolina Ranch. Although he noted “there’s a million steps that have to be done,” he hopes they move forward with carbon farming.

“I wish the project to be a success,” he said.

‘Hottest of the hot’

During a mid-September tour of the canal system within the project site, Tooley and ranch assistant Bill Ogburn of Ponser showed how the dark water sat just under the top edge of the canals that crisscrossed miles of flat grassy and wooded land.

“This is the worst part of the fire,” Tooley said, nodding towards charred vegetation off the access road on the property. “This was the hottest of the hot.”

Abutting the refuge and situated among vast farms of Hyde County’s coastal plain, Carolina Ranch totals 15,000 acres, some of which is still farmed or used for other purposes. Bumping along in an open all-terrain vehicle, views off the unpaved road showed off nature at its lovely best, mostly untouched by fire. The air had an earthy scent, with an occasional whiff of charred wood. Off the road, palm pine, wild asters, Carolina bay trees, maple, wild dogwood, wax myrtle, fern, scrub bushes and white pines grew with abandon. Wild blackberries, blueberries, gall berry, and wild Scuppernong grapes dotted the landscape in their late summer version. When the vehicle was stopped, it was quiet enough for black bear families to amble across the road. In one large section, there were patches of blackened earth and numerous downed trees.

We arrived at the fire scar.

“Look at the pine – it’s coming back,” Tooley exclaimed, pleased with the signs of recovery.

The property, today owned by Gus Schad of Albemarle, had once been part of the sprawling First Colony Farms, established in 1973 and comprised of 376,000 acres in Washington, Tyrrell, Hyde, and Dare counties. At the time, plans included clearing land for farming, forestry, raising livestock and peat mining. Much of the land was ditched and drained.

But concerns about loss of wetlands and harm to water quality, combined with economic questions, led to the project being dropped. A conservation group eventually bought much of the land at a bankruptcy proceeding, and a large portion became part of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.

After Schad, as Hyde County Partners LLC, purchased the 15,000 acres, he asked Tooley, an old friend, to help manage it and find a way to make a return on the investment. Tooley, an Elizabeth City native whose previous work includes serving as Hyde County planner and county manager, researched options for the land and realized it was a perfect fit for carbon farming. Much work, she knew, would be required to restore the pocosin, which had been dried out by the ditching and draining and periods of drought.

‘What we’re doing is working’

Ambitions for Carolina Ranch, which was incorporated in Sept. 2020, are big, according to its website: “Dedicated 10,000 acres to carbon offsets development in order to strengthen upland conservation, manage rainwater runoff using the peat to absorb and protect adjacent landowners, and enhance the natural environment for new biodiversity industrial job creation all while protecting the land from future peat fires.”

It would be one of the largest coastal resiliency projects in the U.S, continues the writeup on the site. TerraCarbon, which designed the American Carbon Registry methodology for restoration of pocosin wetlands, is directing development of the carbon project, along with East Carolina University and assistance from engineering firm Quible and Associates.

In addition to the prospect for carbon farming, Tooley said that scientists have discovered “never seen before” fungi deep in the peat. The ranch operation is working to continue onsite research into the find, with a goal of developing small business incubators for biodiversity jobs. At the same time, the operation is working to expand use of the property, which has 52 miles of roads, frontage on New Lake and diverse populations of flora and fauna, as a nature-tourism destination.

But without rewetting and restoring the pocosin, the biodiversity and health of the ecosystem would be at risk, Tooley noted, and it would lose any chance of qualifying as a carbon farm. That’s why it is important for the canals to hold the 9 feet of water. As Tooley described it, it was like creating a tub and putting a plug in it. Consequently, the natural sponginess of the peat was absorbed, in turn making it much less of a wildfire hazard.

“I know what we’re doing is working,” she said.

The Algonquin name for “swamp on a hill,” pocosin is the regional version of peat, known for its ability to hold water, and conversely, to burn hot and long. Fifty percent of peat – the remains of dead plants preserved over millennia – is composed of carbon. Despite being only 3% of the Earth’s surface, healthy peatlands store more than twice the carbon of all the planet’s combined forests. Desiccated or burned peat, however, releases carbon into the atmosphere.

Peat fires burn deep into the ground and are notoriously difficult to extinguish because they can spread horizontally and create hot spots that are difficult to find until they flare up. With their carbon-rich material – peat is still mined throughout the world for fuel – peat fires are some of the worst carbon polluters. Paradoxically, it is also one of the best natural solutions to keeping carbon in the ground.

John Cook, District 13 forester with the North Carolina Forest Service, told Coastal Review that the Evans Fire in 2008 happened after two years of severe drought, making the underground organic soil, which lacks sand or clay, exceptionally dry. Then once the topsoil is on fire, the heat keeps drying the soil deeper and deeper.

Even though there was a shorter-term drought going on when lightning ignited the recent wildfire, dubbed the Ferebee Road fire, the strategy at the ranch to dam canals with stacks of cement bags to sustain optimal water levels throughout the 10,000 acres is currently incomplete. The agency has a right to go on private land to stop a fire so it won’t affect somebody else, he added.

“They just don’t have the structures yet to hold water,” he said. “The ditching got ahead of the reality.”

Roads and ditches tend to eventually work like dikes, Cook said. And the problem with pocosin is that when flooded from above, the top of the “swamp on a hill” ends up becoming the center of a doughnut. Firefighters learned from the Evans Fire, which spread underground, and pumped water into canals from nearby lakes to flood the fire from below. Firefighters also cut firebreaks through the land and around the perimeter of the fire, and doused the sides and edges of the fire to keep it from spreading.

Cook said that holding the 9 feet of water Tooley had done at Carolina Ranch did help slow the progress of the Ferebee Road fire, but the more expensive water-control structures used nextdoor at the refuge are able to more efficiently pump water off and on a site as needed to move it around the network of canals.

“She’s doing what she can with what she has, until she can get structures in place,” he said.

Although Tooley wants the Fire Service to fix canal gates and remove cut trees and piles of brush left after the fire, Cook said that is not the agency’s responsibility, comparing it to expecting a fire department to repair your house after it burns. It’s not just because it’s private land, he said.

“I didn’t start the fire,” he said. “I came and put the fire out.”

But he said the service will remove sediments in wetland streams and restore access on paths and roads. Otherwise, the downed growth will be left to nature.

“Those trees are going to rot,” Cook added. “We don’t go back and landscape.”

Spurred by new urgency to mitigate climate change impacts and buoyed by a flood of federal funds, carbon offset projects are gaining momentum nationwide. Tooley remains determined to not only be one of them, but to help use pocosin as an asset to create an innovative business model for the community, while helping to stem the effects of climate change.

“That’s what makes coastal resiliency happen, because it naturally holds water,” Tooley said of northeastern North Carolina’s peatlands. “If everybody doesn’t work together – and I mean public and private – we will never have coastal resiliency.”

First in a two-part special series.

On a blustery day in September, Edward Ponton studies an incoming storm as the afternoon rain meets the ocean. He points north, calling attention to the backs of the rolling waves, indicating a southeast swell. It’s the remnants of Hurricane Fiona making its way up the North Carolina coast.

“There’s something down there,” Ponton warns. “If it’s coming across a certain way, you have to be prepared … and that would have been 100 years ago, how people knew there was a storm coming.”

Ponton’s family has been a multi-generational presence in the Northern Currituck Outer Banks since the early 1960s, when Buddy Ponton, his father, came south from Virginia Beach to fish and build a family home.

From the North Carolina-Virginia line to the start of the paved road in Corolla, North Carolina, there are three unincorporated communities: Carova Beach, North Swan Beach and Swan Beach. This 11-mile stretch — often referred to as “Carova” or “the 4×4” — is the northernmost part of the Outer Banks, sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Currituck Sound to the west. The only way to access this area is by driving up N.C. Highway 12 in a four-wheel-drive vehicle until the two-lane highway becomes a beach.

Ponton’s memories span a lifetime of experience. He is the youngest “old-timer”: a resident who was born and raised in the area and who still lives there full time. In the lowlands where he rowed his canoe as a child, new houses now sprout up like weeds. A 500-year-old herd of protected wild horses grazes over 7,544 acres of land that their human neighbors are racing to buy up even as stronger storms and bigger floods threaten to cut the remote community off completely.

But the changing climate has not scared off longtime residents nor big developers seeking to capitalize on the booming tourism and second home market. In fact, with each passing year, it becomes more and more expensive to buy a home and live in Carova, especially in the face of increasing climate threats.

Understanding Carova

In the 4×4 area, there are no grocery stores, gas stations, or commercial businesses of any kind. There are no hospitals or healthcare providers, though the community does run a volunteer fire and rescue service. A tightknit community has formed from years spent out on their own.

In the 1960s, a Virginia Beach-based developer purchased land and subdivided it into one-third-acre lots. “Originally, the plans had been for the Ocean Highway to come down from Sandbridge (Virginia) down to Corolla. A lot of people don’t realize development here on the Currituck Banks started from the north,” Ponton said.

Now, a southern beach gate restricts the wild horses from moving into Corolla, and two northern gates restrict vehicle access into Virginia via False Cape State Park in Virginia. Those gates closed in the 1970s to vehicle traffic, angering residents who now must drive south to the Wright Memorial Bridge and head back north on the mainland to get to Virginia. Less than 20 old-timers still have keys to the northern gate — Ponton’s key will die with his father, Buddy.

Edna Baden was a weekend warrior before she moved full time to the Northern Outer Banks 28 years ago. There were only about 50 year-round residents then, which has grown to about 200 today. “When I moved here in 1994, there were only a handful of houses on the ocean. There were a lot of trailers still. They had little shack kind of places,” Baden said, referring to the Outer Banks’ classic stilted, trailer-style home.

Those original homes are now few and far between, nestled in thick maritime forest. Many of the old-timers settled on the Currituck Sound side, along man-made canals that give them boat access.

Today, there are more than 3,000 properties and 700 houses on this strip of barrier island. Many of those houses appear gargantuan against the dunes, with some of the oceanfront homes featuring more than 20 bedrooms and bathrooms.

It is surprising to see the size of these homes considering that the entirety of the northern Currituck Outer Banks is maintained under the Coastal Barrier Resources System, or CBRS, which was created by the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, signed into law by President Reagan in 1982.

The purpose of the law is to encourage land conservation and discourage development in storm-prone coastal areas by withdrawing federal funding from Coastal Barrier Resources Act areas, also known as CBRA zones. People who build within a CBRA zone cannot access the National Flood Insurance Program protection or federal disaster assistance money.

Click on the arrows in the top left of the above map to turn on boundaries such as CBRA zones.

In most cases, researchers have found that the act disincentivizes development in those areas. But in Carova’s case, it is a desirable enough destination that construction creeps in anyways, bringing in high-end development and people willing to pay exorbitantly high insurance rates.

High Seas Ahead

At milepost 16, a house called the Laughing Gull sticks out like a sore thumb, sitting so far out on the beach that cars have to weave around it to get by. It seems like it’s closer to washing away with each crashing wave.

Researchers say that in the United States, the East and Gulf coasts will bear the worst of sea level rise. Like watching your pillow spring back after you lift your head up, a melted glacier at the poles gets pushed up by water underneath it, sending the new ice melt far away — to places like the North Carolina coastline. Over the next three decades, sea levels are expected to rise 10 to 14 inches along the East Coast and 14 to 18 inches along the Gulf Coast, the highest levels in the United States.

Scientists can estimate this rise through 2050 because the oceans trap and store heat, so high greenhouse gas emissions now do not instantly translate to higher sea levels. Instead, the sea level rise over the next 30 years is based on the warming in our world today, and there is “virtually nothing that we can do about that,” said Daniel Gilford, climate scientist at Climate Central, a nonprofit organization that researches and reports the science and impacts of climate change.

This is happening while the Outer Banks are no longer naturally moving. Over time, the islands are supposed to gradually shift westward as ocean waves and winds from the east blow sand to build up the marshes on the west. But hard structures like buildings and roads stop that steady erosion and rebuilding from happening, and instead, there is erosion without addition, whittling the island away until someday, it might not be there at all.

On the northern Outer Banks, sea level rise will first hit areas along the Currituck Sound, the side that naturally should be rebuilding, since the marsh is closer to sea level. This inevitable rise is likely to swallow swampier areas near the Virginia border, around the man-made canals, and the entire Currituck National Wildlife Refuge.

Without extreme cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels could rise more than a foot by 2050. Beyond that, global action on climate change could mean the difference between 2, 4, or more feet of sea level rise by 2100.

“In the latter days of the 21st century, the sea level rise along the North Carolina coast is really going to be dramatically influenced by the decisions that we make right now,” Gilford said.

Today, the Laughing Gull stands alone — its neighbors were moved landward to behind the dunes as the tide encroached upon their foundations. But its survival is uncertain because rising seas are not the only climate concern in Carova. Hurricane Florence, a ferocious storm that hit in 2018 and was a $24 billion disaster, didn’t hit Carova as badly as other places along the Outer Banks. But the threat of hurricanes remains, and a warmer ocean can make hurricanes worse by fueling greater flooding and storm surges.

Hurricane response is complicated because of Carova’s designation in the Coastal Barrier Resources System, which bars federal flood insurance coverage, forcing property owners to turn to private insurance markets.

“The insurance on our house gets dropped every two or three years,” said Elizabeth White, a Swan Beach resident since 2004. She is a customer at Lloyd’s of London, which she says is some of the most expensive insurance on the market.

Paying the price

Living in Carova is no easy feat in itself. Since the area is zoned exclusively for low-density residential housing, increasingly large and expensive single-family homes are the only option for buyers. While the trend had been moving in this direction for a couple of decades, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated it.

“Sales went through the roof,” J-P Peron, a real estate agent and resident, said of the pandemic. “Overnight, my business quadrupled.” So many people were buying houses that Carova ran out of post office boxes and internet plans. People snatched up houses and land, making it even harder for the people who build, clean and service houses in Carova to live there, also.

Two of those builders are Steve Grout, a carpenter who has been a full-time Carova resident for more than a decade, and Alex, an immigrant day laborer. In September, they were working on renovating an oceanfront house that was weathered away by the wind and sea. But the new siding they were installing won’t last long, either, Grout said, as it’s hard to withstand the elements.

While Grout has a short commute to work each day, Alex lives on the Currituck County mainland and makes the two-and-a-half-hour round trip commute to Carova and back every day. “My family lives in Durham,” Alex explained, saying that he visits them every weekend, “but the rest of the time I stay out here in Powells Point.”

Powells Point is right across the Wright Memorial Bridge on the mainland, but even then, it can still take over an hour to reach Carova. Alex wishes that Carova had rentable accommodations so that he and his family, along with other workers, could live closer to the construction sites.

Because of the lack of affordable rental homes in Carova, and despite 80% of properties in the offroad area sitting empty, sourcing labor can be difficult and projects take longer to complete. Builders rely on workers like Alex, who are both skilled and dedicated, and Grout said they usually have to pay them more than a contractor would for similar work elsewhere.

At the construction site, Grout and Alex were preparing for the arrival of a crew from HGTV to film the house for an episode of the show “Beachfront Bargain Hunt.” Grout said their renovation faces unique limitations, compared to other homes that appear on the show.

“It’s hard for us because we can’t really find help out here. Normally, they probably have 30 guys out here and finish the whole project in a month,” Grout said. “But we don’t have that luxury.”

Clark Twiddy, president of Twiddy & Co., a property management company on the Outer Banks, sees that his employees who clean and service the rental homes face similar challenges. “The average cleaner for Twiddy & Co. drives 82 miles one-way,” he said. “The people who clean these homes by and large don’t live here.”

But without changing the area’s zoning to allow for multifamily housing or without a clear plan from the county or Twiddy & Co. about who is going to supply that housing, it is hard to see how people without considerable resources can afford the cost of living. “We as a destination will fail, period, unless we address housing in a meaningful way,” Twiddy said.

For those who are able to buy a house, they then need to be able to afford a car with four-wheel-drive, which quickly deteriorates from the sand and saltwater. “The life expectancy of a daily driver up here is between three and five years at most,” Peron said. “I’m on my sixth Ford Expedition for work. Then I’ve also gone through one Jeep Cherokee, two Jeep Grand Cherokees and one Jeep Commander.”

The expense of living in Carova is a factor of its remoteness, lack of federal infrastructure and exposure to the elements. In the face of imminent climate threats like storms and floods that “we live with all the time,” as Ponton described.

From an outside perspective, it can be hard to understand why people are willing to spend so much to live in a place as remote as Carova. Even when speaking with residents about their experiences, questions linger about why they choose to live there and whether they can do it sustainably.

Next in the series: Read about the steps that residents are taking to manage the environment around them, whether that is to protect the wild horses, the natural landscape, or their way of life. This series is part of the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide Connected Coastlines reporting initiative.

Amanda Mueller has been promoted from program manager to director of the Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology & Science, or KIETS, Climate Leaders Program at North Carolina State University.

The KIETS Climate Leaders Program established in 2021 brings together students and faculty to focus on solutions for mitigating or reversing the negative effects of climate change.

Mueller has led the KIETS Climate Leaders Program since July 2021. During this time, she has implemented a variety of activities for the inaugural cohort of climate scholars and faculty mentors and, along with professor Roy He from the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, organized the first KIETS Climate Leaders Symposium in October 2022, according to an announcement Wednesday from the university.

“We are extremely grateful to Amanda for her tremendous efforts to make the KIETS Climate Program such a success and look forward to her continued leadership as the Director of the Program,” KIETS Director Dr. Ruben Carbonell said in a statement.

Before leading the KIETS Climate Leaders Program, Muller served as an environmental specialist with the state Department of Environmental Quality’s Water Sciences Section.

Mueller worked on a variety of wetland related projects for DEQ for 18 years, including the establishment of the North Carolina Wetland Program Plan. Mueller received a master’s degree from the department of resource management and policy at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and her bachelor’s degree in biology from the College of William and Mary.

The KIETS Climate Leaders Program is collaborating with the N.C. State Coastal Resilience and Sustainability Initiative, a campus wide effort sponsored by the Office of the Provost led by Goodnight Distinguished Professor Erin Seekamp, to develop and engage a community of faculty and students to work with industry, nonprofit, government and community leaders across the state to address issues related to climate change and coastal resilience and sustainability.

In September 2018, Hurricane Florence made landfall at Wrightsville Beach as a Category 1 hurricane. Tropical storms and Category 1 hurricanes are classified as “weak tropical cyclones,” and account for 70% of all tropical cyclones. Despite their name, weak tropical cyclones can still do a lot of damage — and their impact may be getting worse.

A recent study has shown that storms like this have been intensifying around the world from 1991 to 2020, something that scientists say is tied to global climate change.

The study, which was published in the journal Nature in November, included as a contributing author Dr. Wei Mei, assistant professor in the Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Mei and the research team found that in all ocean basins, weak tropical cyclones have been intensifying by 15-21%.

Storm intensity is not an easy thing to measure. Traditionally, tropical cyclone strength has been measured using satellite images, a method called the Dvorak technique. But using satellite data to calculate intensity creates information gaps.

“It consists of several steps that can introduce uncertainties because of the inherent subjectiveness,” Mei said. “As a result, the intensity of a tropical cyclone estimated by different trained meteorologists based on the Dvorak method can be very different, resulting in large uncertainties in the analysis of tropical cyclone intensity.”

Theoretical and mathematical models indicate that tropical cyclones intensify as surface waters get warmer — and research has shown that the oceans have gotten warmer and continue to warm. Unfortunately, satellite imagery cannot support the hypothesis of storm intensification in weak tropical cyclones, due to the interference of things like clouds and ocean spray. To find out whether or not weak tropical cyclones were truly intensifying, the research team would need to approach analysis of intensification trends using a different method.

To do so, the research team took advantage of the close relationship between ocean currents and storms. They used highly accurate current measurements taken by floating devices called surface drifters. These drifters were deployed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and they provided data that was able to complement traditional satellite imagery in quantifying storm intensification. The drifters were equipped with “holy sock” drogues, things that help stabilize the drifters’ position in the water. The drifters record measurements like location and water temperature, communicating that data to a satellite. Using the Ekman Theory, which is the understanding that winds transfer energy to surface waters and drive currents, the research team was able to estimate wind speed at a 10-meter height after identifying near-surface current speed. In other words, the scientists used their data on the ocean currents to calculate wind speed, therefore generating a better understanding of the storm intensity.

This new approach helped the scientists overcome the challenges of satellite imagery and shows that weak tropical cyclones have been intensifying during the three-decade study period. These results can help inform tropical cyclone models and increase their accuracy, which in turn can help coastal communities be better prepared for these kinds of storms. It is important for accurate information about weak tropical cyclones to be included in projections and models since weak tropical cyclones make up the vast majority of tropical cyclones.

It also helps scientists understand tropical cyclones in remote areas. And as more surface drifter data becomes available over time, the method used by these researchers can provide a much fuller picture of storm intensity and evolution.

According to Mei, there’s a link between this demonstrated storm intensification and climate change.

“Under global warming, the surface ocean gets warmer, providing more energy for tropical cyclones to develop and intensify,” Mei said. “Our earlier research has identified positive connections between ocean warming and storm intensification rate, particularly in ocean areas that are warming faster than other areas.”

What this means for coastal communities is that as the climate warms, tropical cyclones are expected to get stronger. Storms that may not have caused a lot of damage several decades ago are going to have a greater impact. This can make a critical difference for ecological communities — as shown in another recent study that theorizes that otherwise-resilient estuarine fish might have a harder time recovering from stronger storms — and human communities along the coast.

“The coastal communities need to be better prepared,” Mei said.

University of North Carolina Wilmington associate professor Dr. Narcisa Pricope has been appointed to a three-year term with the United Nations to advise the UN Convention to Combat Desertification Science-Policy Interface. 

Pricope, who teaches in the university’s Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences and Center for Marine Science, has researched land change science, water resources and climate change.

During the three-year appointment to the Science-Policy Interface, established at COP11 in 2013 to translate scientific findings and assessments into policy-relevant recommendations, Pricope will help UN policymakers make more informed and effective decisions for balancing the needs of the ecosystem with the needs of society.  

She will provide data analysis, projections and policy recommendations related to land degradation, or the reduction or loss of the productive potential of land. Desertification is a form of land degradation by which fertile land becomes desert. 

She has spent more than a decade researching drivers, causes and impacts of land degradation on three continents.  

“Addressing land degradation is essential to improve the livelihoods of those most affected and to build resilience to safeguard against the most extreme effects of climate change. The impacts on natural habitats–flora and fauna–and the human system can be equally detrimental,” Pricope said in a statement.

According to research co-authored by Pricope for the project Tools4LDN, more than 20% of the Earth’s vegetated surface is estimated to be degraded, affecting more than 1.3 billion people, with an economic impact of up to $10.6 trillion. Land degradation reduces agricultural productivity and increases the vulnerability of those areas already at risk of impacts from climate variability and change, university officials said.

Examples of land degradation can be seen in marshes where native plants are shifting to invasive reeds, in grasslands that are being replaced with unpalatable shrubs and in coastal regions where rising tides are causing erosion.

“We need to carefully balance how to manage, restore or conserve our ecosystems to ensure they continue to function in a manner that supports life and livelihoods equally, which is challenging yet doable, and that is what I’m hoping to contribute through my involvement in the UNCCD SPI,” Pricope said