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Learn about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wilmington District's North Carolina Ecosystem Enhancement Program (EEP) and its vegetation monitoring protocol. Understand the program's objectives, status, challenges, and opportunities for functional assessment. Explore the importance of data-driven decision-making and the efforts of key specialists involved.
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U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wilmington District North Carolina Ecosystem Enhancement Program(EEP)CVS/EEP Vegetation Monitoring Protocol
The Why… • MOA Mandate and overarching goals • Current Status of Vegetative Monitoring • Opportunity
Overarching… • EEP Monitoring has three primary objectives: • Develop functional measures • Demonstrate net ecological benefit at project and watershed/catchment scale • Change/guide regulatory policy of success criteria through monitoring data
Current Status of Veg Monitoring • 260 woody stems/acre surviving at year 5 of monitoring
Current Status of Veg Monitoring (the before…) • Based on wetland hardwood guidance from mid-70s • Pushes succession • Many different sampling techniques • Compared to what?? • Variability of sites • streams, wetlands, marshes, BMPs??
Current Status of Veg Monitoring (the after…) • Based on established technique • Standardization of sampling • Examines other characteristics besides survival • Analysis of community trends • Compared to existing reference database
Opportunity • Number of projects • Location of projects • USE THE DATA!!!!
Opportunity • Number of projects • Design Bid Build • 110 projects in monitoring now • 56 projects in some phase of design/construction • Full Delivery • 75 projects in monitoring this year • 75 more in design and construction Total-316 projects
Challenges to Monitoring • Consistency • Documentation of pre-restoration conditions (in a large developing program pressured by a time commitment) • Trend assessment with limited evaluation period (and data points, costs constraints) • Site specific vs watershed (scale) • Functional measures
So what does CVS do for EEP? • Consistency (save $$??) • Data management/analysis (save $$) • Reference community info (save $$) • Better data for Closeout
EEP Monitoring Folks Rita Mroczek-Wetland specialist Steve Roberts-Vegetation specialist Kevin Miller- Research/Grants Coordinator Greg Melia- Stream specialist Zack Mondry- Stream specialist
NC Ecosystem Enhancement Program 1652 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-1652 (919) 715-0476 www.nceep.net Mac Haupt Mac.Haupt@ncmail.net 919-715-1070