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Federal
grant to DUWC aims to show what contributes to successful wetland restoration
Richardson’s center, based at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, aims to address those pressing questions with a new $551,000 federal grant it will use to identify scientific and socioeconomic factors that contribute to successful wetlands restoration in North Carolina.
Right. Mac Haupt, MEM '93, Environmental Specialist for the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources' Wetlands Restoration Program, and DUWC Director Curtis J. Richardson upload water level data from a n automated recording unit at the Johnston County community college restoration site. |
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Funded by the US Department of Agriculture, this Water and Water-sheds project will work in tandem with a new state North Carolina Wetlands Restoration Program now developing remediation plans for 17 different river basins.
Duke’s Wetland Center will focus its ecological investigations on a Johnston County Community College pilot project to restore a drained wetland adjacent to Hannah Creek, near Smithfield, N.C., within the Neuse River Basin. It will also do a larger study of farmer willingness to participate in such restorations in the Neuse as well as in other state watersheds.
The Neuse has been designated as nutrient sensitive, in part due to runoff from agricultural operations as well as from fertilized lawns in the upstream urbanized Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill area, known regionally as the Triangle. Animal wastes and manufactured fertilizers both contribute excess amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus, which lower water quality and encourage explosive growths of algae.
Previous studies have shown that the presence of a wetland can dramatically improve water quality by filtering out nitrogen and phosphorus before those nutrients ever reach major rivers. Nevertheless, "In a given river it might not be easy to see the changes in water quality because those restoration sites are so scattered," said Neal Flanagan, a Duke Wetland Center research associate.
Using the Johnston County site as a test site, the Duke study will examine how the ecologies of entire watershed areas factor into the filtering effectiveness of individual wetlands. "Our ultimate objective is to help the state wetland restoration program design and place wetlands in a manner that optimizes improvements in water quality," Flanagan said.
"Generally state regulators and people who are involved in water quality issues are more interested in the watershed scale trends," Flanagan added. "For instance, how do land use practices on a watershed scale affect water quality?"
In the second thrust of the Duke project, Nicholas School professor of environmental economics Randall Kramer plans to interview about 500 farmers in a number of different watersheds to assess their attitudes towards wetland restoration.
"The state offers payments to farmers who agree to restore their wetlands by taking them out of agricultural production," said Kramer, who has previously done similar conservation analyses at sites as far away as Indonesia. "Because this wetlands restoration program is voluntary, you somehow have to entice the farmers to enter into the program."
From data collected in the farmer surveys, Kramer and associate-in-research Jon Eisen-Hecht plan to "develop a statistical model to predict farmer enrollment under different payment levels," he added. That economic model will then be combined with information from the ecological and water quality studies to help guide restoration planners.
"We really worked to make this an integrated research approach," Kramer said. "There’s a distinct ecological component to the study, and a distinct economic component. But then we propose to bring those together."
Flanagan, Kramer, and Richardson are all principal investigators for the project.
- — Monte Basgall
- Duke News Service
From the Director
estoration
of ecosystems damaged by human activity is one of the ecological community’s
hottest topics, and the work taking place at the Duke University Wetland Center
reflects this excitement. This issue of WetlandWire focuses on DUWC research
contributing to the restoration of the Everglades, Florida Bay, and North Carolina
estuarine areas. We are also pleased to announce a new wetland restoration project
in North Carolina.
For the last 10 to 15 years, the fields of wetland science and management have focused on wetland delineation and the construction of wetlands for wastewater treatment. But a new era has begun for wetland science. Restoration is now frequently the focus of scientific conferences and professional meetings and will be the focus of much work over the next decade.
The problem is no one is quite sure what restoration entails or what criteria should be used for determining success. Is the purpose of restoration simply to improve water quality? Or does it include the broader goals of maintaining plant and animal community habitat, productivity, and hydrologic functions?
What is clear is that restoration efforts require a clearly articulated set of goals, and these goals must be defined for every project before work begins.
It is also critically important to choose appropriate sites on the watershed for restoration. The selection criteria require detailed
scientific analyses to identify those sites where restoration will have the most impact on the watershed’s water quality, habitat, or hydrologic function.
After restoration goals and site selection criteria have been established, scientific standards for measuring the effectiveness of restoration efforts must be set. Unfortunately, the criteria for successful wetland restoration have not yet been fully identified.
Wetland scientists are now at a critical point in the development of restoration procedures. We are dangerously close to a time when many large restoration projects could be undertaken before clearly focused goals, site selection criteria, and standards have been established. Funds and manpower for restoration efforts are limited and must be used wisely.
My greatest fear is that we will spend precious dollars and effort prematurely, failing to make significant improvements in water quality, habitat, and overall wetland structure and function on the landscape. Such a failure would greatly reduce society’s confidence in the scientific community’s capability to rehabilitate and manage the environment. To avoid these problems, restoration of wetland function and structure must become a central, clearly targeted research goal. Wetland scientists must make critical, informed decisions about the reestablishment and monitoring of specific wetland functions and structure — and fully confront the issues now.
The projects outlined in this WetlandWire demonstrate that our DUWC faculty and students are doing just that. Our research is contributing to restoration efforts in the Everglades, in wetlands affected by highway construction, and in North Carolina’s estuaries. We are working to reconstruct these ecosystem’s past histories to determine the end points for restoration as well as determine the hydrologic and nutrient criteria needed to reestablish damaged communities. And our new USDA-funded project in cooperation with the North Carolina Wetlands Restoration Program will develop indices for measuring the success of restoration work.
These are exciting times for the Wetland Center as we address how wetlands are to be restored.
- — Curtis J. Richardson,
- Director, Duke Wetland Center
Research News
The History of Water Quality in North Carolina Estuarine Waters as Documented in the Stratigraphic Record. A project funded by the Water Resources Research Institute of the University of North Carolina, June 1997 – July 1999 Principal Investigator: Sherri R. Cooper, Duke University Wetland Center |
his
ongoing project is a study of sediment cores collected from the Neuse and Pamlico
River estuaries during the summer of 1997. The project’s objectives are
to investigate dating techniques and indicators of water quality contained in
the stratigraphic records of these two estuarine systems.
The proposed research will characterize the environmental conditions and water quality of the Pamlico and Neuse River estuaries as they existed prior to anthropogenic influences and through time as land use in the watersheds of these systems has evolved with growing populations and industries. Changes in sedimentation rates, pollen, diatom assemblages, and geochemical parameters (including measures of carbon; nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and silica; algal pigments; metals; and redox potential) will be measured. These data will provide quantitative evidence of the extent of eutrophication, light availability, algal abundance, hypoxia, and salinity at different time periods covering at least the last several hundred years with resolution of less than one year to decades for each sub sample of the cores.
The study is providing data on pre-disturbance and historical conditions that are needed to help develop current management options and expand our perspective of the history of water quality and its relation to watershed land use in the North Carolina estuaries. For example, there are no published data on phytoplankton-related studies in the Pamlico River estuary before 1966, which is after phosphate mining and effluent discharge to the estuary began in 1964.
This study will document the effects of historical land use on the diatom assemblages and other algal groups in the Pamlico and the Neuse estuaries. Comparisons will be made between the Pamlico and Neuse River estuaries, and to previous work in the Chesapeake Bay. Results of this work will also help to elucidate mechanisms by which different human activities affect estuaries in general.
– Sherri R. Cooper, Ph.D.
A Paleoecological Study of Florida Bay and South Florida Wetlands Using Diatoms as Indicators of Environmental Change.
A project funded by the USGS Department of the Interior, Reston, VA. Principal Investigators: Dr. Sherri R. Cooper and Dr. Jacqueline K. Huvane, Duke Wetland Center.
uring
the last century there have been considerable anthropogenic impacts on the South
Florida ecosystem, including Florida Bay. These include water diversions and
the use of fertilizers in urban and agricultural areas. US Geological Survey
scientists and collaborators are quantifying biotic and chemical changes that
occurred in Florida Bay over the last 100 to 200 years in order to understand
past changes in the ecosystem.
The paleoecological approach will help distinguish changes that can be attributed to anthropogenic disturbances from changes related to natural occurrences, such as hurricanes and El Niņo events. These studies will provide information to model future changes and will aid the development of restoration plans for this region.
At DUWC, we are examining diatom remains preserved in sediment cores taken from Florida Bay. Diatoms are microscopic algae that are generally well preserved in sedimentary environments and their distributions are closely linked to water quality and other environmental factors. Sediment core chronologies are being developed by USGS researchers through the use of radioisotope techniques (e.g. 210Pb). The top of a sediment core generally represents the youngest materials deposited and the bottom the oldest. By examining biotic and geochemical indicators found in sediment cores, it is possible to infer environmental changes that have occurred through time.
We are now analyzing diatom assemblages preserved in sediment cores collected from several sites in Florida Bay. We are also examining diatoms from surface sediment samples taken from sites throughout the bay. Water quality data from these sites have also been collected. The modern (surface sediment and site quality) data will allow us to obtain autecological information on the diatom flora of the bay and to develop quantitative models to reconstruct salinity and nutrient changes over time. Preliminary investigations of diatom indicators suggest that salinity has fluctuated during the last century. The data also suggest that salinity has increased in recent decades. Changes in diatom assemblages include floristic shifts related to the die-off of sea grass beds.
Our study will be used in conjunction with other paleoecological studies by USGS researchers and collaborators on mollusk, ostracode, and foraminifera remains in these same sediment cores to provide an overall assessment of environmental change in Florida Bay during the last two centuries.
– Jacqueline K. Huvane, Ph.D.
Low-intensity chemical dosing in the Everglades nutrient Removal Project.
A project funded by the Everglades Agricultural Area Environmental Protection District, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Us Environmental Protection Agency
Principal Investigators: Philip A.M. Bachand, Curtis J. Richardson and Panchabi Vaithyanathan, Duke University Wetland Center.
 ince
the 1960s, the composition of the fauna and flora within many areas of the
Florida Everglades has changed. Marshes in the northern Everglades historically
consisting of sawgrass (Cladium jamaicense) and shallow open water sloughs
have been replaced by cattail (Typha domingensis) stands. In the highly
enriched sloughs, natural algal mat communities have disappeared and composition
of periphyton communities has changed. |
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These changes have been attributed in part to increased nutrient loads from upstream farmlands. Recent Everglades restoration efforts have focused on reducing phosphorus loads to the Everglades by using storm water treatment areas (STAs) to remove phosphorus from the agricultural runoff entering the Everglades. These STAs are large constructed wetlands specifically designed for phosphorus removal that will eventually cover more than 40,000 acres.
Yet preliminary data on both phosphorus concentrations in the agricultural runoff and the predicted phosphorus uptake rates of the STAs suggest that the predicted phosphorus concentrations from the STAs will still exceed desired threshold levels. In response to these predictions, researchers currently are investigating several biological and chemical treatment technologies that would be used in conjunction with the STAs.
The Duke University Wetland Center is involved in one such technology, the application of low concentrations of chemical coagulants directly within the STAs to enhance phosphorus removal directly within these constructed wetlands. Ferric chloride and alum are the two coagulants being studied. They are both commonly used in wastewater treatment specifically for phosphorus removal. Alum is also used in lakes and reservoirs for the same purpose. Wetland Center scientists have designed and are implementing in situ coagulant dosing experiments testing this technology. Currently, three concentrations of each coagulant are being applied in continuous flow-through mesocosms remotely located in the Everglades Nutrient Removal Project.
Duke researchers are monitoring the response of water column phosphorus concentrations to the different coagulant dosing levels. If the experiments show promising results for this technology, operating parameters such as desired coagulant, coagulant concentration, and hydraulic retention time will be developed for larger-scale implementation.
Given the unique Ever-glades environment, the large-scale application of this technology has several hurdles it must overcome.
First, the Everglades system has exceptionally high organic carbon levels. These high levels may interfere with the ability of the coagulants to effectively remove phosphorus or may themselves be an inexhaustible supply of phosphorus back into the system.
Second, the added coagulants may have adverse ecological effects. While aluminum is potentially toxic, this is not expected due to the slightly alkaline and well-buffered (high carbonate concentrations) conditions found in the Everglades. Iron, on the other hand, may act as a micronutrient and cause a shift in the flora and fauna.
These issues will need to be addressed before this technology shows promise for phosphorus removal.
– Philip Bachand, Ph.D.
Meet The Florida Staff
he
Duke University Wetland Center operates a full-time field station in the Florida
Everglades. Research conducted there includes collecting water and soil samples
for a variety of projects aimed at evaluating the effects of nutrient loadings
and hydroperiod alterations on vegetation, community structure, and nutrient
retention in the Water Conservation Areas of South Florida. Funded in part by
a grant from the Everglades Agricultural Area Environmental Protection District
since 1990, the center’s research also includes gradient macrophyte surveys,
fertilizer and disturbance studies, hydrological analyses, and low-intensity
chemical dosing effects in the Everglades Nutrient Removal Project. The center’s
Everglades research projects are supervised onsite by Assistant Research Professor
Panchabi Vaithiyanathan.
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Cimilluca is responsible for managing and conducting the field operations of the low-intensity chemical dosing study in the Everglades Nutrient Removal Project. He is responsible for facility construction, experimental methodology development, and water and sediment sampling.
His prior experience is in managing the general biology labs at his alma mater and research in marine natural products chemistry and various animal behavior studies.
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Durham assists with the construction, maintenance, and operation of large-scale mesocosm experiments in the Everglades Nutrient Removal Project. He operates and maintains the Florida center’s airboats and vehicles. His experience includes plumbing, carpentry, and construction, which serves the center well. He also assists in the sampling efforts carried out at the Everglades Nutrient Removal Project site.
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Johnson is manager of the Duke University Wetland Center field station in Florida, where he is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the lab facility and the phosphorus dosing study as well as technical support to Duke PIs and graduate students. He has been involved with several other Everglades research projects, including gradient macrophyte surveys, fertilizer and disturbance studies, hydrological analyses, and the low-intensity chemical dosing study.
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Karppi has worked with a wetland restoration project in Sweden. Her recent work focuses on the nutrient profiles at Water Conservation Areas 2A, 2B, and 3A in the Florida Everglades. Her duties include collecting samples in dosing channels and along gradients. In addition, she performs observational monitoring of vegetation. Karppi is a first-year associate in research at the DUWC field station.
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Nicholas came to the DUWC field station in 1995 as the station’s QA/QC officer and sampling supervisor. In addition, he performs the macrophyte surveys and oversees water quality instrumentation and the purchasing of lab and sampling supplies.
Prior to joining the center’s Florida staff, Nicholas was involved in environmental analysis, research, and testing of aerospace materials as well as QA/QC work in the food processing industry.
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an
Vymazal has found a warmer climate, at least for a few months. With winter
making its approach to his home in Prague, Czech Republic, Vymazal has found
warmer temperatures - and a warmer research climate - in Durham and the Florida
Everglades where he is a visiting scholar to the Duke University Wetland Center
through December.
Vymazal has been conducting research in the Everglades since 1991 looking to find the nutrient concentration threshold that alters plant species composition. He studies the effects of phosphorus on plant communities and is involved in the center’s studies aimed at the change of plant species caused by nutrient additions in the Florida Everglades. In Prague, he works on constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment.
Since the fall of communism in 1989, Czech researchers have looked west for funding and research opportunities.
"Before 1989 there was not that much money available for science and research in the Czech Republic," he said. "And it has stayed about the same, but with inflation it has really gotten less and less."
While some new funding sources have emerged, most of the research grants still come from governmental agencies. Ministries that concentrate on environmental and agricultural issues continue to manage the nation’s research institutes.
"Czech research institutions do a lot of basic science and are not applied at all," he said. "It creates a problem because they are so focused on the basic science that it is a problem to get funding other than from the government. They do not produce results that are applicable to industry."
Because there is more applied science in the United States and Western Europe, Czech researchers have looked west for opportunities.
On his current trip - his fourth since 1991 - Vymazal plans to evaluate data from harvest experiments carried out last year in the water conservation areas of the Florida Everglades. The work being done by Duke researchers on the Everglades’ natural wetlands, such as nutrient cycling, is easily transferable to the wastewater-related constructed wetlands he studies in Europe.
He also seems to be somewhat of a good luck charm for Duke’s men’s basketball team.
"Each time I am here, Duke is No. 1," said Vymazal, a devout fan of all sports. "In 1991 and 1992 they won the championship. Last year when I was here they were ranked No. 1. When I left they slipped down. I told [Wetland Center Director] Curt [Richardson] the only way Duke can win is to have me stay here through March Madness."
Faculty Notes
| Sherri R. Cooper was featured in the fall issue of Coastwatch, the magazine of the North Carolina Sea Grant program. The article, "Nature Remembers," describes research funded by University of North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute and conducted by Cooper at the Duke University Wetland Center. Cooper gave two presentations this fall at the 15th Annual Diatom Symposium held in Perth, Australia: "Calibration of Diatoms to Nutrients and Hydrology in the Florida Everglades, USA," co-authored by Cooper with Curtis J. Richardson and Panchabi Vaithiyanathan; and "Diatoms and Paleoecology: Water Quality History of the Neuse and Pamlico Estuaries of Eastern North Carolina, USA." During a special session, the Power of Paleolimnology, at the October meeting of the Geological Society of America in Toronto, Cooper gave the presentation "Paleoecology of Estuaries: History of Water Quality and Diatom Assemblages Related to Human Impacts." In November Cooper presented the seminar "Water Quality of Mid-Atlantic Estuaries Using Paleoecological Techniques" at the East Carolina University Biology Department in Greenville, N.C. |
While at the center, Beltman began a greenhouse experiment designed to investigate Everglades peat’s ability to adsorb ions (chloride and sulfate) from solutions of different ionic strengths. This work will help describe phosphorus storage, release, and plant availability in peat soil and could be an important consideration in the restoration of fresh water ecosystems, specifically concerning the use of ion-laden water from the Rhine River to re-flood wetlands during droughts in the Netherlands. |
Dr. Jackie Huvane presented a paper entitled "Surface Sediment Diatom Assemblages in Pocono Lakes: Relationships to Environmental Variables and Comparisons to Other Regions in the Northeastern USA" in October at the Pocono Comparative Lakes Program Annual Meeting at the Lacawac Sanctuary, Pa.
Dr. Curtis J. Richardson presented two papers at the VII International Congress of Ecology, INTECOL, in Florence, Italy, in July: "Land Use Effects on the Ecology of the Everglades" and "Effects of Phosphorus Additions on Restoration and Creation of Everglades Wetlands." Richardson also gave a presentation on indicator development during the EPA Workshop, Monitoring the Ecological Performance of Stream Corridor and Wetland Restoration, held in August at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C.
Dr. Curtis Richardson, Dr. Neal Flanagan, and DUWC students Ryan King and Jeffrey McCreary gave a presentation and poster entitled "Functional Assessment of the Effects of Highway Construction on Coastal North Carolina Wetlands: Comparison of Effects Before, During and After Construction" at Connections 98: A National Conference on Transportation, Wetlands and the Natural Environment. The September conference, jointly sponsored by the Center for Transportation and the Environment and the state Department of Transportation, was held in New Bern, N.C.
Dr. Edwin Romanowicz presented a paper entitled "Characterizing the Surface-Water Flow through a Large Wetland, Northern Everglades, Florida, USA" and chaired a session on "Hydrogeologic Controls on Ecosystems" in October at the Geological Society of America Meeting held in Toronto.
Dr. Panchabi Vaithiyanathan presented a seminar entitled "Nutrient Profiles in the Everglades: Examination Along the Eutrophication Gradient" in July at LUMCON (Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium) in Chauvin, La.
Student News
 |
Kirsten Hofmockel, Master of Environmental Management student. B.S. Penn State University. This is Kirsten’s second year at the Wetland Center. As an undergraduate she researched the use of constructed wetlands for domestic wastewater treatment. Prior to joining DUWC she worked for three years at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center where she monitored nutrient cycling in thirteen constructed wetlands designed to reduce non-point source agricultural runoff entering the Chesapeake Bay. As a graduate student she is examining the effects of hydrologic management decisions on structure and function in the Everglades. Specifically her research involves relating spatial analyses of landscape changes in the Everglades to documented functional changes. She will be graduating in May 1999 and pursuing a career in wetland ecology. |
Upcoming publication: T. Jordan, D. Whigham, K.Hofmockel, N. Gerber, 1999. Restored wetlands in crop fields control nutrient runoff. In Nutrient Cycling and Retention in Natural and Constructed Wetlands, J. Vymazal, (ed.) Backhuys Publishers, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Upcoming Center Events
| February 10 | DUWC Distinguished Lecture Series "Carbon and Methane Dynamics of Peatlands" R.S. Clymo, Queen Mary & Westfield College, London Room A247, Levine Science Research Center, Durham, N.C. |
| March 8 | DUWC Distinguished Lecture Series "Climate Change Effects on Northern Peatlands' Scott D. Bridgham, University of Notre Dame Room A247, Levine Science Research Center, Durham, N.C. |
DUWC sponsors wetland ecology lectures
he
Duke University Wetland Center is sponsoring the fourth annual Distinguished
Lecture Series: Perspectives in Wetlands Research during the 1998-1999 academic
year.
The series features lectures covering a range of current wetland issues from a speaker with nationally recognized expertise in an important area of wetlands ecology. The lectures are free and open to the public.
Robert G. Wetzel, internationally renowned fresh water ecologist, opened the series November 12 with a lecture on "Coupling Ozone Reductions to Regulation of Nutrient Cycling and Productivity of Fresh Water Ecosystems." Wetzel is the Bishop Professor of Biology at the University of Alabama and has received many honors and awards, including an Honorary Ph.D. from the University of Uppsala, Sweden, and the first Erlander National Professorship of Sweden, a lifetime appointment. He received the Hutchinson Medal of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, as well as the Naumann-Thienemann Medal of the International Association of Limnology. Wetzel’s research integrates physiological and ecological evaluations of the regulation of community interactions of species and their productivity.
The series’ concluding lectures take place during the Spring 1999 academic term. R.S. Clymo, Emeritus Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Queen Mary and Westfield College, London, England, will lecture February 10 on "Carbon and Methane Dynamics of Peatlands."
Duke graduate Scott D. Bridgham, Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, will conclude the series on March 8 with the presentation "Climate Change Effects on Northern Peatlands."
For more information on the lecture series, contact Lisa Blumenthal at 919-613-8008 or lblu@duke.edu.
igging
a hole and putting cattails around it does not restore a wetland,"
said Duke University Wetland Center director Curtis Richardson. "Wetland
restoration is one of the highest environmental priorities in the
entire country right now, but no one knows exactly how to do it and
there’s lots of missing science."
