The Pocosin's Lesson: Translating respect for Indigenous knowledge systems in environmental research.

Indigenous peoples living in what is now coastal North Carolina gave the name pocosin to a unique type of nonriparian wetland endemic to the region. Their Algonquian dialects are poorly documented in colonial records and have been dormant for centuries; not even contemporary Indigenous peoples in the region speak these particular languages. But for decades, environmental researchers and practitioners have asserted in publications, classrooms, and public-facing materials that pocosin literally translates to "swamp on a hill.

Riparian buffers increase future baseflow and reduce peakflows in a developing watershed.

Land conversion and climate change are stressing freshwater resources. Riparian areas, streamside vegetation/forest land, are critical for regulating hydrologic processes and riparian buffers are used as adaptive management strategies for mitigating land conversion effects. However, our ability to anticipate the efficacy of current and alternative riparian buffers under changing conditions remains limited.

Search for spp. Reveals High Prevalence and Pronounced Genetic Diversity of Arcobacter butzleri in Floodwater Samples Associated with Hurricane Florence in North Carolina, USA.

In September 2018, Hurricane Florence caused extreme flooding in eastern North Carolina, USA, a region highly dense in concentrated animal production, especially swine and poultry. In this study, floodwater samples ( = 96) were collected as promptly post-hurricane as possible and for up to approximately 30 days and selectively enriched for using Bolton broth enrichment and isolation on modified charcoal cefoperazone deoxycholate agar (mCCDA) microaerobically at 42°C. Only one sample yielded , which was found to be with the novel sequence type 2866 (ST-2866).

Assessment of hydrologic vulnerability to urbanization and climate change in a rapidly changing watershed in the Southeast U.S.

This study assessed the combined effects of increased urbanization and climate change on streamflow in the Yadkin-Pee Dee watershed (North Carolina, USA) and focused on the conversion from forest to urban land use, the primary land use transition occurring in the watershed. We used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool to simulate future (2050-2070) streamflow and baseflow for four combined climate and land use scenarios across the Yadkin-Pee Dee River watershed and three subwatersheds. The combined scenarios pair land use change and climate change scenarios together.

Terra incognita: The unknown risks to environmental quality posed by the spatial distribution and abundance of concentrated animal feeding operations.

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) pose wide ranging environmental risks to many parts of the US and across the globe, but datasets for CAFO risk assessments are not readily available. Within the United States, some of the greatest concentrations of CAFOs occur in North Carolina. It is also one of the only states with publicly accessible location data for classes of CAFOs that are required to obtain water quality permits from the U.

Hydrologic Impacts of Municipal Wastewater Irrigation to a Temperate Forest Watershed.

Land application of municipal wastewater to managed forests is an important treatment and water reuse technology used globally, but the hydrological processes of these systems are not well characterized for temperate areas with annual rainfall of 1200 mm or greater. This study evaluated the impact of municipal wastewater irrigation to the local water balance at a 3000-ha land application facility where secondary-treated wastewater is land applied to a mixed hardwood-pine forest over 900 ha. Stable isotopes of hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O), chloride concentrations, and specific conductance were used in combination with hydrometric measurements to estimate the wastewater composition in groundwater, surface water, and at the watershed outlet during dry and wet seasonal periods and during one large rainfall event.

Hydro-Climatological Influences on Long-Term Dissolved Organic Carbon in a Mountain Stream of the Southeastern United States.

In the past decade, significant increases in surface water dissolved organic carbon (DOC) have been reported for large aquatic ecosystems of the Northern Hemisphere and have been attributed variously to global warming, altered hydrologic conditions, and atmospheric deposition, among other factors. We analyzed a 25-yr DOC record (1988-2012) available for a forested headwater stream in the United States and documented two distinct regimes of stream DOC trends. From 1988 to 2001, annual mean volume-weighted DOC concentration (DOC, mg L) and annual DOC flux (kg ha yr) declined by 34 and 56%, respectively.

Landscape position influences microbial composition and function via redistribution of soil water across a watershed.

Subalpine forest ecosystems influence global carbon cycling. However, little is known about the compositions of their soil microbial communities and how these may vary with soil environmental conditions. The goal of this study was to characterize the soil microbial communities in a subalpine forest watershed in central Montana (Stringer Creek Watershed within the Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest) and to investigate their relationships with environmental conditions and soil carbonaceous gases.