NC National Estuarine Research Reserve
The North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve (NCNERR) protects approximately 10,500 acres of estuarine habitats in coastal North Carolina for the purposes of research and education. The NCNERR is part of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS), a network of 27 protected areas established to promote informed management of the Nation's estuaries and coastal habitats.
N.C. National Estuarine Research Reserve
The NCNERR is managed as a federal-state partnership between the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM) and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources' (DENR) Division of Coastal Management (DCM).
OCRM provides funding, technical assistance, and national coordination and oversight to Reserves within the NERRS.
The DCM carries out the state's Coastal Area Management Act, the Dredge and Fill Law and the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) of 1972 in the 20 coastal North Carolina counties, using rules and policies of the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission.
As the state partner, DCM provides land ownership and management, staff, programming, and matching funds for implementation of the NCNERR. DCM is well-suited as the NCNERR's state partner as both organizations have similar missions of protecting coastal resources. Both DCM and NCNERR are able to take advantage of respective programmatic expertise in planning, permitting, scientific research, educational translation, and coastal land management to form a complementary and comprehensive coastal management program as originally envisioned by the CZMA.
Multi-component Reserve
Coastal North Carolina is unique in that it includes both the Virginian and Carolinian biogeographic regions as well as the three regions of the N.C. Coastal Plain. The NCNERR was established as a multi-component Reserve to take advantage of this unique biogeography and is comprised of four geographically disparate components representing diverse estuarine habitats:
- The 965-acre Currituck Banks component located in Currituck County
- The 2,675-acre Rachel Carson component located in Carteret County
- The 5,653-acre Masonboro Island component, an undeveloped barrier island, located in New Hanover County
- The 1,635-acre Zeke's Island component, encompassing tracts in both New Hanover and Brunswick Counties.
Education, Research and Stewardship
The Reserve program is divided into three sectors to support its mission of promoting informed management and stewardship of North Carolina's estuarine and coastal habitats through research, education, and example:
The Education sector strives to increase understanding and awareness of estuarine systems and improve decision-making to promote stewardship of North Carolina's coastal resources among the general public, K-12 students and teachers, and coastal decision-makers. The Reserve offers field trips to the Reserve components for students and the public, workshops and curricula for teachers, workshops and technical materials for coastal decision-makers, and summer camps. A diverse suite of topics is covered by the Reserve's educational programming such as basic estuarine concepts, coastal flora and fauna, beach profiling and nourishment, and stormwater.
The Research sector addresses scientific and technical aspects of coastal management problems through a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and coordinated research program including site-directed research, monitoring, and the NERRS Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Current projects include monitoring weather and water at three of the four NCNERR components, investigating estuarine shoreline stabilization alternatives, and comparing the function of restored and reference salt marshes.
The Stewardship sector is responsible for managing the NCNERR components for the Reserve's research and education purposes. This includes a wide range of activities such as land acquisition, ecological restoration, resource inventories, invasive and feral species management, endangered species protection, visitor use management, regional planning, policy development and more.
The NCNERR is also part of the N.C. Coastal Reserve, an umbrella program within the DCM that protects six additional coastal areas for similar purposes. Visit NCCoastalReserve.net to learn more about the components and programs of the NCNERR.