Project Need:

The Southern Shores Vegetative Advisory Committee would like to develop a spatial database of the vegetative communites located in the Southern Shores area.
The information can be used as baseline information in efforts to protect and conserve the abundance, distribution and ecological function of the natural vegatative communities present in this community. 

 Project Objective:

• Provide a Geographic Information System (GIS) map of the vegetative communities present in the community of Southern Shores, North Carolina.

• Develop a species list of plants present in each vegetative zone.

Research Team:

ECSU- Project Leader: Heather Allen, Research Assistants:Reginald Bazemore, Emma Sawyer, and Matt Woolard

Southern Shores Vegetation Committee - Jack Sheehan, Chairman

Town of Southern Shores - Carl Classen, Town Manager, Michael Hejduk

Timeline: June 2003 to March 2004

Background:

Southern Shores: The Southern Shore Vegetation Committee (SSVC) identified five distinct vegetative zones within the town boundaries of Southern Shores. These ecologically valuable and environmentally sensitive zones, occurring from east to west, are the ocean beach fore-dune zone, the sandy flats, a high dune zone, the maritime forests and soundside marsh.

The trees, shrubs and grasses present in these five zones grow on areas owned by the Town, the civic associations and private individuals. As noted in the Maritime Forest-Vegetative Working Group Report (30 April 2002), approximately 760 of the Town's 2,800 residential lots remain unimproved (i.e. have not been developed)

Materials and Methods: 

The GPS unit used for collecting data on the lots of Southern Shores is the GeoExplorerer 3c receiver. This unit was chosen because it is pocket sized, lightweight, and water resistant perfect for the type of mapping involved in the SSVS. The GeoExplorer 3c's primary function is to collect geographic features, like latitude and longitude coordinates. It obtains this data by catching satellite signals as you walk around a desired area. The next step involves downloading the collected data. The GeoExplorer 3c is connected to the computer and downloaded intoPathfinder Office 2.51, the software used to process and transfer the data collected from GPS units. Pathfinder Office is also used to program data dictionaries (Appendix III) into the GPS unit. Data dictionaries are useful because attribute information can be incorporated into the spatial data being collected while in the field. In other words data dictionary allows you to categorize the geographic data. Once the data is transferred into the Pathfinder Office Software, the data is differentially corrected (correcting the latitude and longitude coordinates to an accuracy of two meters or less). Next, the spatial data are transferred into ArcView 3.1 (a GIS software). Here the geographic data or polygons of lot classifications are overlain onto a base map of the lots in Southern Shores, provided by Mike Hejduk (Appendix IV).
 
 

Results from 2001/2002 monitoring:

Please see Powerpoint presentation outlining activites and products to date, presented by Liz Noble, Heather Allen and Reginald Bazemore to the Town of Southern Shores Major, Town Councilmen, Planner and Vegetation Adviosory Committee. 

Acknowledgements:

Funding provided by NOAA EEP Program and Elizabeth City State University.