Sustainability: Projects
Defense Coastal/Estuarine Research Program
Client
US Department of Defense, Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program
Description
Critical military training and testing lands in coastal and estuarine areas are increasingly placed at risk because of development pressures in surrounding areas, impairments due to other anthropogenic disturbances, and requirements to comply with environmental regulations. The U.S. Department of Defense intends to enhance and sustain its training and testing assets and to optimize its stewardship of natural resources through an ecosystem-based management approach. To accomplish this goal, the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program has launched the Defense Coastal/Estuarine Research Program (DCERP) at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune (MCBCL) in North Carolina. MCBCL provides an ideal platform for DCERP because it integrates coastal barrier island, estuarine, coastal wetlands, and terrestrial ecosystems. We are leading the DCERP research and monitoring effort and has assembled a diverse team of discipline experts with many years of experience in working on coastal and estuarine ecosystems projects.
DCERP is designed to conduct mission-relevant and basic and applied research in support of an ecosystem-based management approach. The program's primary goal is to enhance and sustain the military's mission by developing an understanding of composition, structure, and function within the context of a military training environment for coastal and estuarine ecosystems. Specific DCERP objectives include
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Develop appropriate conceptual and mechanistic ecological models to guide research, monitoring, and adaptive management feedback loops
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Identify significant ecosystem stressors, their sources (on and off MCBCL), and their level of impact on MCBCL's ecological systems
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Incorporate stressor and other ecological indicator information into the models, with an aim to develop more effective management guidelines for sustainable ecosystems.
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