Back barrier erosion monitoring at Cumberland Island National Seashore: 2018 data summary

McDonald, Jacob; Gregory, Brian

In 1999, the National Park Service’s (NPS) Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program (now I&M Division) substantially expanded a pilot long-term ecological monitoring program known as “Vital Signs Monitoring” to cover more than 270 parks. The program was designed to provide the minimum infrastructure required to identify and monitor the conditions of the highest priority resources within the National Park System (Fancy et al. 2009). The Southeast Coast Network (SECN) was one of thirty-two networks formed to implement the I&M Division’s program and is tailored to the specific needs of the parks within the network. The overarching purpose of SECN natural resource monitoring is to (1) collect and produce scientifically sound data that describes the current status of—and long-term trends in—the composition, structure, and function of park ecosystems, and (2) to determine how current management practices are sustaining these systems. The Southeast Coast Network achieves the above purposes by implementing long-term monitoring protocols and providing additional technical assistance when necessary. This report provides the results of a technical assistance project implemented at Cumberland Island National Seashore (CUIS) to monitor island margin retreat on the back barrier (west) side of the island. On 19–20 June 2017, the Southeast Coast Network and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) conducted an island margin survey of five sites on the back barrier side of Cumberland Island National Seashore. These five sites, Cumberland Wharf (CW), Brickhill Bluff (BB), Plum Orchard (PO), Dungeness Wharf (DW), and Raccoon Key (RK), had previously been monitored by the USGS from December 2011 to February 2013 to determine the average rate of island margin retreat at these pre-identified erosional hotspots (Calhoun and Riley 2016). The purpose of the 2017 survey was to determine if the long-term rates of island margin retreat from 2013 to 2017 (which includes the effects of Hurricane Matthew) is consistent with the rates observed from 2011 to 2013. On 27–28 March 2018, the five back barrier sites were again resurveyed by the Southeast Coast Network to determine the potential influence Hurricane Irma had on the island. A brief summary of the 2017 and 2018 surveys is provided below. The main report provides some background on each of the study sites, a general overview of the methods used to collect and process the data, and a more in-depth look at the results of the surveys.

Back barrier erosion monitoring at Cumberland Island National Seashore: 2018 data summary

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