Thursday, 10 November 2005 - 8:45 AM
326-2

Long-Term Hydrologic Requirements of Four Carolina Bay Plant Communities.

Peter V. Caldwell, Michael Vepraskas, Wayne Skaggs, and James Gregory. NC State University, Dep. of Forestry, Box 8008, Raleigh, NC 27695-8008

Successful establishment of appropriate vegetation at a wetland mitigation site requires knowledge of the soil, nutrient, and hydrologic needs of the desired plant community. There is insufficient data to adequately characterize the hydrologic regime required by most plant communities. The objective of this study was to quantify and compare the long-term hydrology in four different plant communities established within three naturally vegetated Carolina Bays in Bladen County, North Carolina. Previous studies at the bays suggested that four distinct plant communities exist at these bays: Pond Pine Woodland, Non-riverine Swamp Forest, Bay Forest, and High Pocosin. Soils in the bays ranged from mineral to deep organic, and were ponded virtually continuously in some cases. DRAINMOD models were created to simulate long-term water table levels and were calibrated over a two year period. The models were calibrated using water table data recorded with on site instrumentation in several locations within each plant community. Model input data, such as saturated hydraulic conductivity and soil water characteristic was either collected in situ or measured on undisturbed soil cores extracted from the site. The water tables simulated with the models show good agreement with the measured data. Using the calibrated models, a forty-year historical climate record was used to predict historical water table depths in each plant community. Parameters such as average water table depth, frequency of saturation, duration of continuous saturation, etc. were calculated and summarized for each plant community and compared to determine whether the differences between plant communities are significant.


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