The world is getting drier. Land degradation is expanding worldwide. What that looks like in Africa, for example, differs from the way land degradation presents in southeastern North Carolina – but the phenomenon affects everyone on the planet.
It was 2017 when Stephen O’Brien, the United Nations under secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned Security Council members that the worst humanitarian crisis since the end of the second world war was underway. More than 20 million people were facing famine and starvation, according to the UN. The main cause of this crisis: drought. That was the same year, 2017, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification made drought mitigation one of its five strategic objectives. Desertification, in a nutshell, is desert encroaching on what has been habitable land.
But desertification is only one form of land degradation. As we’ll learn on this edition of CoastLine, there are others, including, and especially relevant for the Cape Fear region: deforestation, urbanization driving wetlands destruction, and ghost forests. In one of the fastest-growing areas in the United States, developers are taking out large swaths of natural areas and leaving dry dirt. They often install sod to create lawns and perhaps one or two immature trees – which may or may not be native to the area.
This creates a litany of problems – including urban heat islands, loss of biodiversity as habitat disappears, greater potential for flooding, and stormwater runoff, further polluting nearby rivers and ultimately, the ocean.
It’s no wonder recent studies show trees, especially mature trees, drive up property values. But how do you continue to make room for an expanding population, keep residential and commercial development economically viable – and do a better job of protecting the planet? Especially when all this is happening in tandem with climate change, which exacerbates the effects of land degradation.
Narcisa Pricope is a Geography and Geospatial Sciences Professor in the Earth and Ocean Sciences Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. In November of 2022, she was appointed to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
Resources:
Native Backyards: https://nativebackyards.com/
Native Plant Finder: https://www.nwf.org/nativeplantfinder/
From the North Carolina Coastal Federation, nature-based solutions to stormwater and flooding:
https://www.nccoast.org/project/nbss/
https://deq.nc.gov/energy-climate/climate-change/adaptation-and-resiliency/natural-working-lands
Geospatial datasets including local and state:
http://dr-narcisa-g-pricope.weebly.com/resources.html
Current research projects:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (A.49 of NRA NNH21ZDA001N-EEJ, entitled Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES-2021) Equity and Environmental Justice program:
“Green infrastructure solutions to support flood mitigation and adaptation in coastal low-lying disadvantaged communities”. PI: Narcisa G. Pricope. Co-Is: Joanne Halls and Leah Mayo (UNCW). Amount awarded: $149,750. Period of performance: Sept. 2022 – March 2024.
National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation (MSF MRI) program: “MRI: Acquisition of a novel multi-sensor equipped unmanned aerial system (UAS) observatory for coastal mapping”. PI: Pricope, N.G. Co-PIs: Eulie, D., Leonard, L., Bresnahan, P. and Halls, J. Amount awarded: $850,863. Period of performance: August 2022 – August 2026.
North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT): Demonstrating the Capabilities of UAS Topobathymetric LiDAR Mapping in Support of DOT Project Planning, Monitoring and Modeling. PI: Narcisa Pricope. Amount awarded: $326,838. Period of performance: August 2022 – August 2024.
