The Defense Coastal/Estuarine Research Program (DCERP) is wrapping up this year so the Resource Conservation and Resiliency team performed a site visit at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina.The visit included a base orientation on the first day and a stakeholders meeting on the second day. For nearly ten-years DCERP has worked to demonstrate the science behind ecosystem-based management at Camp Lejeune. The results of the monitoring and research efforts are being used to identify ecosystem indicators and develop associated threshold values, tools, or models to inform Department of Defense installation management needs.

The base orientation highlighted several SERDP project sites. Camp Lejeune possess a unique position on the Atlantic Coast and as a result hosts numerous SERDP projects. One result of its unique position is that it has four different coastal environments (aquatic/estuarine, coastal wetlands, coastal barrier, and terrestrial). During the orientation, these environments were visited and the uniqueness of this research environment was greatly appreciated.

On the second day of the site visit, over forty attendees from both the City of Jacksonville and Camp Lejeune came to the stakeholders meeting. The day-long meeting was an excellent synopsis of the work that has been done over the past ten years at Camp Lejeune. Research results were provided on the four coastal environments from the following research institutions: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill – Institute of Marine Sciences, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Duke University, and Virginia Tech.

The stakeholders meeting ended with instructions for accessing results and data of the project. The public can register for a username and password to explore and download data. Presentations, the data portal, and more information on the project can be retrieved on the DCERP website.