4.5 River Basins
4.5.12 Neuse River Basin 4.5.12.1 River Basin Description
Te Neuse River Basin is an Atlantic Slope drainage with headwaters originating in the north-central Piedmont ecoregion in Person and Orange counties. Te uppermost 22 miles of the river’s main stem is impounded behind Falls of the Neuse Reservoir dam just northeast of the city of Raleigh. Downstream of the dam, the river continues its course for approximately 185 miles southeast past the cities of Raleigh, Smithfeld, Goldsboro, and Kinston (NCDWQ 2009, 2012d; NCDWR 2015g) . It fows southeast until it reaches tidal waters near Streets Ferry, upstream of New Bern. At New Bern, the river broadens dramatically and turns into a 40-mile long brackish tidal estuary that eventually fows into the Pamlico Sound. Te Neuse River Basin is the third-largest basin in North Carolina, covering 6,062 square miles, and is one of only four major river basins whose boundaries are located entirely within the state (NCDWR 2015d, 2015h) . Tere are 3,389 freshwater stream miles, 17,902 acres of freshwater reservoirs and lakes, 143 saltwater stream miles, and 370,779 estuarine/ saltwater acres in the basin. Major tributaries in the basin include the Eno, Flat, Little, and Trent rivers and Crabtree, Swift, and Contentnea creeks. Tere are two distinct portions of the Neuse River Basin: the upper one-third in the Piedmont and the lower two-thirds in the Coastal Plain. Streams in the Piedmont portion typically are low gradient, with sluggish pools separated by rifes and occasional small rapids. Soils are highly erodible in the Piedmont and are underlain by fractured rock for- mations that have a limited water storage capacity. Tis portion of the basin tends to have low summer fows and limited ability to assimilate oxygen-consuming wastes, which con- tributes to hypoxia. Te Coastal Plain portion features slow-moving blackwater streams, low-lying swamps, and productive estuarine waters. Te larger waterbodies in the basin are meandering, often lined with swamps and bottomland hardwoods, and often have natu- rally low DO and pH. Soils are deep sands that have a high groundwater storage capacity. Natural lakes include the remnants of bay lakes in the lower Coastal Plain (NCDWQ 2012a) . Tere are several areas of rapidly expanding urban land use; however, much of the land use in the basin is agriculture or forest. Protected forested land in the basin includes Eno River State Park and seven game lands covering 236,330 acres (e.g., portions of the Croatan National Forest, Butner–Falls of Neuse, Neuse River) (NCDWQ 2012a) . Based on 2011 National Land Cover Dataset information, land use in the basin was estimated to be 29.4% forested, 4.4% grassland, 26.2% agricultural, 19.3% wetland, and 12.4% urban or developed (MRLC 2011; Jin et al. 2013). Te Neuse River Basin encompasses all or portions of 18 counties and 77 municipali- ties. Large cities located in this basin includes several of the fastest growing urban and suburban areas in the state, Cary, Durham, Goldsboro, Greenville, New Bern, Raleigh, Smithfeld, and Wilson. Figure 4.23 depicts the geographic location of the basin.
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2015 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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