Chapter 7 Monitoring
analysis and to monitor, as well as compare, the relative quality of these high-quality habitats and natural communities through time. Comprehensive natural areas surveys have been conducted for 92 counties in the state. Landscape Habitat Guild and county Natural Areas Inventory reports are available online https://www.ncnhp.org/publications/natural-heritage- program-publications. Coastal wetlands inventories and functional assessments as well as beach erosion rates are conducted by the NC Division of Coastal Management (NCDCM). Annual wetland and stream buffer losses and gains are tracked by the NCDWR. Wetlands mitigation site monitoring is conducted by the NC Ecosystem Enhancement Program (NCEEP; a joint effort between the NCDOT, US Army Corps of Engineers [USACE], and NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources [NCDNCR]). The USFS Southern Research Station’s Southern Region Inventory, Monitoring, and Analysis group conducts periodic forest surveys in North Carolina (and nationwide) to provide statistics for measuring changes and trends in the extent and condition of forest land, associated timber volumes, and rates of timber growth, mortality, and removals. Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data and tools are available online https://research.fs.usda.gov/srs/inventory. An overview of forest resources in North Carolina based on USFS inventory FIA program was updated in July 2025 and is available online https://public.tableau.com/views/FIA_OneClick_V2/Pageone?%3Aorigin=viz_share_link&%3As howVizHome=no#2. The Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) National Resources Inventory (NRI) program collects and disseminates information on a state, regional, and national level about the status, condition, and trends of soil, water, and related resources in the United States, including land use, erosion, nonfederal and federal lands inventory, cropland use, prime farmland, and wetlands and deepwater habitats. The 2017 NRI Summary Report is available online https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/nri. Regional and statewide Gap Analysis Project (GAP) land cover data provide a potential source with which to assess land cover trends over time. Regional GAP efforts across the Southeast do present potential opportunities for land cover change detection analyses in the future. An online map viewer tool is available at http://www.gapserve.ncsu.edu/segap/segap. NatureServe provides a national assessment of ecological landscape conditions to model the effects of landscape fragmentation on biodiversity. The NatureServe Modeling Landscape Condition tool produces a remote assessment index of ecological conditions using available spatial data and user applied knowledge and assumptions about stressors and relative ecological condition for sites of interest. https://www.natureserve.org/products/modeling- landscape-condition.
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2025 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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