Impacts of residential development on vegetation cover for a remote coastal barrier in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, USA

Thomas W. Crawford; Daniel J. Marcucci; Andrew Bennett

doi:10.1007/s11852-013-0241-8

Journal of Coastal Conservation

September 2013, Volume 17, Issue 3, pp 431–443

Impacts of residential development on vegetation cover for a remote coastal barrier in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, USA

Authors
Authors and affiliations

Thomas W. CrawfordEmail author
Daniel J. Marcucci
Andrew Bennett

Article

First Online:: 24 March 2013

Received:: 13 August 2012
Revised:: 25 February 2013
Accepted:: 06 March 2013

DOI: 10.1007/s11852-013-0241-8

Cite this article as:: Crawford, T.W., Marcucci, D.J. & Bennett, A. J Coast Conserv (2013) 17: 431. doi:10.1007/s11852-013-0241-8

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Abstract

Coastal barrier environments are heavily influenced by human activities yet there are few examples of landscape ecological work investigating human dimensions of settlement disturbance patterns and processes. We investigated the impacts of residential development on vegetation cover for a remote roadless coastal barrier in Carova, North Carolina that is subject to policies from the federal to local levels and addressed three research questions: How has the region’s the policy history influenced patterns of residential parcel development? What are the spatial and temporal patterns of parcel development? How has development impacted patterns of barrier vegetation cover? We traced the influences of the federal 1982 Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) designed to discourage development in risky coastal areas as well as state/local coastal policies and employed remote sensing change detection, NDVI analysis and spatial analysis and regression techniques. Results showed an acceleration of new housing structures since 1990, contrary to the intended effects of CBRA. An estimated vegetation cover loss of 437 m² was associated with each newly developed parcel. NDVI varied along spatial and temporal gradients with more recent development having lower NDVI than older development. Recently developed parcels were larger in area, closer to the beach, and contained houses with larger footprints compared to older developed parcels. Our approach represents a place-based analytical framework for coastal barrier landscapes. Beyond the Carova case study, adopting such an approach coupling natural and human systems for the entire eastern US barrier system requires defining a comprehensive set of coastal barrier spatial units to enable typological classification and subsequent systematic investigation to inform debates regarding coastal ecosystem services and sustainability.

Keywords

Coastal barrierLand use policyParcel developmentVegetation analysis

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Authors and Affiliations

Thomas W. Crawford
- 1
Email author
Daniel J. Marcucci
- 2
Andrew Bennett
- 3

1.Department of GeographyEast Carolina UniversityGreenvilleUSA
2.Department of Geography, Planning ProgramEast Carolina UniversityGreenvilleUSA
3.Coastal Resources Management PhD ProgramEast Carolina UniversityGreenvilleUSA

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Impacts of residential development on vegetation cover for a remote coastal barrier in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, USA

Abstract

Keywords

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