Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune CW-5 Marsh incubation chamber experiment

Critical military training and testing on lands along the nation’s coastal and estuarine shorelines are increasingly placed at risk because of encroachment pressures in surrounding areas, impairments due to other anthropogenic disturbances, and changes in climate and sea level. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) intends to enhance and sustain its training and testing assets and also optimize its stewardship of natural resources through the development and application of an ecosystem-based management approach on DoD installations. To accomplish this goal, particularly for installations in estuarine/coastal environments, the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) launched the Defense Coastal/Estuarine Research Program (DCERP) as a 10-year effort at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune (MCBCL) in North Carolina. The results of the second 5 years of the program (DCERP2) are presented in the DCERP2 Final Report.There were four overarching objectives of DCERP2. The first objective was to understand the effects of climate change impacts, including warming temperatures, variability in the hydrological cycle, storm events, and sea level rise on the coastal ecosystems at MCBCL from observations and measurements made over the 10-year program. The second objective was to understand the carbon cycle of the coastal and terrestrial ecosystems at MCBCL through a highly integrated sampling program. The third objective was to develop models, tools, and indicators to evaluate current and projected future ecosystem state changes and translate scientific findings into actionable information for installation managers. The last objective was to recommend adaptive management strategies to sustain ecosystem natural resources within the context of an active military installation.A goal of CW-5 was to measure the influence of salt marshes on N, P, and C in tidal creek channels. Salt marsh sediment microbial communities and vegetation may affect N, P, and C in creek water overlying the marsh during high tide; these concentration changes would subsequently alter the flux of N, P, and C in the tidal creek channel during low tide. The objective of this research was to measure the rate of concentration change in N, P, and C in a volume of water isolated on the marsh during high tide. This rate of concentration change can be extrapolated across a salt marsh surface to estimate the mass export of N, P, and C back to the tidal creek channel at low tide. Analysis of these data is provided in the CW-5 chapter of the DCERP2 Final Research Report.

沿美国沿海及河口岸线陆域开展的关键军事训练与测试活动，正日益面临多重风险：周边区域的侵占压力、其他人为干扰引发的生态损害，以及气候与海平面变化。美国国防部（U.S. Department of Defense, DoD）旨在通过在其军事设施中开发并应用基于生态系统的管理方法，强化并维持其训练与测试资产，同时优化对自然资源的管护工作。为实现这一目标，尤其是针对河口/沿海环境中的军事设施，战略环境研究与发展计划（Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, SERDP）在北卡罗来纳州的勒琼海军陆战队基地（Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, MCBCL）启动了为期10年的国防沿海/河口研究计划（Defense Coastal/Estuarine Research Program, DCERP）。该计划第二个五年阶段（DCERP2）的研究成果收录于《DCERP2最终报告》中。DCERP2共包含四项总体目标：第一项总体目标为依托整个10年项目周期内开展的观测与测量工作，解析气候变化影响——包括气温升高、水文循环波动、风暴事件及海平面上升——对MCBCL沿海生态系统造成的效应；第二项总体目标为通过高度集成的采样计划，探明MCBCL沿海与陆地生态系统的碳循环过程；第三项总体目标为开发用于评估当前及预测未来生态系统状态变化的模型、工具与指标，并将科研成果转化为可供军事设施管理人员使用的可操作信息；第四项总体目标为提出适应性管理策略，以在现役军事设施的运营背景下维持生态系统自然资源的可持续性。CW-5的研究目标为测定盐沼对潮汐水道中氮（N）、磷（P）与碳（C）的影响。涨潮期间，盐沼沉积物微生物群落与植被可能会影响覆盖于盐沼之上的水道水体中的氮、磷与碳含量；此类浓度变化后续将在退潮时改变潮汐水道内氮、磷与碳的通量。本项研究的目标为测定涨潮期间滞留在盐沼上的一定体积水体中氮、磷与碳的浓度变化速率。可将该浓度变化速率推广至整个盐沼表面，以估算退潮时氮、磷与碳向潮汐水道输出的总质量。相关数据分析内容收录于《DCERP2最终研究报告》的CW-5章节中。