REEVALUATION OF VEGETATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS 
AT THE CERC FIELD RESEARCH FACILITY, 
DUCK, NORTH CAROLINA 
by 
Richard L. Harris, Gerald F. Levy,and James E. Perry 
PEER Consultants, Ine. 
I. INTRODUCTION 
The islands of the Outer Banks of North Carolina are continually 
subjected to the dynamic processes of longshore currents, tides, and wave 
and wind action. As a result, shorelines and coastal dunes undergo constant 
changes that affect the natural ecology of the entire barrier island system. © 
The natural processes responsible for the evolution of the barrier islands 
have been described by Oosting and Billings (1942), Dolan, Godfrey, and Odum 
(1973), Godfrey and Godfrey (1976), and Dolan, et al. (1979). Leatherman 
(1979a, b, c) has proposed an alternate hypothesis on the minimal effect 
barrier dunes appear to have on the long-term geologic process of landward 
barrier island migration. The diverse vegetational communities on the Outer 
Banks include maritime shrubs, forests, grasslands, and complex dune 
Systems. This floral diversity occurs because of an overlap of northern and 
southern coastal species in North Carolina (Hosier and Cleary, 1979). Local 
factors such as salinity, nutrient availability, soil moisture and stability 
also contribute to the vegetative composition and distribution (Wells, 1928; 
Oosting and Billings, 1942; Godfrey and Godfrey, 1976). 
The complex distribution of vegetation on the Outer Banks includes an 
ocean beach community, a foredune community, a migrating dune community in 
areas of excessive sand drift, sandflat communities, and arborescent 
communities of shrubs and trees (Levy, 1976). Each of these plant 
communities is subject to an array of environmental forces characteristic of 
the Outer Banks and plays a potential role in the formation and internal 
geometry of the coastal sand dunes (Goldsmith, 1973). 
Before the construction of the Coastal Engineering Research Center's 
(CERC) Field Research Facility (FRF).at Duck, North Carolina, a vegetation 
study was undertaken between March 1974 and June 1975 by Levy (1976). The 
area studied is located on Currituck Bank between the Virginia-North 
Carolina border at Duck, North Carolina, and southward to Nags Head. It 
includes the FRF with a 549-meter-long (1,800-foot) pier, a laboratory 
building, and 71 hectares (175 acres) of government land. The location of 
the study area is shown in Figure 1. Environmental characteristics of the 
area have been described by Levy (1976) and Birkemeier, et al. (1981). To 
determine and document natural or manmade changes which might have occurred 
since Levy's (1976) original study, this study replicated his procedures and 
reestablished his quadrats. The objectives were to characterize plant commu- 
