The restoration of New Hope Creek reached a major milestone last year with the removal of the Concrete Bridge and the Billy Erwin Dam, allowing the creek to flow freely through the Duke Forest for the first time in nearly a century. While construction has concluded, the scientific work is only beginning.
Before restoration began, Duke Forest Assistant Director of Teaching and Research Lee Anne Reilly developed a monitoring plan that established baseline measurements throughout the project area. Those same measurements will now be repeated at regular intervals, creating a long-term dataset documenting the creek’s recovery following restoration.
This summer’s fieldwork is led by former Duke Forest Senior Projects Coordinator Maggie Heraty, who has returned to the Forest while pursuing her master’s degree in North Carolina State University’s College of Natural Resources. During her years on the Duke Forest staff, Heraty developed a passion for ecological restoration that now informs her graduate study. As a summer intern, she is collecting the first round of post-restoration data with assistance from Duke Forest staff and volunteers. The information gathered will support both the Duke Forest’s long-term monitoring program and Heraty’s graduate master’s project.
Her summer position is funded through the New Hope Creek Teaching and Research Fund, established by Tim and Lori Rowe to support ongoing research and educational opportunities associated with the restoration project.
The monitoring program combines several complementary methods to build a comprehensive picture of how the creek changes over time. This monitoring will take place annually for roughly five years, at a series of research transects established last year by Lee Anne Reilly. These transects are placed at strategic locations near the Billy Erwin Dam removal site and upstream and downstream of the old Concrete Bridge removal site.
At the old Concrete Bridge removal site, we survey stream cross-sections to measure changes in the channel’s shape. When graphed, data from the stream cross-sections allow us to see a profile of the stream channel. Repeating these measurements annually reveals how the stream bed’s geomorphology is shifting—in other words, how its shape, width, and depth are changing through time—providing valuable information about how the creek is adjusting following restoration.
We also conduct pebble counts, a standard technique in stream science that measures the size distribution of rocks on the stream bed. By randomly sampling 100 rocks at each transect, we can evaluate stream bed composition. Not only does this method help us discover how the texture of the creek is changing over time, but it can also help us interpret how the creek is developing habitat for aquatic organisms.
In addition to the “macro” texture of pebbles and rocks, we measure the “micro” texture of the creek by measuring deposits of sediment at each transect. This provides insight into how small sediment particles are moving through the creek. Over time, it helps us understand the erosion and deposition taking place in the stream channel, and whether these processes are stabilizing post-restoration.
Finally, permanent photo points at both removal sites allow us to visually document changes to the stream corridor. At each monitoring location, photographs are taken at multiple angles, creating a photographic record of changes in vegetation, streambanks, and channel morphology.
The stream cross-sections, pebble counts, sedimentation measurements, and photo points together paint a picture of how New Hope Creek is adjusting following restoration. Repeating these measurements over time will reveal whether the stream bed is accumulating sediment or eroding, whether the channel is re-narrowing in the area where water used to pool behind the old Concrete Bridge, and ultimately, whether the creek is reaching a new baseline, post-restoration.
These field measurements are just one piece of a much larger effort to understand how New Hope Creek is responding to restoration. Twice each year, we conduct high-resolution LiDAR drone flights that capture detailed topographic data, allowing us to detect subtle changes in the creek’s channel and surrounding floodplain that would be impossible to measure from the ground alone. At the same time, North Carolina Master Naturalist volunteers are conducting macroinvertebrate surveys to document the larval insects, crustaceans, and other small aquatic organisms that call the creek home. Because many of these species are highly sensitive to pollution and environmental change, their diversity and abundance serve as important indicators of water quality and overall stream health.
Together, these complementary datasets provide a more complete picture of the creek’s recovery than any single measurement could achieve. By combining field surveys, aerial mapping, and biological monitoring, we can better understand how the physical and ecological components of New Hope Creek recover together over time. They also reinforce one of the Duke Forest’s central missions: using the Forest as a living laboratory where research not only advances scientific understanding but also helps guide the stewardship of natural resources for generations to come.