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Marine Geology and Sand Resources of the Southern North Carolina Inner Shelf
No full textBeach nourishment is a popular engineering-with-nature (EWN) strategy used globally for shoreline stabilization and coastal storm damage reduction. Large-scale projects require dredging from offshore sand borrow sources. However, suitable sands for nourishment are not ubiquitous offshore, especially in sediment-starved southern NC. In 2015, \u3e300 nautical miles (555 km) of sub-bottom, sidescan, bathymetry and 38 cores/grabs were collected in data gaps offshore southern NC and interpreted for geologic horizons and potential nourishment-compatible sand thickness. In addition, hundreds of paleochannels were mapped and evaluated for fill patterns and resource potential. Various forms of hardbottom were delineated, sometimes in close proximity to sand resources. Results show high spatial variability in the distribution of beach-compatible sands across the southern NC shelf, where only a thin sand veneer is observed in many locations, although some regions contained continuous deposits exceeding 3 m. The thickest shoal deposits (\u3e5 m) were observed offshore New Hanover County Region. Underlying strata and bathymetry appear to affect channel shape and distribution. Channels with acoustically transparent fill may be suitable as nourishment sources, yet many channels show complex and variable fill suggestive of tidal and estuarine environments. Seafloor reconnaissance data are valuable in preventing multi-use conflicts on the shelf as shelf areas are increasingly being explored for other functions (e.g, wind farms, oil/gas, fish habitat). These findings provide a useful starting point for coastal managers seeking sufficient offshore sediment resources for nourishment in response to future storm events and sea-level rise
Staging Asian America in a History of Present Illness
No full textIn early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to world-wide disruptions of health and safety, family, work, business, and travel. Written at the end of the pandemic’s second year, Chapter Ten reflects upon a period of time in which theatres throughout the world had closed, anti-Black violence was ever present, and Asians and Asian Americans were increasingly subject to incidents of racist harassment and abuse. Christine Mok examines online productions such as Susan Soon Hee Stanton’s Today is My Birthday and Aya Ogawa’s Ludic Proxy: Fukushima, plays written in direct response to the pandemic such as Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, and plays written pre-pandemic, such as Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s The Deceived Slumming Party (2015) and Julia Cho’s BFE (2005), that nonetheless highlight the connections between COVID-era anti-Asian racism and a much longer history of xenophobic and sexist representation. Her chapter highlights how creative works undertaken by Asian American theatre-makers offer new ways to see, think about, and respond to the pandemic’s intense temporal, spatial, and social disruption, as well as earlier moments of crisis in Asian American history
COVID as Glitch: (Re)Visioning and (Re)Crafting a Feminist Future
Get PDFMany scholars and commentators argue that the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the ways in which feminism has failed women. While women, particularly in marginalized communities, have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, I contend that we should approach it as an opportunity to reenvision, and even shape, what feminist futures can look like. The pandemic provoked an increased interest in crafting, both because of quarantine conditions and the need for many requiring masks to slow viral transmission. The COVID-19 pandemic, then, serves as the tipping point by which craft can and does function as resistive and transformative feminist work with the potential to “glitch” oppressive systems. Building on the research of Shira Chess, Tricia Hersey, and especially Legacy Russell’s vision of “Glitch Feminism,” I argue that craft is a vital way to reconfigure our theory and practice about what constitutes appropriate work, play, and rest. Reenvisioned, craft and other forms of making are embodied, resistive actions anchored in an ethic of care for self and others, thereby offering us practical examples of “glitch feminism” at a key point in time. The pandemic is not only a tipping point, but also a springboard for glitching the system in an effort to create more just and equitable futures for all
The influence of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program on local water quality
Get PDFThe Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is the primary conservation program on working agricultural land. The United States Department of Agriculture obligated over $15 billion through EQIP cost-sharing contracts during the fiscal years 2009–2019. The voluntary nature of the program and the lack of performance assessment have led to speculations regarding the effectiveness of the program in delivering environmental benefits, in particular for improving water quality. This study provides quantitative estimates of the influence of EQIP payments on local water quality at a national scale. We link monitoring station level water quality readings with EQIP contract data and exploit the direction of river flow for identification. The estimated effects of EQIP vary across water quality measures. Estimates indicate that EQIP payments have significantly reduced biochemical oxygen demand and nitrogen, indicating improvements in water quality, but increased total suspended solids, fecal coliform, and phosphorus, suggesting that the implementation of certain conservation practices might have increased soil erosion and pathogen transfer, especially in watersheds with more agricultural production