Topics Related to Environmentally Speaking

North Carolina has wetlands across the state – along the coast, in the mountains and in the Piedmont. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Division of Water Resources has an interactive map showcasing 240 different publicly accessible wetlands across the state. Along with the online map, DWR has launched a printable Wetlands Passport to help the public locate those wetlands and learn more about them.

For 20 years, North Carolina 7th grade students have been showing off their air quality knowledge in the annual AQ-IQ contest.

Air pollution can make asthma worse, so it's important to be air aware.

In this blog post, we explore how wildfires start, how smoke affects our health, and how the Division of Air Quality keeps residents informed and safe.

Jill Paxson and the DWR Estuarine Monitoring Team travel approximately 300 nautical miles of waterways in a month as they travel up and down streams, rivers and other waterways across the region to conduct sampling. Their domain extends to where the Chowan River empties into the Albemarle Sound, as well as where the Neuse and Pamlico rivers empties into the Pamlico Sound. They respond to harmful algal blooms and fish kills, and recently, even, a clam kill.

A water quality sampling effort launched in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene helped NCDEQ Division of Water Resources staff identify potential sources of contamination.

A preliminary assessment of insect communities in waterways of western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene demonstrated that in most waterbodies sampled, the variety of species as well as the number of each insect species was generally comparable to before the hurricane. It also identified a few waterways that had declines in the variety of insect species and abundances.

Research was conducted on the east end of Carrot Island, one of five islands that make up the Rachel Carson Reserve. Experiments were conducted in the maritime forest, salt marsh, shorelines and on the living shoreline structure. (Photograph by Josh Himmelstein)

How do birds adjust to stay cool on 100-degree summer days? What about during the winter when it can reach below freezing? Juan Zuluaga is on a mission to find out.