Hurricane Impacts on Oyster Reef Habitat in Pamlico Sound, 2018-2019

A supplementary document analyzes the impacts of Hurricanes Florence and Dorian and Tropical Storm Michael on oyster reefs in Pamlico Sound, North Carolina. The research, authored by Daniel J. Bowling and published on figshare in 2026, examines how storm characteristics, reef depth, and structure influenced water quality, sedimentation, and oyster mortality. The findings are used to propose management and restoration strategies for resilience to tropical cyclones.

Use Cases

• Modeling oyster reef vulnerability to storm-driven sediment burial based on reef depth and relief.
• Analyzing the relationship between hurricane characteristics (speed, precipitation) and estuarine hypoxia.
• Informing oyster reef restoration site selection by comparing outcomes in deep-water versus shallow, sheltered embayments.

Strengths

• Focuses on a unique monitoring period covering successive storms (2018-2019 hurricane seasons).
• Provides specific, actionable findings for restoration, such as maintaining a vertical reef relief of at least 20 cm.
• Released under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license.

Limitations

• The 3.3 MB file is a DOCX document; the underlying data tables, column definitions, and row counts are unavailable.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Long-term monitoring of water quality and oyster reefs coinciding with storm events.

Time Range

2018-2019 hurricane seasons

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 09:39:56; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Pamlico Sound, North Carolina, USA