SCWRC Program Management Overview

The South Carolina Water Resources Center uses its operating funds to carry out its mission as a liaison between the US Geological Survey, the university community and the water resources constituencies of those institutions. This is accomplished by serving as a water resources information outlet through our web site, by serving as a research facilitator through our annual grants competition and by operating as a catalyst for research and educational projects and programs across South Carolina. The Water Center also serves as a conduit for information necessary in the resource management decision-making arena as well as the water policy arena of the state.

While continuing to be involved with numerous water issues across the state including membership on an ad hoc statewide committee identifying policy issues related to primary water concerns and analyzing population growth impacts on water resources, the Water Center is collaborating with multidisciplinary teams investigating natural system/social system interactions. Foremost among these projects has been involvement with South Carolina Sea Grant's LU-CES program which is studying the impacts of changing land use patterns on coastal watersheds. The principal goal of LU-CES is to develop scientifically based models that can be used by natural resource agencies and policy makers to identify and develop minimal impact scenarios for development within the coastal plain of South Carolina and Georgia.

The Water Center is spearheading a comprehensive watershed assessment project. The project is currently centered around the Reedy River, part of the larger Saluda River watershed encompassing metropolitan Greenville in South Carolina. The Water Center recently acquired funding from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to fund a Reedy River Watershed education program. Information from the watershed assessment will be shared with stakeholders across the Reedy River Watershed through this new program.

The Water Center has worked closely on human population growth management issues in the Saluda/Reedy watershed and has recently funded studies to: 1) investigate an algal bloom that occurred in a lake at the mouth of this river; 2) study impaired segments of the Reedy and Saluda Rivers in an attempt to correlate those with different animal agriculture issues; and 3) study that same data and look at correlations with land use/land cover data within the watershed. Recent meetings with key individuals from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, the Rasmussen Foundation, the Appalachian Council of Governments, Greenville County Planning Commission, Upstate Forever (NGO), Lander University and Furman University have produced a consortium that will fund and undertake a multi-layered and multi-disciplinary research program for the Reedy River in which the SCWRC will play a central role. Indeed, as of March 2003, the Rasmussen Foundation and Fuji Photo Film, Inc. have committed $1.5 million to the effort.

Projects Recently Finished:

• Animal Agriculture and Watershed Impairment in South Carolina: A GIS-Based Spatial Assessment
  Kang S. Lu and Jeffery S. Allen
  Part I
  Part II - Appendices (tables and maps)
  
  
• "Assessment of the Effect of Bioturbation on Advective Contaminant Exchange at the Sediment-Stream Interface"
  Funding Agency: USGS/NIWR
  PI: P.A. Work, P. Moore, J.A. McEnery - Clemson University
  
  
• Cultivated Agricultural Lands at Risk from Potential Urbanization in the Tri-County Area
  Jeffery S. Allen and Kang Shou Lu
  
  
• "An Urban Growth Scenario for the Charleston Area of the South Carolina Coast"
  Funding Agency: S.C. Sea Grant Consortium
  Partners: SC Coastal Conservation League, SC Sea Grant
  
  
• "Assessment of Conditions and Public Attitudes Concerning Marine Sanitation of the Lakes Encompassed by the Savannah River Watershed Region: Policy Projections for the Future"
  Funding Agency: USGS/SC Water Resources Center
  PI: Dr. Kenneth Backman and Dr. Sheila Backman - Clemson University
  
  
• "Using GIS as a Potential Policy Tool: A Case Study of the Chattooga River"
  Funding Agency: non-funded
  PI's: Jeffery Allen, Gregory Hawkins, Kerry Brooks, Steward Baylor, Rob Mateja
  Partners: Tru-Line Surveying Company
  

Projects Currently Underway:

• "Initiating Effective Algae Reduction on Lake Greenwood, South Carolina"
  Funding Agency: USGS/SC Water Resources Center
  PI: Dr. Grant Cunningham - Clemson University
  
  
• "Reestablishment of an Estuarine Marsh and Waterway after Causeway Removal"
  Funding Agency: USGS/SC Water Resources Center
  PI: Dr. Carla Curran and Dr. Randall Cross - University of South Carolina at Beaufort
  
  
• "Monitoring Coastal Wetland Change and Modeling Ecosystem Health in South Carolina Using Advances in Remote Sensing Digital Image Processing"
  Funding Agency: NASA/EPSCOR Program
  Partners: University of South Carolina, College of Charleston
  
  
• "Spatial Relationships of Polluted Streams, Animal Agriculture and Human Populations in South Carolina Watersheds"
  Funding Agency: CU Cooperative Extension Service
  Partners: CU Dept. of Ag and Applied Economics, CU Dept of Sociology
  
  
• "GIS Analysis for the Savannah River Basin Watershed Project"
  Funding Agency: US Environmental Protection Agency
  Cooperating with many watershed stakeholders
  
  
• "South Carolina Prime Lands Initiative - Land-Use Change Detections"
  Funding Agency: CU Cooperative Extension Service
  Partners: Multidisciplinary effort at Clemson University
  
  

Potential Funding:

• "Development of a GIS-based Database Management and Spatial Modeling Program to Characterize Sources and Effects of Natural Parameters and Anthropogenic Impact to Coastal Ecosystems"
  Funding Agency: S.C. Sea Grant LU-CES Program
  $178,000 part of a $400,000 initiative
  Partners: University of South Carolina, NOAA NOS Southeast Fisheries Center
  
  
• "Biocomplexity-Incubation Activity: Consequences of Urban Encroachment on Natural Ecosystems"
  Funding Agency: National Science Foundation - $25,000 part of a $80,000 initiative
  Partners: University of South Carolina, SUNY-Albany
  
  

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