White Oak SAV Watchers

Community Science for Healthy Underwater Habitats

What can submerged aquatic vegetation tell us about the health of coastal North Carolina?

Coastal Carolina Riverwatch (CCRW) is partnering with the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) to help answer that question through White Oak SAV Watchers, a community-based effort to monitor submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the White Oak River Basin.

White Oak SAV Watchers is CCRW’s local implementation of the broader NC SAV Watchers research project. NC SAV Watchers examines whether trained community scientists can collect accurate, precise and reliable information about submerged aquatic vegetation and water quality conditions that can complement professionally collected monitoring data.

The project is supported through North Carolina Sea Grant’s 2026–2028 Core Research Program and is led by Dr. Jessie C. Jarvis of UNCW in partnership with Coastal Carolina Riverwatch.

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What is SAV?

Submerged aquatic vegetation, or SAV, refers to aquatic plants that grow completely underwater. In coastal areas, you may also hear some types of SAV described as underwater grasses or seagrasses.

Although these habitats can be difficult to see from shore, they play an important role in healthy coastal ecosystems. SAV can:

• Provide important habitat for fish and shellfish
• Help stabilize bottom sediments and reduce shoreline erosion
• Improve water quality and water clarity
• Provide food and shelter for aquatic wildlife
• Support productive and resilient estuarine ecosystems

SAV is also an important indicator of environmental conditions because underwater plants need sufficient light and suitable water quality to survive.

Monitoring these habitats helps scientists understand where SAV occurs, how it changes over time and what environmental conditions may be contributing to those changes. In North Carolina, the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership (APNEP) conducts ground and aerial surveys to monitor SAV habitats.

Learn more about submerged aquatic vegetation monitoring in North Carolina through the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership.

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Building NC SAV Watchers

The larger research project has an important question at its center:

Can trained community scientists collect SAV and water quality information that is reliable enough to support coastal monitoring and research?

To find out, community scientists and UNCW researchers will collect information at monitoring locations using coordinated methods. UNCW scientists will collect professional monitoring data that researchers can compare with community-generated observations.

Over the course of the project, the team will develop and refine resources for community monitoring, including field protocols, identification materials, training tools, and digital data-collection methods.

The goal is not simply to hold individual volunteer events. The research will help determine whether a practical, scientifically useful community-monitoring model can increase SAV monitoring capacity in coastal North Carolina.

Read more about the NC SAV Watchers research through North Carolina Sea Grant.

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Learning From Other SAV Watchers

North Carolina is not starting from scratch.

The NC SAV Watchers project builds upon SAV monitoring approaches developed in North Carolina and draws lessons and resources from the established Chesapeake Bay SAV Watchers Program.

The Chesapeake Bay SAV Watchers Program is a volunteer-based monitoring effort that supplements the Bay-wide aerial SAV survey while creating opportunities for community members to participate directly in monitoring. Volunteers can document SAV species, habitat characteristics, water clarity, photographs and location information, with more detailed monitoring conducted by trained participants.

The North Carolina project will test and refine an approach suited to our own coastal habitats, monitoring needs and communities.

Explore Chesapeake Bay SAV Watchers, including its monitoring approach and volunteer resources.

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Our Partnership With UNCW

The research is led by Dr. Jessie C. Jarvis, Professor in UNCW’s Department of Biology and Marine Biology and Principal Investigator of UNCW’s Coastal Plant Ecology Lab.

Dr. Jarvis’s research focuses on seagrasses and other submerged aquatic vegetation and the environmental factors, including water-quality conditions, that affect their growth, reproduction, survival, resilience and restoration.

For White Oak SAV Watchers, UNCW provides scientific leadership and expertise while CCRW helps connect the research with local communities, coordinate community participation and support implementation within the White Oak River Basin.

“North Carolina has far more SAV habitat than scientists can realistically monitor from the water on a regular basis. This project gives us a chance to test whether trained community scientists can expand that monitoring effort while still collecting data that are scientifically useful.”

Learn more about Dr. Jessie Jarvis and her SAV research at UNCW.

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Fall 2026 Pilot: Chadwick Bay

Chadwick Bay Community SAV Survey

Friday, October 9, 2026
Chadwick Bay | Sneads Ferry, North Carolina

This fall, CCRW and UNCW will work with a pilot group of community volunteers to conduct SAV monitoring in Chadwick Bay.

The field survey follows an August 2026 project field day during which UNCW researchers and CCRW reviewed SAV conditions, potential monitoring locations and field methods in Chadwick Bay and refined the protocol that community volunteers will use.

During the October pilot survey, trained volunteers will help document information including:

• Whether SAV is present or absent
• Presence or absence of selected SAV species or species groups
• Whether SAV appears patchy or continuous
• Water depth and water clarity
• GPS location
• Photographs and field observations

For the initial pilot, volunteers will remain in their kayaks or paddle craft rather than entering the water. The project team intentionally simplified several components of the scientific monitoring protocol for the first community survey so that observations can be collected more consistently by trained volunteers.

For safety reasons, participating volunteers must be at least 21 years old and have prior paddling experience. Additional survey logistics are being provided directly to participating volunteers.

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What Will Community Scientists Measure?

The project is intentionally testing methods that are both scientifically meaningful and realistic for trained community members to use consistently.

For the initial Chadwick Bay pilot, volunteers will focus on relatively straightforward observations such as SAV presence or absence, selected species observations, general SAV distribution, water depth and clarity, location information and photographs.

Photographs are particularly useful because they create a record that project researchers can review alongside submitted observations and use as part of the project’s quality-assurance process.

As White Oak SAV Watchers develops, the research team will evaluate the results and volunteer experience and refine the monitoring methods as appropriate.

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Connecting SAV and Water Quality

Healthy underwater vegetation depends on healthy water.

Water clarity is particularly important because SAV needs sunlight to reach its underwater leaves. Sediment, nutrients and other changes in water conditions can reduce the amount of light available to these plants.

That is why this project considers SAV observations alongside water conditions rather than treating them as separate issues.

APNEP’s SAV monitoring program describes SAV as an important indicator of overall water quality and has coordinated long-term efforts to map and monitor underwater grasses across the Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine system.

The NC SAV Watchers project also incorporates community-monitoring approaches and educational resources associated with NC Stream Watch, a North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality program that helps communities observe, explore and learn about the state’s waterways.

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Why Community Science?

North Carolina has an extensive network of rivers, sounds, estuaries and coastal waters. Professional researchers and resource managers cannot monitor every location at every point in time.

Well-designed community science can help increase the geographic reach and frequency of environmental observations while giving local residents an opportunity to better understand the waters they care about.

But useful community science requires more than simply collecting a large amount of information. Information also needs to be collected consistently, and its quality needs to be understood.

That is what makes this research particularly important.

NC SAV Watchers is testing the data as well as the monitoring approach. By comparing observations from trained community members with professionally collected observations, researchers can evaluate where community-generated data are dependable, where additional training or quality control may be needed and how these observations could ultimately complement existing monitoring programs.

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SAV Monitoring Across North Carolina

The Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership (APNEP) and its partners have monitored North Carolina’s underwater grasses for more than two decades.

APNEP’s SAV monitoring program combines large-scale mapping with field-based monitoring to better understand the location, extent and condition of underwater grasses. These efforts are especially important because aerial surveys can have difficulty detecting SAV in areas with turbid or less-clear water.

Explore APNEP’s SAV monitoring program, maps and resources.

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Follow White Oak SAV Watchers

This webpage will serve as a growing home for the project. As White Oak SAV Watchers develops, we plan to share:

• Updates from community monitoring events
• Photos and stories from the field
• SAV identification and educational resources
• Volunteer training materials
• Maps and monitoring information
• Future volunteer opportunities
• Research updates and project findings
• Information about the UNCW and CCRW partnership

Interested in future White Oak SAV Watchers opportunities?

Visit CCRW’s Get Involved page to learn more about volunteering with Coastal Carolina Riverwatch.

You can also contact CCRW White Oak Waterkeeper Christina Boxberger at Waterkeeper@coastalcarolinariverwatch.org.

White Oak SAV Watchers is a developing research and community science initiative. Monitoring methods, volunteer opportunities and project resources will continue to be refined as the research progresses.