NC SAV Watchers is part of the research project formally titled
“Evaluating the Accuracy, Precision, and Reliability of Citizen Science Data for Ecological Metrics in North Carolina Coastal Habitats.”
The project is supported through

North Carolina Sea Grant’s 2026–2028 Core Research Program
.

The research is led by

Dr. Jessie C. Jarvis

of UNCW, with Lisa Rider of Coastal Carolina Riverwatch serving as Co-Principal Investigator.
CCRW serves as a community implementation partner, connecting the research with local volunteers and coastal communities.

The White Oak River Basin is serving as an important community implementation area for the project, with initial Fall 2026 SAV fieldwork focused in Chadwick Bay near Sneads Ferry.
What the research team learns through these early monitoring efforts will help inform the development of a practical NC SAV Watchers model that can be refined and potentially expanded to other coastal communities.

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What is SAV?

Submerged aquatic vegetation, or SAV, refers to aquatic plants that grow completely underwater.
In coastal areas, some types of SAV are commonly called underwater grasses or seagrasses.

Although these habitats can be difficult to see from shore, they are an important part of healthy coastal ecosystems.
SAV meadows can:

• Provide nursery and refuge habitat for fish, shellfish and other aquatic organisms
• Stabilize bottom sediments and help reduce erosion
• Slow water movement and reduce wave energy
• Support nutrient cycling and other ecological processes
• Help maintain clearer water by stabilizing sediments
• Support productive, diverse and resilient estuarine ecosystems

Peer-reviewed research describes seagrass meadows as ecosystem engineers that can influence sediment movement, water clarity, biodiversity, fisheries habitat, carbon storage and coastal resilience.
Because these underwater plants depend on adequate light and suitable environmental conditions, changes in SAV can also provide important information about changes occurring in the surrounding estuary.

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:

To answer that question, the project is doing more than simply recruiting volunteers to collect observations.
Researchers are intentionally comparing community-generated information with professional datasets so they can evaluate where community monitoring performs well, where uncertainty occurs and what training or quality-assurance measures are most useful.

Across the broader two-year research effort, the NC Sea Grant project calls for monthly water-quality monitoring and biannual SAV surveys, with researchers collecting parallel datasets for comparison.
The Fall 2026 Chadwick Bay field event is an early pilot within that larger effort and uses a simplified set of field observations while volunteers and researchers refine training, field procedures and data-submission tools.

The long-term goal is not simply to conduct individual volunteer events.
The research is testing whether a practical and scientifically useful community-monitoring model can help increase SAV monitoring capacity in coastal North Carolina.

Read North Carolina Sea Grant’s description of the NC SAV Watchers research project.

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What the Science Tells Us

NC SAV Watchers is grounded in a larger body of scientific research on seagrass ecology, water quality and community-based environmental monitoring.
Several findings are especially relevant to this project.

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Learning From Chesapeake Bay SAV Watchers

North Carolina is not starting from scratch.
NC SAV Watchers draws lessons and resources from the established

Chesapeake Bay SAV Watchers Program
.

Chesapeake Bay SAV Watchers is the volunteer-based Tier II component of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s larger SAV monitoring system.
Trained volunteers document SAV diversity and habitat characteristics and submit field observations and photographs.
Their work is designed to complement, rather than replace, broader aerial surveys and more intensive professional monitoring.

The Chesapeake program also demonstrates the value of tiered participation, standardized training, clear field protocols, strong photographic documentation and digital data submission.
NC SAV Watchers is adapting lessons from that model to North Carolina’s coastal habitats, research questions and communities.

Explore Chesapeake Bay SAV Watchers and its volunteer monitoring 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 the Coastal Plant Ecology Lab.

Dr. Jarvis’s research focuses on the ecology of estuarine and coastal shallow-water habitats vegetated with seagrasses and other submerged aquatic vegetation.
Her work examines relationships between aquatic plants and environmental factors, including water-quality conditions that influence growth, reproduction, survival, resilience and restoration.
Her research interests also include remote sensing, ecological modeling and water-quality monitoring.

For NC SAV Watchers, UNCW provides scientific leadership, professional monitoring and research design.
Coastal Carolina Riverwatch helps translate that research framework into community implementation by coordinating volunteers, local field logistics, outreach, education and connections with communities in the White Oak River Basin.

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

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

The survey builds on 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 approach for the first community survey.

During the October pilot, volunteers will help document:

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

For this initial pilot, volunteers will remain in their kayaks or paddle craft rather than entering the water.
Several components of the scientific monitoring protocol have intentionally been simplified for the first community survey so observations can be collected as consistently as possible by trained volunteers.

For safety reasons, participating volunteers must be at least 21 years old and have prior paddling experience.
Additional field logistics and safety information 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, GPS location and photographs.
As the project advances, researchers will evaluate which measurements provide the best combination of scientific value, repeatability and realistic field use.

Photographs are especially valuable because they create a visual record that can be reviewed alongside a submitted observation.
Photo documentation can help verify species observations, provide context about habitat conditions and strengthen quality-assurance procedures.

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Connecting SAV and Water Quality

Healthy underwater vegetation depends on suitable water conditions.
Because SAV must photosynthesize below the water surface, enough sunlight must reach its leaves.

Suspended sediment and other sources of turbidity can reduce light penetration.
Fine sediments can also settle onto plants or bury portions of them.
Nutrient enrichment, algal growth, physical disturbance, storms, temperature changes and other environmental stressors can also influence SAV condition and distribution.

This is why NC SAV Watchers considers SAV observations alongside water conditions rather than treating vegetation and water quality as separate issues.

APNEP’s SAV monitoring program

has coordinated long-term efforts to map and monitor underwater grasses and describes SAV as an important indicator of overall estuarine condition.

NC SAV Watchers also connects community participation with educational approaches used by programs such as

NC Stream Watch
,
a North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality program that encourages communities to observe, explore and learn about the state’s waterways.

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Why Community Science?

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

Well-designed community science can increase the geographic reach and frequency of environmental observations while giving residents opportunities to build knowledge and stewardship around the waters they care about.

But useful community science requires more than collecting a large quantity of information.
The methods must be understandable, observations must be collected consistently, and researchers need a way to evaluate uncertainty and data quality.

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SAV Monitoring Across North Carolina

The Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership

and its partners have worked for more than two decades to map and monitor North Carolina’s underwater grasses.

APNEP’s monitoring program combines large-scale mapping with field-based observations to better understand SAV location, extent and change through time.
That combination is especially important because SAV can occur in patchy beds and in waters where turbidity or other conditions make aerial detection more difficult.

NC SAV Watchers does not replace those established monitoring programs.
Instead, it is testing whether trained community observers can contribute another useful layer of locally collected information.

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

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From a Local Pilot to a North Carolina Model

Chadwick Bay is an early testing ground, but the larger vision extends beyond one field location.
The project team will use what it learns from monitoring events, professional comparisons and participant feedback to refine training materials, field procedures, digital data tools and quality-control methods.

If the approach proves reliable, NC SAV Watchers could help create a more scalable framework for community-supported SAV monitoring in other parts of coastal North Carolina.
The goal is a program that is useful to scientists and resource managers while also being understandable, practical and meaningful for the communities participating in it.

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Follow NC SAV Watchers

This webpage will serve as a growing home for NC SAV Watchers.
As the project develops, CCRW plans to share:

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

Interested in future NC 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
.