Our team is recruiting motivated undergraduates to join a summer Climate+/Data+ project monitoring the restoration of New Hope Creek in the Duke Forest. After nearly a century of disrupted stream flow caused by a low-water bridge and breached stone dam, Duke Forest staff have removed these barriers to restore aquatic habitat connectivity for threatened freshwater mussels and their host fish. To evaluate the success of this restoration, the team is using repeat airborne LiDAR and high-resolution drone imagery to track changes in stream geomorphology, streambank stability, and riparian vegetation before and after barrier removal. As a member of this team, you will process multi-temporal LiDAR point clouds, generate digital terrain and canopy height models, quantify erosion and deposition along the streambank, and build interactive visualizations that communicate landscape change over time. You will also help design a reproducible analysis workflow that Duke Forest staff will continue to use for the next five to seven years of monitoring. By the end of the summer, you will have gained practical experience in geospatial data science, remote sensing, and scientific communication, and you will have contributed to a long-term conservation effort in one of Duke’s most valued teaching and research landscapes. This project is well suited to students with interests in environmental science, ecology, geosciences, computer science, statistics, or data visualization.
Project Leads: Tong Qiu and Lee Anne Reilly
Project Manager: Zhuohong Li
