Breakout-out Sessions

  • The purpose of this break-out session is to identify potential research activities focusing specifically on terrestrial vegetation. The Raccoon Creek watershed is home to a diversity of plant community types including montane longleaf pine, mixed hardwood forest, riparian forest, and planted loblolly pine stands. There is a wide range of successional stages throughout the Paulding Forest and Sheffield Wildlife Management Areas. This provides an ideal setting for investigations ranging from floristic surveys to long-term studies of vegetation change over time and space. Current and future plans to return significant acreage to montane longleaf pine also provides unique opportunities. 
  • The purpose of this break-out session is to identify potential research activities focusing specifically on terrestrial fauna. The diversity of vegetation, terrain, and geology within the watershed provides a variety of potential habitats for animals of all types. This provides an ideal setting for investigations ranging from faunal surveys to long-term studies of changes in populations and community structure over time and space. For example, Kennesaw State University, GADNR, and USFWS have an ongoing bat monitoring project in Sheffield and Paulding Wildlife Management Areas. Current and future plans to return significant acreage to montane longleaf pine create a wide range of experimental manipulations waiting to be explored. Management of exploited populations by GA DNR also provides potential research opportunities.

  • The purpose of this break-out session is to identify potential research activities focusing specifically on aquatic systems in the watershed. Raccoon Creek is the least-impacted watershed in the Etowah River Basin downstream of Allatoona Dam and has been identified as a significant conservation basin in the Georgia DNR’s State Wildlife Action plan. The Paulding Water Authority monitors water quality, fish community structure, and aquatic invertebrate abundance at a number of sites throughout the basin and The Nature Conservancy, in cooperation with GADNR, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Kennesaw State University have a number of ongoing restoration projects in the watershed. These activities provide a solid base of opportunities for continuing research efforts in the watershed.
  • The purpose of this break-out session is to identify research, education, and outreach activities that expand the visibility of the watershed. The Raccoon Creek Watershed provides unlimited opportunities to engage K-12 students, Paulding County residents, and citizens of the larger Atlanta Metropolitan Area in activities that combine education, conservation, research, and community outreach. TNC, GADNR, and Kennesaw State University have had a number of successes in this arena and are actively looking to expand these opportunities.  Preliminary discussions are underway investigating the potential for an Environmental Research and Education Center in the watershed that could serve as the anchor for these efforts.
  • The purpose of this break-out session is to identify mechanisms to bring together faculty and students from multiple institutions in formal and informal ways to facilitate research and educational activities. The Raccoon Creek Watershed is within an easy drive of a number of institutions of higher education in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area that value the role research plays in the overall mission of their institution. Developing a consortium of colleges and universities that could share intellectual, physical, and institutional resources to develop research and funding initiatives built around the watershed could create expanded hands-on learning opportunities for the students at those institutions, as well as education, mentoring, and research opportunities for faculty that might otherwise be unavailable.
  • The purpose of this break-out session is to discuss the role the Raccoon Creek watershed could play as a control for the effects of urban sprawl on natural communities. The Atlanta Metropolitan Area continues to expand and the landscape contained within Paulding and Sheffield WMAs represents one of the largest contiguous tracts of undeveloped land in the 28 county metropolitan statistical area. Foresight, planning, and financial commitment by Paulding County, GADNR, USFWS, and TNC have ensured that it will remain relatively undeveloped well into the future. This provides an ideal setting against which the changes in the surrounding exurban landscape can be assessed.
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