Contact: Bob Ratliff
Cynthia Henderson's graduate classroom often is filled these days with marsh grass and shrimp.
As part of her master's degree program in biological engineering at Mississippi State, the Grenada resident is conducting wetlands research in Biloxi with the state Department of Marine Resources. She is the university's first graduate student in the major to be part of a Marine Resources research effort.
Henderson is investigating mitigation wetlands-the land used to offset destruction of an existing wetland. Her yearlong study will help DMR select an evaluation method for its increasing mitigation workload along the Gulf Coast.
"Restoration and conservation efforts are required for developments that will damage wetlands," Henderson said. "Because human development has a varying impact on potential mitigation wetlands, it is important to have a way to evaluate the health of the wetlands and the amount of mitigation required."
Henderson will examine two distinct mitigation-site assessment methods in an effort to determine which one is more appropriate for the state's coastal areas. They include the so-called "HydroGeoMorphic" approach developed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the State of Florida's "Wetlands Rapid Assessment Procedure."
Both require collection of significant amounts of data about plants, animals, water characteristics, and other factors. The Florida approach generally is recognized for requiring less detail and less time to complete, however.
A 1999 MSU biological engineering graduate, Henderson is drawing on training both in biology and engineering to complete the project, said Tom Cathcart, the major professor in her graduate study.
"A wetland is both a complex ecological system and a complicated hydraulics/soils problem," the MSU biological engineer added. "It's just not possible to intelligently evaluate a wetland without considering both biology and engineering."
Henderson's computer skills, especially those involving geographic information systems, also are an essential part of the work she is doing for DMR, Cathcart said.
"Geographic information systems, or GIS, can be used to create detailed maps and will play an important role in defining and representing wetlands," he said.