Introduction: The Coweeta LTER Research Program has evolved since 1980 from a site-based to a site and region-based project which examines the effects of disturbance and environmental gradients on biogeochemical cycling (To learn more about the evolution of Coweeta research through time, please visit "Evolution of  Research at Coweeta"). By studying watershed ecosystem processes which regulate and respond to the biogeochemical cycling effects, we are able to unravel the impact humans have on varied environmental conditions and provide solid science to guide future land use planning.

Project Proposal Form - The first step for researchers and students interested in conducting research at Coweeta.

Current Research -- Southern Appalachia on the Edge
Our current program examines the projected consequences that climate change and changing land use practices will have on southern Appalachia. We expect landscapes in the southeastern U.S. to change profoundly in the next five decades as the socioeconomic factors driving the dramatic exurbanization of the past three decades persist, and as climate change intensifies. Climate and land use change will especially impact the rural and semi-rural lands that still characterize much of our region (Gragson and Bolstad 2006). Since the southern Appalachian region is both a ‘water tower’, supplying freshwater supplies the Southeast and among the most biodiverse temperate regions in the U.S., if not the world, our research will provide crucial within-system knowledge to other scientists, policy makers, and the public.
 
Past Research 2002-2008
 This interdisciplinary research program integrated ecological and socioeconomic components across 54,000 km2 of the southern Appalachian Mountains, a bio-geophysical and socioeconomic region in which evolutionary and historical processes converge (Whittaker 1956, Markusen 1987, Barnes 1991, Kretzschmar et al. 1993, Bailey 1996). Our research objective was to advance scientific understanding of the spatial, temporal, and decision-making components of land use and land-use change in the southern Appalachian Mountains over the last 200 years, and forecast patterns into the future 30 years.
Past Research 1996-2002
 The focus of the 1996-2002 Coweeta LTER research was to investigate the complex interactions of natural disturbances and human land use across a range of scales. Within the southern Appalachian Mountains, these effects interact with steep environmental gradients to produce complex spatial patterns and temporal dynamics that are present in the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and landscape levels. The Coweeta Basin has over a 60 year history of ecosystem research that provides invaluable baseline information and whose past results coupled with our society's needs have led the current direction of inquiry.
Legacy Research pre-1996
 In 1933, 3,900 acres (later increased to 5,750 acres) of the Nantahala National Forest were set aside as the Coweeta Experimental Forest for an expanded program in watershed management research. An intensive program of weir construction began in 1934 along with a network of 56 standard rain gages, numerous ground-water wells, and meteorological stations. By 1939, calibration of watersheds at Coweeta was far enough along on some catchments to begin treatments, and a period of experimentation began.

 Evolution of Research at Coweeta
 Interest in the forest environment in the Southeast began more than 90 years ago with lively speculation about the influence of forests on climate and public health, and on soil and stream flow. In a widely-read 1909 government publication, Major-General Chittenden of the Mississippi River Flood Control project argued that forests were of no significance in flood control. The framers of the Weeks Act of 1911, which led to the creation of the national forests, did not concur in this view. The controversy reached a high pitch at the time of the disastrous 1927 flood on the Mississippi River. Almost everything written on the favorable effects of forests on stream flow was under heyeyeye continue.