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By Peggy Chen, Duke + NCSSM Summer Internship Explore the dashboard yourself here, and if you would like to, we welcome anonymous feedback through this form. Sea level rise and saltwater intrusion (SWISLR) act together to collectively alter socio-ecological systems on coastlines. There’s a lot of work required of scientists and coastal residents to make solutions work – and even then, it’s an uphill battle to combat an issue with such an extensive scope of effects. This summer I worked in the Bernhardt Lab with Kiera O’Donnell and Heili Lowman helping with a SWISLR RCN project that addressed SWISLR solutions holistically.
The overarching goal that guides this project is to quantify perceived and actual water quality risks due to SWISLR for rural coastal communities in North Carolina. This is invaluable to understanding and sharing the future actions residents in these vulnerable areas can take to safeguard themselves and their families from the threats of SWISLR. But before we can get started on testing water quality and guiding community discussions, we wondered: what has already been done to address coastal water quality threats? We were especially interested in how human infrastrucutre like septic and well water systems were at risk. These systems are hypothesised to be compromized with the rising saltwater but there is not a clear answer to how much water is too much water for these coastal systems. Scientists may be able to estimate an answer based on the literature they read or produce, but for informing on the ground solutions and actions this isn’t such an easy question to answer. Over the summer many SWISLR RCN participants attended the SALT (Salinity-Affected Lands in Transition) Conference in Cambridge, Maryland, in June 2024. With approximately 200 attendees, this conference was a great opportunity to bring folks together around important issues related to working lands affected by saltwater intrusion. We learned about the current research through 8 curated sessions, a poster session, and two keynote talks. In the first Keynote, Dr. Emily Bernhardt discussed the possible futures that could take place if we can work together to untangle the complexities surrounding SWISLR. She stepped through what we know about SWISLR, what is currently happening to study SWISLR, and the new technology being used to combat SWISLR issues. In the second Keynote, Dr. Diana Seecharran provided a global perspective and discussed how the rice-based farmers in Guyana are reacting and adapting to the SWISLR problem. The other sessions covered topics on the environmental, social, and economic issues SWISLR is causing throughout the coastal plain.
One of our partner networks, the Down East Resilience Network, hosted an event to remember hurricane Florence and to take a look at how prepared Down East North Carolina is for the next big event. The community conversations started with memories of where Down East was five years ago, asking the big questions of “were we ready then?” and “are we ready for the next one?” Community members shared their concerns with the chronic flooding they are facing now, highlighting the fact that if it floods on a sunny day it will be even worse during a storm.
This event brought a mix of researchers, media, elected officials and community members together to listen and talk to one another. Members from our own SWISLR RCN were there to talk about ghost forests, a ghost forest sentinel site, the sunny day flooding project, and partnership opportunities. There were multiple panels and talks to share the changes that Down East is seeing, what the potential reasons behind these changes are, and how Down East is handling these changes. Local fishers spoke on the shifts in their fishing industry, Dr. Emily Bernhardt talked about the increase of ghost forests and what they mean, and Dr. Katherine Arnade and Dr. Chris Voss talked about sea level rise and flooding. These changes people are seeing in their surroundings give insight into the reality of living so close to the edge of the ocean. One community member said that the “beauty and abundance of water define our communities.” At the end of last month we had our first SWISLR all-hands meeting! Many exciting projects, working groups, and connections were created at this event. The group of people that were able to join describe our time at Camp Don Lee the best:  "A bunch of SWISLR enthusiasts all met up at a coastal summer camp and ate s’mores and kayaked. We played games and shared our stories. We renewed our excitement for science. We saw dolphins off the pier. We saw the ghost trees of the ghost forests. We talked out complex problems. We made new connections and Karen from Harker’s island made me cry. We came up with some really exciting new projects. We worked really hard. We learned about the struggles of local communities. We met some amazing artists. We sparked new ideas. We heard emotional stories and shared stories of our own. We started projects we will keep on working on together. We thought about salt in a lot of different places and created a SWISLR community! We embraced inter-disciplinary work and we made plans to continue this work into the future. We shared fun personal stories about fieldwork around the campfire. Enjoyed nerding out and wish there was more archery. We learned about the environmental conditions at Camp Don Lee where we were staying. Baby Quinn put her toes in the water and the sand for the first time. And it was awesome!"  |
AuthorsKiera O'Donnell:[email protected] Archives
September 2024
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