National
Ruined crops, salty soil: How rising seas are poisoning North Carolina’s farmland
Sarah Kaplan
March 1 at 7:27 PM
MIDDLETOWN, N.C. —The salty patches were small, at first — scattered spots where soybeans wouldn’t grow, where grass withered and died, exposing expanses of bare, brown earth.
But lately those barren patches have grown. On dry days, the salt precipitates out of the mud and the crystals make the soil sparkle in the sunlight. And on a damp and chilly afternoon in January, the salt makes Dawson Pugh furrow his brow in dismay.
“It’s been getting worse,” the farmer tells East Carolina University hydrologistAlex Manda, who drove out to this corner of coastal North Carolina with a group of graduate students to figure out what’s poisoning Pugh’s land — and whether anything can be done to stop it.
Ofclimate change’s many plagues— drought, insects, fires, floods —saltwater intrusionin particular sounds almost like a biblical curse. Rising seas, sinking earth and extreme weather are conspiring to cause salt from the ocean to contaminate aquifers and turn formerly fertile fields barren. A2016 study in the journal Sciencepredicted that 9 percent of the U.S. coastline is vulnerable to saltwater intrusion — a percentage likely to grow as the world continues to warm. Scientists are just beginning to assess the potential effect on agriculture, Manda said, and it’s not yet clear how much can be mitigated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...d74f4bf0295_story.html?utm_term=.77204d95741e
Ruined crops, salty soil: How rising seas are poisoning North Carolina’s farmland
Sarah Kaplan
March 1 at 7:27 PM
MIDDLETOWN, N.C. —The salty patches were small, at first — scattered spots where soybeans wouldn’t grow, where grass withered and died, exposing expanses of bare, brown earth.
But lately those barren patches have grown. On dry days, the salt precipitates out of the mud and the crystals make the soil sparkle in the sunlight. And on a damp and chilly afternoon in January, the salt makes Dawson Pugh furrow his brow in dismay.
“It’s been getting worse,” the farmer tells East Carolina University hydrologistAlex Manda, who drove out to this corner of coastal North Carolina with a group of graduate students to figure out what’s poisoning Pugh’s land — and whether anything can be done to stop it.
Ofclimate change’s many plagues— drought, insects, fires, floods —saltwater intrusionin particular sounds almost like a biblical curse. Rising seas, sinking earth and extreme weather are conspiring to cause salt from the ocean to contaminate aquifers and turn formerly fertile fields barren. A2016 study in the journal Sciencepredicted that 9 percent of the U.S. coastline is vulnerable to saltwater intrusion — a percentage likely to grow as the world continues to warm. Scientists are just beginning to assess the potential effect on agriculture, Manda said, and it’s not yet clear how much can be mitigated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...d74f4bf0295_story.html?utm_term=.77204d95741e
