<
https://www.hcn.org/articles/the-wests-wetlands-are-struggling-some-have-been-overlooked-altogether/>
"On a warm day in August, Anthony Stewart hiked through a forest on
Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, making his way through a tangle of ferns and
grasses. Wispy, lichen-coated branches hung overhead, providing shade as he set
down his backpack and shovel, and he and his team prepared to dig.
This was one of Stewart’s favorite study sites, he said. It’s relatively dry on
the surface, but just underneath it, a layer of reddish soil, full of organic
matter, gives way to gray-blue, claylike soil. These layers, formed over time
as water flooded the area, are signs of a wetland. But like many forested
wetlands in the Pacific Northwest, this area doesn’t appear on any state maps.
In a recent study published in
Nature Communications, Stewart and his team
reported the surprising abundance of unmapped, carbon-rich wetlands in the
Pacific Northwest’s forests. The scientists studied the Hoh River watershed,
which snakes westward across the Olympic Peninsula, documenting wetlands that
were invisible to satellite imaging, the standard technique for measuring
wetlands, owing to the thick forest canopy. Including them in estimates of the
watershed’s carbon-storage capacity increased them by fivefold.
Conserving forested wetlands not only protects valuable habitat; it could help
stabilize the climate. But first, the wetlands must be put on the map — and
that is no easy task."
Via
The Atlantic:
<
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/05/wetlands-forest-unmapped-carbon-washington/678513/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
