Salt marshes mitigate hurricane damage

Weather experts say the 2024 hurricane season could spawn a record number of storms along with increased intensity. News that once again has observers keeping a close eye on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. One natural mitigator to potential storm damage is North Carolina’s approximately 222,000 acres of salt marshes, which play a key role in protecting coastal North Carolina communities, reducing property damage in nearby areas by an average of 20 percent.

“The salt marshes absorb flood waters and wave motion and energy,” said Katie Mccullough, curator at the North Carolina Estuarium. “The marshes generally incorporate peat, which is dead vegetation that is super absorbent and saturated with water. They help keep the land from washing away and eroding. Think of it as a wave crashing into mud as opposed to sand. By doing so they protect us along the inner banks as well.”

NC Estuarium director Tom Stroud said Portsmouth Island, an uninhabited island at the very southern tip of the Outer Banks, is surrounded by salt marshes. “It pretty much separates the Pamlico Sound from a direct opening with the Atlantic Ocean,” said Stroud. “It has a lot of salt marshes around it and a strong sea oat structure. And the fact that the salt marshes are so intact there it really helps to keep the Pamlico Sound from becoming a part of the Atlantic Ocean.”

Stroud said all intact marsh systems, the swamp forests that ring the Inner Banks, brackish marshes, and salt marshes all attenuate wave energy. “These marshes are very important for keeping the full energy of the flood waters from causing even more damage, be it along the coast or further inland,” said Stroud. “The water will still come in our direction, but the force in which it does and the amount of water will be reduced and you don’t get the erosion.”

Stroud and McCullough pointed out the importance of protecting the salt marshes as ocean levels continue to rise and water temperatures get warmer due to global warming. “As more salt water encroaches the brackish marshes of our area because of rising seas, these ecosystems that have been protecting the shores of the Inner Banks will be weakened over time and the swamp forests will eventually die out, which means eventually the flood waters will intrude even further inland. This is why it is vital to do what we can do now to protect them before it is too late.”

A recent study by the South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative outlined a list of mitigators to help protect these valuable and fragile ecosystems. They include protecting and restoring the health and functions of existing salt marshes, conserving migration corridors, removing and retrofitting barriers and adjacent lands to ensure salt marshes can shift as sea levels rise, stopping the building on or along salt marshes, and elevating new roads above the important wildlife habitat.

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