The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill temporarily worsened existing manmade problems in Louisiana’s salt marshes such as erosion, but there may be cause for optimism, according to a new study.
A study appearing online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found the 2010 spill killed off salt marsh plants 15 to 30 feet from the shoreline and this plant die off resulted in a more-than-doubled rate of erosion along the marsh edge and subsequent permanent marsh habitat loss. Vegetation farther from shore was relatively untouched by the incoming oil.
“Louisiana is already losing about a football field worth of wetlands every hour, and that was before the spill,” said Brian Silliman, a University of Florida biologist and lead author of the study. “When grasses die from heavy oiling, their roots, that hold the marsh sediment together, also often die. By killing grasses on the marsh shoreline, the spill pushed erosion rates on the marsh edge to more than double what they were before. Because Louisiana was already experiencing significant erosive marsh loss due to the channelization of the Mississippi, this is a big example of how multiple human stressors can have additive effects.”
(From the University of Florida Press release)
For the paper, look here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/06/20/1204922109.full.pdf+html
For the English press release, see:
http://news.ufl.edu/2012/06/25/oil-spill-damage/
For the Dutch press release, see:
http://www.nioz.nl/nioz_nl/a573ca309d071cd5955ac0baaecc35bf.php#b20120626nl
For a US newspaper article about our work, see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/bp-oil-spill-hastened-loss-of-louisiana-marshes-study-says/2012/06/25/gJQAM8bJ2V_story.html
For some Dutch newspaper article, see:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/12432396/__Moeras_voorkwam_erger__.html?cid=rss
http://www.refdag.nl/nieuws/anp/buitenland/moerasvegetatie_voorkwam_grotere_olieramp_1_655297
See also vroege vogels:
Johan van de Koppel 