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Louisiana’s Coastal Forest: Carbon Sink or Carbon Source? There’s Still Time to Decide [1]

['Frédéric Brizzi']

Date: 2021-10-03 07:43:39-04:00

Louisiana’s Coastal Forest: Carbon Sink or Carbon Source? There’s Still Time to Decide

The Mississippi River Watershed—the fourth largest watershed in the world that includes all or parts of 32 states and two Canadian provinces—acts as a drain for roughly 40% of the continental United States.

Many of the Mississippi Delta’s environmental problems are well-documented, such as the omnipresent “dead zone” caused by nutrient runoff from upstream sources, as well as the accelerated coastal erosion that has averaged the size of a football field every hour for the last 35 years. What has failed to capture national attention, though, has been the alarming rate of deterioration of a vital coastal forest ecosystem unique to southern Louisiana.

Over one million acres comprise this unique habitat, which serves as one of the final stretches of land connected to the watershed before it deposits into the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal forest is a delicately balanced system that consists of soils historically subjected to seasonal flooding from the Mississippi River and its distributaries, as well as tidal influence from the Gulf of Mexico. This hydrologic regime provided alternating periods of drying followed by several months of seasonal flooding on an annual basis.

The net result of these hydrologic patterns over thousands of years was an environment uniquely adapted for bald cypress and water tupelo trees to establish and thrive. These forests in turn deliver a host of positive environmental and economic benefits, including: (i) carbon sequestration; (ii) floodwater retention; (iii) hurricane and storm surge buffering; (iv) nutrient and pollutant filtration from stormwater runoff; (v) wildlife habitat; (vi) erosion prevention; (vii) outdoor recreation and tourism; and (viii) commercial resources, such as wild alligators, crawfish, and timber.

Indeed, the coastal forest is rapidly becoming Louisiana’s last line of defense for much of the southeastern region of the state. Hurricane Ida’s recent storm surge and backwater flooding into many of Louisiana’s low-lying areas demonstrated the need for drastic investment to promote the resilience of this ecosystem. Not only is the coastal forest strategically situated to provide a critical buffer against hurricanes, but it also helps diffuse tidal surges while providing crucial storage areas for accompanying floodwaters.

Unfortunately, over the past 125 years, many changes occurred throughout the lower Mississippi River Delta that have altered the historic hydrologic patterns necessary to sustain this unique forest, including:

Construction of levees along the Mississippi River and dams/water control structures on three of its major distributaries;

Construction of a ground-level highway and a railroad from Houston to New Orleans, which closed off many of the natural drains necessary for efficient movement of water through this region to the Gulf of Mexico;

Water diversion and flood control projects that altered natural flood patterns and sediment dispersal;

Forced drainage projects for development that reduced the size of flood retention basins and accelerated delivery of waters to low-lying areas like the coastal forest;

Increased agricultural, industrial, and residential activities upstream, leading to higher nutrient and contaminant loads from these sources;

Erosion of marsh lands and creation of man-made navigation channels, leading to increased saltwater intrusion; and

Natural and man-made subsidence and sea level rise.

Dying Stand of Cypress

As a result of these changes, the coastal forest has experienced a rapid decline in health and vigor, with at least 50% of the forest either dead or dying. Rudy Sparks, who manages roughly 150,000 acres of the coastal forest for private landowners in south Louisiana, has witnessed this downturn over his 40+ years serving in that role. “This decline was first observed some 50 years ago, but it has rapidly intensified over the last decade as the cumulative effects of these changes are taking their toll. The coastal forest historically supported a thriving cypress timber industry, and from 1870 to 1930, approximately 15 sawmills were established in this region. These sawmills employed thousands of local workers and exported millions of board feet of cypress lumber to the East Coast and Texas for home and commercial construction. Today, there are no cypress sawmills operating in the area, and little, if any, timber is harvested as this forest continues to deteriorate.”

Healthy Stand of Cypress

Not only does the decline of this forest equate to a total loss of the benefits listed above, but failure to take immediate action could have significant global consequences related to climate change. Estimates show that the coastal forest of south Louisiana currently stores over 17 million tons of carbon, not including additional carbon stored in the soil. A recent study from North Carolina State University found that drowned coastal forests are major sources of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, with the potential of released gases to grow exponentially over the next half century if left unaddressed. “[It’s] kind of like measuring the last breath of these forests,” says Marcelo Ardon, an ecosystems ecologist and biogeochemist at N.C. State. “But these trees are important to overall emissions.” Indeed, the study’s results indicate that these “ghost forests” are currently increasing the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by at least 25%. Without intervention, the vast majority of Louisiana’s coastal forest is projected to convert to open water areas by the end of this century.

Carbon sequestration potential

The Biden Administration and Congress have highlighted carbon sequestration as a potential tool in the overall strategy for combating climate change. Recently introduced legislation focuses on the need for more trees and better forest management to increase the amount of carbon sequestered in these environments. Regenerative farming practices have also caught on, aimed at sequestering more carbon in the soil through reduced tilling, rotation of cover crops, and better grazing management. And there is no shortage of blue carbon bills in the House and Senate seeking to capitalize on the marine environment's potential to sequester tons of carbon from the atmosphere. Each of these solutions brings value to addressing the worst effects of climate change; however, as currently drafted, almost none of them would fully address the issues facing the coastal forest in Louisiana.

Roughly 80% of the state’s coastal forest exists on privately-owned land. One group of engaged private landowners believes there is still time to stem the worst effects of losing the coastal forest, with a chance to completely revitalize much of the region. According to Sparks, “Depending upon the overall health and vigor of the area, these forests currently sequester 0 to 2 tons of carbon per acre each year, with the potential to double those numbers in a healthy stand of forest.” But capitalizing on these opportunities will demand a comprehensive, collaborative response that marries the interests and resources of different groups, including coastal forest landowners, the federal government, and the private sector.

Ground-Level Highway

Fortunately, solutions already exist for improving and restoring Louisiana’s coastal forest. Some would require large water diversion projects, designed to reestablish historic hydrologic patterns that sustained this unique forest for thousands of years. However, other low resource-intensive opportunities exist to implement meaningful changes, such as the improvement of internal drainage in specific areas, amendment of hydrologic functions via pumping stations, and aerial seed deployment. Indeed, several success stories already exist from targeted research studies utilizing these very activities, but to date there have been no large-scale efforts aimed at implementing these strategies.

This is mostly due to limited access to upfront capital, an obstructive federal permitting process, and the lack of any economic incentives, such as carbon offset credits, for private landowners to justify taking on such vast endeavors alone. “The vast majority of the coastal forest has been privately-owned over the course of 4 or 5 generations, so pride of ownership is prevalent,” Sparks says. “But hydrologic restoration, even on a small scale, is difficult—if not impossible—to implement, as no economic incentives exist, impediments to government permits are enormous and time-consuming, and associated mitigation requirements to any restorative efforts make projects of all sizes cost-prohibitive.”

Sparks believes that implementing these strategies will require federal agencies to revisit their policies and adjust them for addressing climate change, especially at the Army Corps of Engineers: “The Corps has been extremely slow to approve even the simplest permit. We are often told that before we can address the issues on our property, we must first commit to mitigating any impacts elsewhere. So we’re having to mitigate before we can mitigate. And the irony is that many of the issues we’re facing were caused by the Corps’ flood control projects dating back to the 1920s.” Now, with so much national and global attention on climate change mitigation solutions, Sparks and other private landowners are hoping there will be a renewed political will to remove red tape and put real resources behind these simple solutions.

Ground-Level Railroad

Notably, policymakers’ current focus on “blue carbon ecosystems” provides another unique opportunity to protect this beleaguered forest. Recognizing their carbon sequestration potential, bills in both Houses of Congress seek to protect and rehabilitate “blue carbon ecosystems,” including mangroves, tidal marshes, seagrasses, kelp forests, and other coastal wetlands. These bills provide a prime opportunity to preserve and rejuvenate Louisiana’s coastal forest; they are designed in part to fund and cut red tape relating to protecting coastal wetlands.

Certain aspects of this legislation may not, however, extend fully to the Louisiana coastal forest. Due to the construction of railroads and ground-level highways, in addition to the Army Corps’ construction of the levee system, much of this coastal forest is no longer subject to tidal influence, though they were tidally influenced prior to all of these man-made obstacles. In July, Rep. Garret Graves successfully introduced an amendment during the House Natural Resources Committee mark-up of H.R. 3764, the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act, to specifically include Louisiana’s coastal forest within proposed “blue carbon” programs.

The coastal forest of south Louisiana took several millennia to evolve and establish itself as a truly unique ecosystem. It is imperative that this forest’s plight finally reach a national audience and receive the necessary support to conserve and restore it. Failure to protect this threatened region will have enormous consequences that could resonate far beyond these majestic swamps.

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[1] Url: https://www.internationalconservation.org/issues/marine-conservation/louisiana-s-coastal-forest-carbon-sink-or-carbon-source-there-s-still-time-to-decide

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