Sept. 14, 2026

Blue Nitrogen: The Nutrient Story Coastal Wetlands Have Been Hiding

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Every time this podcast talks about coastal wetlands, the conversation goes straight to carbon. Marshes, mangroves, and seagrasses pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and lock it in soil for centuries, and that story has earned coastal ecosystems a real seat at the climate table. Dr. Adam Langley, a global change ecologist and professor of biology at Villanova University and a research associate at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, thinks there's a second story hiding in that same soil that could matter just as much, or more: nitrogen. Langley and 37 co-authors just published the first global estimate of how much nitrogen the world's marshes and mangroves actually bury, and the number is staggering.

Pulling from over 8,000 soil measurements across 255 tidal wetland sites worldwide, Langley's team calculated that coastal wetlands sequester roughly 3.2 teragrams of nitrogen every year, a figure Langley makes tangible by comparing it, loosely, to the mass of 700,000 African elephants or to the fertilizer applied to every cornfield in the United States. That's equal to somewhere between 13 and 15 percent of all the nitrogen buried in the world's oceans, a share nobody had managed to calculate on a global scale before this study. Nitrogen doesn't get the same climate spotlight as carbon, but its damage is intensely local: too much of it running off farmland and into estuaries fuels the algal blooms, oxygen dead zones, and red tides that can sicken and kill fish, manatees, and people. Coastal wetlands act, in Langley's words, like nature's kidneys, filtering that nitrogen out of the water and locking it away in oxygen-starved soil where it stays inert, as long as the wetland itself survives.

And that's the catch. These wetlands have kept pace with sea level rise for 5,000 to 10,000 years by building soil vertically, but Langley's research suggests they can only keep up with about 8 millimeters of sea level rise a year, a threshold the global rate, now roughly double what it was 75 years ago, is edging closer to. Andrew and Langley dig into what happens on the other side of that threshold: wetland loss, boat-wake erosion along Florida's Intracoastal Waterway, and mangroves creeping poleward into places like Georgia for the first time on record, possibly helping some marshes hold their ground in the process. They also talk dollars: blue carbon's global value has been estimated at $191 billion, and Langley's team calculates blue nitrogen could be worth even more, a case he hopes gets policymakers to start managing nutrients with the same urgency as carbon.

Takeaways:

Coastal wetlands (marshes and mangroves) bury roughly 3.2 teragrams of nitrogen every year, drawn from a global database of over 8,000 soil measurements across 255 sites, the first estimate of its kind.
That nitrogen burial equals 13 to 15 percent of the world's marine nitrogen burial.
Human activity has more than doubled natural nitrogen inputs to ecosystems, arguably a bigger disruption to the nitrogen cycle than to the carbon cycle, even though nitrogen's damage shows up locally rather than globally.
Blue carbon's global value has been estimated at $191 billion a year; blue nitrogen's could be even higher, an estimated $70 to $339 billion a year.
Wetlands can generally keep pace with roughly 8 millimeters of sea level rise per year by building soil, but the global rate has already roughly doubled since the mid-20th century.
Mangroves are expanding poleward, including a newly documented population in Georgia, which may help some marshes build soil and resist erosion better, though Adam expects overall coastal wetland area to keep shrinking as seas rise faster.

Transcript

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Most of the time on this podcast when
we're talking about coastal wetlands,

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we talk about carbon sequestration.

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The fact that carbon dioxide can
actually be sequestered and put into

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the soil of coastal wetlands like
marshes and mangroves and seagrasses

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and salt marshes, all these different
types of coastal wetlands which

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are great for the environment.

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And of course, you know, the
destruction of these environments

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because of development or because of
sea level rise or things like that

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can really cause problems for the
release of carbon and carbon dioxide.

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Today we're gonna be talking about
a different type of sequestration.

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We're talking about nitrogen sequestration
and how much more important it could

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be than carbon when we're talking
about making the environment healthy.

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We're going to talk to Dr. Adam
Langley, who's a global change

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ecologist in the biology department
at Villanova University, located

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in Pennsylvania, where he is the
director of the graduate program.

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His lab group studies carbon and
nutrient cycling with a keen focus on

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sustainability of marshes and mangroves.

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He is also a research associate at
the Smithsonian Environmental Research

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Center, where he conducts long-term
global change experiments focused on

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predicting how future changes such as
rising atmospheric CO2, rising sea levels,

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nutrient pollution, and exotic plant
invasion will influence the ability of

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coastal wetlands to tolerate sea levels.

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We engage in a great conversation
around why these coastal habitats are

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so important and how climate change is
changing their distribution, sometimes

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for the good, sometimes for the bad,
and how it's going to change places like

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Florida, the state of Florida, and what
changes we're actually seeing already.

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Some of it's not so great, some of
it's really optimistic, uh, so we're

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gonna see what you think about this
on this episode of the How to Protect

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the Ocean podcast, your place Monday
to Friday to catch all the information

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on ocean news, ocean updates, science,
ocean science, and ocean conservation,

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starting right here today with Dr.

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Adam Langley on global ecological change.

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Enjoy this interview, and
we'll talk to you after.

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Hey, Adam.

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Welcome to the How to
Protect the Ocean podcast.

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Are you ready to talk about blue
nutrients and coastal wetlands?

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I'm very excited to do that.

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All right.

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I'm super excited because I know,
like, a lot of times people would

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be like, "Why are you so excited
about, you know, nutrients and

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wetlands? Why is that important?"

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And we're gonna find out
today why it's so important.

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If you don't like your water green,
this is why it's so important to

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learn about how wetlands can sequester
nutrients, just like we talk about how

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wetlands, mangroves, and other coastal
habitats will sequester carbon dioxide.

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It's just as important to get those
nutrients in that soil and keep

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them contained, as have they've done
for, you know, decades and centuries

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and so forth that we've seen.

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But then when they get wrecked and
they're not able to do that ecosystem

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service for us anymore, it kinda
goes to the wayside and we get

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blooms and potentially red tides down
the road and all that nasty stuff.

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So we are gonna talk about an important
study that Adam did, uh, and we're gonna

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get to know Adam a little bit more.

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So Adam, why don't you just let us
know who you are and what you do?

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Okay.

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I'm Adam Langley.

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I'm a global change ecologist
here at Villanova University.

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I come from the mountains and
I did my graduate work actually

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in the high desert of Arizona.

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So it's a strange place- Nice … for a,
a coastal wetland ecologist to be trained.

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Uh, but, you know, I consider myself
an ecosystem ecologist, so I study

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the flows of energy and matter
through ecosystems, carbon and

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nitrogen and water, heat, whatever.

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And so if you're an ecosystem ecologist,
the particular setting isn't as important

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as the processes that you're studying.

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So a lot of the processes-
Mm-hmm … are, are universal to,

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uh, whether it's, uh, you know, the
high plains or a coastal wetland.

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So in terms of looking at the different
systems, what drives you as a scientist

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to really, like, what knowledge
are you seeking when you seek this?

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Like I know, like, for certain
people who look at sharks, they'll

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look at, you know, predator-prey
relationships, and they wanna find out

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different predator-prey relationships.

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And sometimes they'll go outside
of sharks and go to, like, tuna or

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salmon to look at different types
of predator relationships- Mm-hmm

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within different animals,
different types of species.

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For you, in terms of looking at, like,
say, like a desert area or even a

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coastal wetland, is there something
in the middle that really drives the

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question that you're looking for or
has been driving the question that

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you've been looking for recently?

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Coastal wetlands are really
unique among all ecosystems.

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Some people consider them marine,
some people consider them terrestrial.

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They're kind of in between,
so they kind of fall through

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the cracks there a little bit.

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Um, but what's really unique about them
is the biogeochemistry that happens there.

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Um, because they're getting, um, water
from the ocean, um, they're getting runoff

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from land, they're p- partially saturated,
sometimes fully saturated, so they're-

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Mm-hmm … kind of oxygen deprived.

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Um, you have a lot of mixing that goes
on of things that don't mix elsewhere,

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so you get a lot of unique processes.

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Um- They're very dynamic
ecosystems, so from year to year

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things can really change there.

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To me, that alone makes
them pretty fascinating.

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One of the big things that's very
different is that in a forest

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you kind of hit an equilibrium.

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Mm-hmm.

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And this is one of the things that's
important to this paper ultimately,

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where after so many centuries, the
mass of that forest doesn't really

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change, and that forest is no longer,
like, it has no net absorption of

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carbon from the atmosphere, say.

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So it's kind of maxed out.

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That doesn't really happen
in coastal wetlands.

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They kind of adjust based on water level.

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So as long as- Oh, interesting … since
sea level has been rising for roughly

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the last 5 to 10,000 years, depending on
where you are, they continue to build.

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So they're constantly growing
to keep up with sea level.

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So it's almost, you know, you can
think of it like this super organism

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that's hit this different kind of
equilibrium that you don't see Yeah

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just anywhere else.

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Yeah.

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It's interesting, like, so, uh, like to
kind of picture… What I'm picturing is,

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like, mangrove forests, so the mangrove
trees, depending on the species, 5 to

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10,000 years ago were, like, shorter in
terms of height- Um … because they, the

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sea r- didn't r- rise to where it is now?

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Or is it just more- Yeah.

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So I'm, I'm really talking
about the whole ecosystem.

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Okay.

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So the soil was shallower.

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Ah.

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So you can… Yes.

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And so I should back up.

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When I say coastal wetlands, I'm
talking in this paper specifically

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about marshes and mangroves.

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Gotcha.

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So I'm glad you mentioned mangroves.

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Right.

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Um, because that's one that people
are, you know, sometimes familiar with.

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Sometimes they think- Yeah … I'm
talking about a mango fruit.

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Um, but we're talking about the mangroves.

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Those are the, really tropical
coastal wetlands that have trees,

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trees that are incredibly durable.

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Yeah.

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Um, they can tolerate flooding, they
can tolerate salinity, and they can grow

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in some places hundreds of feet tall.

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Um, if you've been to Florida, you
might have seen some tangled rooty

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trees- Mm-hmm … along the coast,
and those are probably mangroves.

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So I said the ecosystem can grow,
and I mean there it's building soil.

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Gotcha.

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So you could take a core- Mm-hmm … and
when you date that core we can see

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that the soils in some of these
wetlands have been accumulating

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for, you know, 5,000 years- Yeah

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just building layer on layer on layer.

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Um, that's something you wouldn't
see in a- No … in an upland forest.

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So as that layer continues to add on,
you can put more nutrients, carbon

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dioxide in those layers because-
Exactly … it continues to build up.

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And that's why these ecosystems can
sequester or absorb much more carbon or

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nitrogen or soil, anything else- Yeah

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much more quickly than
anywhere else on Earth.

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Really?

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That's interesting.

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Yes.

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I didn't know that.

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It's, uh, let's say roughly 10 times
the rate of the most productive forest.

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Right … it's really staggering.

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Yeah.

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Amazing.

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Amazing.

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You started to look at these
coastal wetlands and you mentioned

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something earlier that a lot of
times the understanding or even

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the study of these coastal areas
kind of fall through the cracks.

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We know a lot more about land
and a lot about the ocean.

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Mm-hmm.

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But these coastal wetlands
kind of take a backseat.

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Is it because it can be so complex?

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Because they're facing both environments
a lot of the time, and people just

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weren't interested in knowing about them
before 'cause they were more complex?

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I would almost think it's the
opposite 'cause they're so

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special because they have that.

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Like, why do you think they
fall through the cracks?

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Well, I think we're catching up now.

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Um, I- Yeah … you know, I think
it's maybe kind of just a historical

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bias, um, that, you know, you get to
your coast and the marsh smells bad.

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And people considered
it a wasteland, right?

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Yeah.

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Um, and would dump dredge
spoils there, whatever else,

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bodies you want to get rid of.

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Um, I kind of think that
might have more to do with it.

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Um- Okay … but, you know, now in the
recent decades, we've really come to

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recognize the inordinate importance- Yeah

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um, that these ecosystems have
in not just our estuaries,

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but really in the biosphere.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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No, no doubt.

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Now, um, so with that said, like
this whole study, like you have a

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lab, the Global Change Ecology Lab,
I believe is what it's called, right?

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Did I get the name right?

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You did.

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Okay.

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Perfect.

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Now this lab, it looks at all these
different types of processes for…

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is it all coastal wetland systems or
is it just mangroves and marshes or do

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you expand and depending on who's there
and what type of project's coming up?

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Yeah, it kinda fluctuates a little
bit, but we have had a strong

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coastal wetland focus for- Okay

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uh, 15 years or so.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Interesting.

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And then how many people are in this
lab right now, like graduate students

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and maybe like research thesis
undergrads that are currently in this?

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Um, we have probably four or
five grad students and- Okay

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… probably that many undergrads.

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I work closely with some other, um,
professors here at Villanova as well.

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Okay.

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I got a lot of young researchers and
students who are in the audience right

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now listening to this, if they got
interested, they want to know more about

208
00:10:40,538 --> 00:10:44,408
these types of coastal wetlands and these
type of biogeochemical processes, what

209
00:10:44,408 --> 00:10:48,201
type of, I guess, background education
do a lot of the graduate students in

210
00:10:48,201 --> 00:10:49,871
your lab have or who have come through?

211
00:10:49,871 --> 00:10:52,261
Like what do they need or
what kinda knowledge do they

212
00:10:52,261 --> 00:10:54,261
need to succeed in your lab?

213
00:10:55,242 --> 00:10:57,552
That's probably something that, you
know, if you asked me that 10 years

214
00:10:57,552 --> 00:10:59,382
ago, I think that's changed too.

215
00:10:59,382 --> 00:10:59,412
Different.

216
00:10:59,412 --> 00:10:59,649
Um, but it's, you know,
definitely some ecological

217
00:10:59,649 --> 00:10:59,767
experience, uh, field experience.

218
00:10:59,767 --> 00:11:00,152
We, some of the places we work
in are, are very adverse too.

219
00:11:00,152 --> 00:11:00,162
I

220
00:11:11,092 --> 00:11:11,792
can imagine.

221
00:11:12,232 --> 00:11:12,312
Yeah.

222
00:11:12,322 --> 00:11:16,682
Which is a, I think that's another reason
that they were historically understudied.

223
00:11:16,742 --> 00:11:19,292
Right … They can be
very difficult to access.

224
00:11:19,312 --> 00:11:23,382
I mean, we're slogging around
waist-deep in mud a lot of the time.

225
00:11:23,952 --> 00:11:30,402
Um, and you know, I was just down in
some of the more remote wetlands on

226
00:11:30,402 --> 00:11:36,508
the East Coast in the South Carolina
on the coast and talking to some

227
00:11:36,558 --> 00:11:40,208
researchers down there, and they're
like, " No one has studied these because

228
00:11:40,208 --> 00:11:42,008
they're really difficult to get to."

229
00:11:42,018 --> 00:11:42,038
Yeah.

230
00:11:42,388 --> 00:11:46,468
You can't quite get where you need by
boat, and you can't get there by land.

231
00:11:47,118 --> 00:11:51,558
Um, so sometimes, you know, a
lot of our work requires, like,

232
00:11:51,568 --> 00:11:52,638
you can't be afraid of mud.

233
00:11:53,178 --> 00:11:54,368
Uh, that's- … definitely part of it.

234
00:11:55,008 --> 00:11:56,368
Gotta be willing to get dirty.

235
00:11:56,698 --> 00:11:57,228
Yeah.

236
00:11:57,778 --> 00:12:03,705
Um, you know, some technical
expertise, like, we've done a

237
00:12:03,705 --> 00:12:05,595
little bit of, like, gas exchange.

238
00:12:05,995 --> 00:12:10,845
More and more, like I think more of
my students have used some remote

239
00:12:10,845 --> 00:12:16,155
sensing as that data has gotten
to be just an incredible resource.

240
00:12:16,175 --> 00:12:19,835
The coverage- Yeah … and the
detail that you can see from space.

241
00:12:20,165 --> 00:12:23,745
That's had a big impact on our field
'cause these places you can't get

242
00:12:23,745 --> 00:12:25,255
to, well, now you can see them.

243
00:12:25,265 --> 00:12:26,175
Um- Right.

244
00:12:26,555 --> 00:12:32,475
Right … so my students all have much
better, uh, GIS skills than I have.

245
00:12:33,185 --> 00:12:33,265
That's huge.

246
00:12:33,615 --> 00:12:34,595
As they learn through it.

247
00:12:34,965 --> 00:12:35,665
Yes.

248
00:12:35,705 --> 00:12:38,345
Um- Yes … which is a
great synergy that we have.

249
00:12:38,765 --> 00:12:39,115
Oh, yeah.

250
00:12:39,115 --> 00:12:42,475
I always find, I, like, I did a GIS
diploma, advanced diploma after my-

251
00:12:42,525 --> 00:12:44,125
Mm … uh, undergraduate degree.

252
00:12:44,445 --> 00:12:46,085
My master's supervisor told me to do it.

253
00:12:46,085 --> 00:12:49,228
He's like, " You're gonna need this,"
like, for- Yeah … I was doing MPA work.

254
00:12:49,518 --> 00:12:50,738
Um, but I've always used it.

255
00:12:51,178 --> 00:12:53,888
Like, I've used it in a number of
different jobs, whether it's in and out

256
00:12:53,888 --> 00:12:55,828
of science, like, you can always use it.

257
00:12:56,088 --> 00:12:59,368
I know I've done a couple side contracts
with business owners on looking

258
00:12:59,368 --> 00:13:00,498
at- Mm … how to divide up things.

259
00:13:00,738 --> 00:13:03,698
You can use GIS remote sensing
in pretty much anything.

260
00:13:03,698 --> 00:13:08,458
But speaking of which, with a lot
of the way people are moving, like,

261
00:13:08,458 --> 00:13:12,898
whale sampling is moving to, like,
drones and, you know, sampling,

262
00:13:12,898 --> 00:13:16,658
like, whale, uh, excrement from
their blowholes and things like that.

263
00:13:17,198 --> 00:13:23,918
Can you use, like, uh, more specified
types of drones in these wetlands?

264
00:13:23,928 --> 00:13:27,978
I guess it'd be hard to do a core with
a drone, but to sample anything else?

265
00:13:28,308 --> 00:13:28,658
Right.

266
00:13:28,748 --> 00:13:29,768
Uh, definitely.

267
00:13:29,868 --> 00:13:35,128
I spent some time this summer taking
some imagery, some, um, drone imagery,

268
00:13:35,448 --> 00:13:40,098
and the algorithms for determining,
you know, plant cover, which is, we

269
00:13:40,098 --> 00:13:41,788
spend a lot of time measuring this.

270
00:13:41,988 --> 00:13:42,408
Mm-hmm.

271
00:13:42,828 --> 00:13:47,168
Um, you know, the old ecologist in me is
like, "Well, it's just not quite as good."

272
00:13:47,638 --> 00:13:49,248
Um, and it's not.

273
00:13:49,258 --> 00:13:51,818
If you have, like- Right … the
plots that we're going to.

274
00:13:51,818 --> 00:13:55,928
But if you want full coverage of on your
marsh, you can do this pretty well now.

275
00:13:56,158 --> 00:13:59,928
You can use algorithms to not just
tell you we're interested in, like, how

276
00:13:59,928 --> 00:14:04,218
green is it, how much biomass is there,
but also what plant species are there.

277
00:14:04,688 --> 00:14:04,708
Yeah.

278
00:14:04,708 --> 00:14:08,198
Algorithms are getting really good at
that, especially in coastal wetlands,

279
00:14:08,198 --> 00:14:10,388
where we tend to have few species.

280
00:14:10,558 --> 00:14:10,878
Mm-hmm.

281
00:14:10,878 --> 00:14:15,956
So they're pretty easy to distinguish,
uh- With, you know, AI technology or

282
00:14:15,956 --> 00:14:17,756
whatever other algorithm you're using.

283
00:14:18,086 --> 00:14:18,386
Yeah.

284
00:14:18,416 --> 00:14:22,929
Um, so I think, and I have colleagues
that, um, have used drones.

285
00:14:22,929 --> 00:14:25,589
I've probably used… And I've
used some of the imagery myself.

286
00:14:25,589 --> 00:14:28,829
I don't fly them myself, but I think
that's- Right … gonna be key.

287
00:14:29,249 --> 00:14:33,849
Um- Yeah … one of the key variables
in our ecosystems is elevation.

288
00:14:34,149 --> 00:14:37,869
We need to know it to the centimeter
because it just determines

289
00:14:37,879 --> 00:14:41,019
how flooded that site is, and
everything else that happens there.

290
00:14:41,539 --> 00:14:45,329
And we can get really good
elevation data, um, with drones.

291
00:14:45,739 --> 00:14:45,999
Yeah.

292
00:14:45,999 --> 00:14:48,409
Um, it's a little tricky in
tidal wetlands when you've got

293
00:14:48,409 --> 00:14:50,879
standing water, but it can be done.

294
00:14:50,979 --> 00:14:53,479
We're gonna see things that we
haven't been able to see before.

295
00:14:53,959 --> 00:14:54,389
Absolutely.

296
00:14:54,389 --> 00:14:57,309
And we've seen, I guess, you know,
drones as sophisticated, having

297
00:14:57,309 --> 00:14:59,399
LIDAR machines on them too, right?

298
00:14:59,399 --> 00:14:59,589
Yeah.

299
00:14:59,589 --> 00:15:03,339
And, and being able to get that, which
is incredible, how fast the technology

300
00:15:03,339 --> 00:15:06,859
has come, you know, in terms of- Mm-hmm
… like when I started GIS 20 years ago,

301
00:15:06,859 --> 00:15:09,629
we were just getting into digital GIS
and out of the mapping- Mm-hmm … like

302
00:15:09,649 --> 00:15:13,819
paper maps, and now we're getting
into drones that can do LIDAR, like up

303
00:15:13,819 --> 00:15:15,709
close and personal, so it's kinda cool.

304
00:15:16,139 --> 00:15:20,809
And it does make me a little nervous that
people will do just that, um, uh, only

305
00:15:20,839 --> 00:15:22,989
re- you know- 100% … drone sensing.

306
00:15:22,999 --> 00:15:25,049
And I feel like- Yeah … we
still need some on the ground

307
00:15:25,059 --> 00:15:25,944
measurements like you mentioned.

308
00:15:25,944 --> 00:15:26,149
Absolutely.

309
00:15:26,149 --> 00:15:29,039
And of course anything happening
in the soil, there's no

310
00:15:29,039 --> 00:15:30,499
magical technology for that.

311
00:15:30,499 --> 00:15:30,564
Nope.

312
00:15:30,564 --> 00:15:34,189
It's a lot of old-fashioned taking
cores and we do that- Oh, yeah.

313
00:15:34,189 --> 00:15:36,339
And, and, and I'm, I'm a-
Yeah … proponent of that.

314
00:15:36,339 --> 00:15:40,339
As, as a marine biologist, you know,
knowing, like a, that did remote sensing

315
00:15:40,339 --> 00:15:44,199
and GIS in, in college, like the first
things one, you have to ground truth.

316
00:15:44,199 --> 00:15:45,279
So you have to get on that ground.

317
00:15:45,279 --> 00:15:47,349
You still have to get dirty, you
still have to get through, and

318
00:15:47,349 --> 00:15:50,359
then, yeah, there's still other
information that you need to get.

319
00:15:50,689 --> 00:15:54,139
It only provides you, you know, one or
two pieces of information, but to get the

320
00:15:54,139 --> 00:15:59,259
full picture of sampling and getting in
there, you really have to do the cores, do

321
00:15:59,259 --> 00:16:01,189
everything, really get that, that- Mm-hmm

322
00:16:01,189 --> 00:16:03,449
three-dimensional kind of,
or even four-dimensional kind

323
00:16:03,449 --> 00:16:04,329
of learning, which I love.

324
00:16:04,349 --> 00:16:06,639
Like, 'cause that's the fun part of
field work though too, is getting

325
00:16:06,639 --> 00:16:08,079
dirty and going through the hardships.

326
00:16:08,079 --> 00:16:11,539
It brings the team closer, uh,
if you do it all together, right?

327
00:16:11,999 --> 00:16:15,533
There's no way to bond like being,
you know, waist deep in a hole

328
00:16:15,623 --> 00:16:17,223
in a marsh with your colleagues.

329
00:16:18,293 --> 00:16:18,883
I love it.

330
00:16:18,943 --> 00:16:19,603
I love it.

331
00:16:19,773 --> 00:16:20,333
Okay.

332
00:16:20,623 --> 00:16:21,733
Um, so that's great.

333
00:16:21,743 --> 00:16:24,653
So, and within the lab, like
you guys are looking at all

334
00:16:24,653 --> 00:16:26,083
different types of questions.

335
00:16:26,083 --> 00:16:28,053
We're gonna get into one of
those specific questions with

336
00:16:28,053 --> 00:16:29,253
this paper in just a moment.

337
00:16:29,523 --> 00:16:31,883
Can you just talk about some of
the different types of studies

338
00:16:31,893 --> 00:16:33,043
that are going on in the lab?

339
00:16:33,043 --> 00:16:33,273
Sure.

340
00:16:33,957 --> 00:16:37,747
So I did a postdoc at the Smithsonian
Environmental Research Center.

341
00:16:38,277 --> 00:16:40,617
It's just, uh, outside of DC.

342
00:16:40,617 --> 00:16:42,307
It's on the- Yeah … Chesapeake Bay.

343
00:16:43,107 --> 00:16:46,837
Um, and so a lot of what's going
on out there, well, it's-- we

344
00:16:46,837 --> 00:16:50,887
have this, uh, what we call the
Global Change Research Wetland.

345
00:16:51,567 --> 00:16:56,987
Um, it's probably the most
experimented-on wetland in the world.

346
00:16:57,661 --> 00:17:04,111
We have, uh, experiments that have been
running for over 40 years in some cases,

347
00:17:04,601 --> 00:17:08,251
um, where we're poking and prodding
this marsh in every way possible.

348
00:17:08,251 --> 00:17:10,871
It looks like aliens have
landed on this marsh.

349
00:17:11,391 --> 00:17:14,011
Um, but it's just scientists,
and we've been there for a while.

350
00:17:14,011 --> 00:17:17,931
So we're adding, um, extra
CO2 to the atmosphere.

351
00:17:18,391 --> 00:17:21,401
We're adding, um, extra
nitrogen to some of the plots

352
00:17:21,411 --> 00:17:23,121
to simulate nutrient pollution.

353
00:17:23,551 --> 00:17:26,531
There's a big warming experiment,
active warming, where we're

354
00:17:26,531 --> 00:17:28,341
trying to simulate climate change.

355
00:17:28,571 --> 00:17:30,811
Mm. We've manipulated sea level.

356
00:17:31,481 --> 00:17:35,091
We have a plant invasion, um, element.

357
00:17:35,621 --> 00:17:39,701
Um, so that's one of the thrusts
of my work is, is looking at

358
00:17:39,701 --> 00:17:41,211
these long-term experiments.

359
00:17:41,211 --> 00:17:44,231
And like I said, some of them have been
running for decades, which allows us-

360
00:17:44,231 --> 00:17:48,371
Yeah … to look at these treatment
effects that we're interested in, but

361
00:17:48,371 --> 00:17:52,101
also superimposed on the background
change that's actually happening.

362
00:17:52,531 --> 00:17:57,431
The rate of sea level rise has
accelerated there, um, probably doubled

363
00:17:57,471 --> 00:17:59,151
since we started the experiment.

364
00:17:59,561 --> 00:17:59,681
Mm-hmm.

365
00:17:59,691 --> 00:18:04,271
Um, so it makes this really fascinating
interplay of these different factors.

366
00:18:04,681 --> 00:18:05,011
Yeah.

367
00:18:05,061 --> 00:18:06,011
, That's one element.

368
00:18:06,011 --> 00:18:10,837
A lot of what the lab is doing now is
happening in Florida because we have

369
00:18:10,837 --> 00:18:13,187
several interesting things going on.

370
00:18:13,187 --> 00:18:16,097
We do have coastal wetland loss.

371
00:18:16,287 --> 00:18:22,501
Um, at the same time, we have
mangrove, uh, encroachment.

372
00:18:22,521 --> 00:18:23,471
I'll call it encroachment.

373
00:18:23,471 --> 00:18:27,831
I don't really call it invasion,
but mangroves are moving northward-

374
00:18:27,831 --> 00:18:32,741
Hmm … in Florida, and this is kind
of a general trend around the world.

375
00:18:32,791 --> 00:18:34,561
They tend to be moving poleward.

376
00:18:35,271 --> 00:18:39,291
And so while we're losing a lot of
mangroves to development around the world,

377
00:18:39,291 --> 00:18:43,051
they're also, um, colonizing new areas.

378
00:18:43,051 --> 00:18:47,671
And in Florida, this seems like it's
mostly driven by climate change, the

379
00:18:47,671 --> 00:18:53,472
declining frequency of deep freeze
events Um, that's historically

380
00:18:53,472 --> 00:18:57,002
what's restricted, uh, mangrove
range- Mm-hmm … on the north end.

381
00:18:57,502 --> 00:19:02,142
Um, my colleagues though have
recently found, um, mangroves

382
00:19:02,142 --> 00:19:03,712
in Georgia for the first time.

383
00:19:03,782 --> 00:19:04,862
That's been documented.

384
00:19:04,862 --> 00:19:05,712
I was about to ask.

385
00:19:05,712 --> 00:19:07,212
I was wondering, does
it go as far as Georgia?

386
00:19:07,212 --> 00:19:07,722
Interesting.

387
00:19:07,722 --> 00:19:07,752
Okay.

388
00:19:07,752 --> 00:19:08,302
They do.

389
00:19:08,462 --> 00:19:11,412
Um- Yeah … And that's just in the
last couple of years they found them.

390
00:19:11,412 --> 00:19:13,842
We knew the climate there
probably would suit them.

391
00:19:13,852 --> 00:19:13,882
Mm-hmm.

392
00:19:13,892 --> 00:19:15,772
They just hadn't quite gotten there yet.

393
00:19:16,182 --> 00:19:16,222
Gotcha.

394
00:19:16,252 --> 00:19:19,882
So we're, asking a lot of questions
down there about, like, what happens to

395
00:19:19,882 --> 00:19:22,062
these marshes when mangroves come in?

396
00:19:22,802 --> 00:19:23,192
Yeah.

397
00:19:23,412 --> 00:19:25,665
Um, so what happens to the carbon cycle?

398
00:19:25,665 --> 00:19:27,265
What happens to the nutrient cycle?

399
00:19:27,275 --> 00:19:31,605
Also, do these mangroves maybe, I
mentioned, you know, we're losing

400
00:19:31,645 --> 00:19:34,805
coastal wetlands pretty rapidly
up there, but these mangroves seem

401
00:19:34,815 --> 00:19:38,295
like they might give these wetlands
a better chance at survival.

402
00:19:38,779 --> 00:19:40,099
A little bit more stability?

403
00:19:40,619 --> 00:19:41,769
A little bit more stability.

404
00:19:41,769 --> 00:19:46,789
They can build soil, um, we think
more rapidly- Mm-hmm … than

405
00:19:46,819 --> 00:19:49,229
the herbaceous marsh plants can.

406
00:19:49,769 --> 00:19:50,069
Yeah.

407
00:19:50,069 --> 00:19:53,639
They resist erosion maybe
a little bit better.

408
00:19:54,139 --> 00:19:55,939
Um, we have a new paper out about that.

409
00:19:56,379 --> 00:19:56,409
Nice.

410
00:19:56,599 --> 00:19:59,939
Um, so that's, yeah, one of the other
main topics that's happening there.

411
00:19:59,939 --> 00:20:03,749
And then interestingly, on top of all
that, we did have one of these big

412
00:20:03,749 --> 00:20:10,749
freezes last winter, so it kind of
caused some mortality in these mangroves

413
00:20:10,759 --> 00:20:12,629
that had just recently colonized.

414
00:20:12,629 --> 00:20:15,629
But it's looking like, we're just
now learning, it's like it wasn't

415
00:20:15,629 --> 00:20:17,029
as severe as it seemed like.

416
00:20:17,029 --> 00:20:20,249
A lot of these mangroves that
looked like they got- Yeah

417
00:20:20,249 --> 00:20:23,959
frozen to death are starting
to re-sprout and come back, so.

418
00:20:24,219 --> 00:20:24,819
Just took a little bit.

419
00:20:26,291 --> 00:20:26,781
Yeah.

420
00:20:26,861 --> 00:20:27,111
Yeah.

421
00:20:27,111 --> 00:20:28,571
It's just t- it took them longer.

422
00:20:28,571 --> 00:20:30,901
If you looked at one of these, it
looks just crispy, and you're like,

423
00:20:30,921 --> 00:20:34,091
"Oh, that's definitely dead." But
they start to, uh, re-sprout again.

424
00:20:34,761 --> 00:20:34,881
Okay.

425
00:20:34,901 --> 00:20:37,951
But working down there is like
nowhere else because, I mean, I

426
00:20:37,951 --> 00:20:42,311
know of no ecosystems that have
changed as dramatically as these

427
00:20:42,341 --> 00:20:43,731
in the last couple of decades.

428
00:20:43,801 --> 00:20:47,741
We're talking about in some
cases, near complete conversion

429
00:20:48,471 --> 00:20:50,421
from a marsh to a mangrove.

430
00:20:50,731 --> 00:20:56,481
Um, and in a matter of, you know,
five, 10 years, you have kind of a

431
00:20:56,591 --> 00:21:01,741
swampy, a forest colonize it with,
you know, large mangrove trees.

432
00:21:02,441 --> 00:21:02,831
Yeah.

433
00:21:02,831 --> 00:21:06,841
It's just, which is pretty incredible
to see them move up that much to look

434
00:21:06,841 --> 00:21:12,161
at how that's gonna change the landscape
in Georgia from what a, you know,

435
00:21:12,161 --> 00:21:14,131
the marsh type to a mangrove type.

436
00:21:14,211 --> 00:21:16,877
You said they're moving towards the
pole, so I assume the same thing is

437
00:21:16,877 --> 00:21:19,057
happening south of the equator, too?

438
00:21:19,057 --> 00:21:20,237
They're starting to move down?

439
00:21:20,637 --> 00:21:21,017
Yeah.

440
00:21:21,407 --> 00:21:21,747
Yep.

441
00:21:21,757 --> 00:21:21,777
Wow.

442
00:21:21,807 --> 00:21:27,787
I think, you know, there's other forces
that are driving mangrove expansion

443
00:21:27,787 --> 00:21:29,757
and retraction all over the world.

444
00:21:30,117 --> 00:21:30,367
Mm-hmm.

445
00:21:30,367 --> 00:21:33,777
And it's not always as clear that
it's- Right … climate driven.

446
00:21:34,597 --> 00:21:39,287
Um, you can have sediment dynamics
change- Mm-hmm … and that can

447
00:21:39,287 --> 00:21:41,807
cause, um mangrove invasion.

448
00:21:41,817 --> 00:21:44,427
There's sea level rise rates
are different around the world.

449
00:21:44,707 --> 00:21:44,807
Mm-hmm.

450
00:21:44,817 --> 00:21:49,067
But yeah, in general, um,
the range is expanding.

451
00:21:49,294 --> 00:21:53,274
And I don't think that anytime
soon, uh, Georgia is gonna

452
00:21:53,654 --> 00:21:55,244
be dominated by mangroves.

453
00:21:55,244 --> 00:21:55,274
Right.

454
00:21:55,274 --> 00:21:58,204
Right now it's just, it's
literally a few individual trees.

455
00:21:58,494 --> 00:21:58,824
Yeah.

456
00:21:58,844 --> 00:22:03,394
Um, but they could be a bigger
player in the ecosystem in 20 years.

457
00:22:03,394 --> 00:22:03,724
Yeah.

458
00:22:03,724 --> 00:22:07,234
Well, and it, it's interesting too,
just talking about mangroves, I recently

459
00:22:07,234 --> 00:22:12,494
saw a story within the last month or
two, um, where, you know, for a while

460
00:22:12,514 --> 00:22:16,924
the entire, like, global mangrove
populations and cover were decreasing.

461
00:22:17,054 --> 00:22:21,601
I think they lost something around
12,000 square kilometers I think it was.

462
00:22:21,601 --> 00:22:22,014
Mm-hmm.

463
00:22:22,084 --> 00:22:25,614
And now recently there was a paper showing
that it's actually increased, like,

464
00:22:25,694 --> 00:22:28,124
globally by about 2,000 square kilometers.

465
00:22:28,134 --> 00:22:32,034
So not nearly what they've lost, but
we're starting to see that increase.

466
00:22:32,354 --> 00:22:36,604
And they're saying even in the face of
climate change, um, like as you mentioned,

467
00:22:36,604 --> 00:22:40,674
there are other things at play here that
will allow them to grow, but it could

468
00:22:40,674 --> 00:22:45,984
also just be the expansion of a new maybe
type of habitat, or a new habitat- Right

469
00:22:45,994 --> 00:22:46,504
or growing habitat.

470
00:22:46,721 --> 00:22:47,111
Right.

471
00:22:47,431 --> 00:22:52,881
Um, you know, I think of that kind of
thing as it's like if you give Mother

472
00:22:52,881 --> 00:22:57,101
Nature a chance, um, that she can
rebound, and that's- Right … that

473
00:22:57,111 --> 00:22:58,661
kind of seems like what's happening.

474
00:22:58,661 --> 00:23:02,751
Uh, mangroves, we've probably
lost roughly half of mangroves,

475
00:23:02,851 --> 00:23:05,031
um, in the last century.

476
00:23:05,561 --> 00:23:06,531
Yeah, yeah.

477
00:23:06,531 --> 00:23:08,061
Um, mostly to development.

478
00:23:08,441 --> 00:23:08,771
Yeah.

479
00:23:08,821 --> 00:23:14,061
Um, but yeah, I saw that paper too,
that we've made some gains in area.

480
00:23:14,061 --> 00:23:14,441
Yeah.

481
00:23:14,551 --> 00:23:14,761
Uh.

482
00:23:14,981 --> 00:23:15,271
Yeah.

483
00:23:15,321 --> 00:23:19,227
And there's some, you know, large
scale restoration projects that have

484
00:23:19,257 --> 00:23:24,257
probably helped that as well, but
there's a lot of natural, um, expansion

485
00:23:24,257 --> 00:23:26,067
and recolonization that's going on.

486
00:23:26,527 --> 00:23:27,007
Yeah.

487
00:23:27,267 --> 00:23:27,817
Interesting.

488
00:23:27,817 --> 00:23:31,077
Uh, you mentioned, you know, sea
level rise is playing a role in

489
00:23:31,077 --> 00:23:36,357
certain aspects of coastal ecology
and how it's shaping coastal ecology.

490
00:23:36,497 --> 00:23:40,577
I always find sea level rise very
similar to, like, something like getting

491
00:23:40,577 --> 00:23:42,197
people to care about biodiversity.

492
00:23:42,807 --> 00:23:46,577
They don't really get it, you know, when
you say, "Oh, well, you know, sea level is

493
00:23:46,577 --> 00:23:51,157
rising by, like, a centimeter or a couple
of inches," or, you know, depending on

494
00:23:51,157 --> 00:23:53,577
where you are in the world, people are
just like, "Well, what does that matter?

495
00:23:53,741 --> 00:23:54,821
It's a very small amount.

496
00:23:54,881 --> 00:24:00,221
It's not gonna make a difference." Can
you just talk about how, uh, sea level

497
00:24:00,221 --> 00:24:04,551
rise is affecting, uh, especially, like,
because we're talking about mangroves

498
00:24:04,551 --> 00:24:08,836
and, marshes, how it's affecting
those types of habitats, uh, either

499
00:24:08,856 --> 00:24:10,126
for the positive or for the negative?

500
00:24:10,537 --> 00:24:10,927
Yeah.

501
00:24:10,927 --> 00:24:17,777
So, you know, marshes and mangroves are
extraordinarily sensitive to sea level.

502
00:24:18,134 --> 00:24:22,954
They can keep up with some sea level
rise, and in fact, they've been

503
00:24:22,954 --> 00:24:25,464
doing so for the last 5,000 years.

504
00:24:25,474 --> 00:24:31,234
Sea level has been rising over that
timescale pretty steadily until

505
00:24:31,534 --> 00:24:34,934
the last, you know, 75 years or so.

506
00:24:35,164 --> 00:24:35,444
Mm-hmm.

507
00:24:35,454 --> 00:24:37,764
We've got an acceleration coming in.

508
00:24:38,634 --> 00:24:45,964
We know that these ecosystems have
a limit of how much they can keep

509
00:24:45,964 --> 00:24:50,794
up with, and we've started to learn
pretty well about what that limit is.

510
00:24:51,024 --> 00:24:56,984
Um, it seems like several different, very
different approaches have converged on a

511
00:24:56,984 --> 00:24:59,984
rate of about eight millimeters per year.

512
00:25:00,732 --> 00:25:05,262
They keep up by accumulating
soil, exogenous sediment

513
00:25:05,292 --> 00:25:06,992
that passes through wetlands.

514
00:25:06,992 --> 00:25:08,032
They trap some of that.

515
00:25:08,062 --> 00:25:13,215
They build organic matter, so by
photosynthesis, building plant

516
00:25:13,265 --> 00:25:16,945
tissues, and a lot of those
tissues get buried in the soil.

517
00:25:17,325 --> 00:25:20,345
And because that soil's
saturated, they just accumulate.

518
00:25:20,345 --> 00:25:21,025
They don't rot.

519
00:25:21,035 --> 00:25:24,855
Mm. There's no oxygen to support
the decomposition, so it just

520
00:25:24,865 --> 00:25:26,285
builds up on top of itself.

521
00:25:27,005 --> 00:25:29,495
Um, but those mechanisms have a limit.

522
00:25:29,525 --> 00:25:33,165
That limit definitely varies with,
like, how much sediment is around.

523
00:25:33,505 --> 00:25:33,575
Mm-hmm.

524
00:25:33,575 --> 00:25:38,705
But we've learned from past,
one way is they've learned from

525
00:25:38,705 --> 00:25:41,155
past sea level rise events.

526
00:25:41,165 --> 00:25:46,105
They can look at sediments
and reconstruct when a wetland

527
00:25:46,125 --> 00:25:47,755
was no longer able to keep up.

528
00:25:48,695 --> 00:25:49,165
And- Hmm

529
00:25:50,035 --> 00:25:51,965
my team has used some modeling.

530
00:25:52,428 --> 00:25:55,528
You try to do this process model
where you put all that stuff in a

531
00:25:55,528 --> 00:25:58,198
model, how much sediment's gonna
accumulate, how much organic-

532
00:25:58,198 --> 00:26:02,648
Right … matter's gonna build, and we
come up with roughly the same number.

533
00:26:02,698 --> 00:26:04,768
It's about eight millimeters per year.

534
00:26:05,058 --> 00:26:09,888
Now, that's important because,
um, you know, if you ask an

535
00:26:09,888 --> 00:26:12,908
oceanographer, "50 years ago,
what's the rate of sea level rise?"

536
00:26:12,908 --> 00:26:17,138
You know, they might say two
and a half millimeters per year,

537
00:26:17,138 --> 00:26:21,248
but now we're closer to five-
Hmm … millimeters per year globally.

538
00:26:21,728 --> 00:26:21,778
Double.

539
00:26:21,788 --> 00:26:22,088
Yeah.

540
00:26:22,138 --> 00:26:26,518
And no one knows, you know, how much
more there's gonna be in the future.

541
00:26:27,098 --> 00:26:30,358
You can g- you, you know, ask
100 different oceanologists- Yeah

542
00:26:30,358 --> 00:26:31,628
… you'll get 100 different answers.

543
00:26:32,008 --> 00:26:32,608
For sure.

544
00:26:32,648 --> 00:26:36,702
Um- Yeah … but the estimates, you
know, we very well could pass that

545
00:26:36,702 --> 00:26:41,672
threshold in the next couple of
decades, depending on what happens to,

546
00:26:41,762 --> 00:26:45,032
you know, ice- Yeah … at the poles-
Well, absolutely … or Greenland.

547
00:26:46,022 --> 00:26:46,222
Yeah.

548
00:26:46,222 --> 00:26:51,775
So it's, um, alarming and-
Yeah … you know, as a scientist,

549
00:26:51,775 --> 00:26:53,155
it's kind of an exciting time, right?

550
00:26:53,195 --> 00:26:54,015
Well, we'll see.

551
00:26:54,175 --> 00:26:56,925
We'll see how much- Yeah … we'll
test our model- Yeah … um,

552
00:26:56,935 --> 00:27:00,465
with r- this massive uncontrolled
experiment that we're doing.

553
00:27:00,785 --> 00:27:01,135
Yeah.

554
00:27:01,145 --> 00:27:02,068
No, exactly.

555
00:27:02,205 --> 00:27:04,395
It's interesting from a scientific
perspective, but also you don't

556
00:27:04,395 --> 00:27:07,735
wanna see the results of that getting
you know, too much and so forth.

557
00:27:08,085 --> 00:27:11,557
Um- Now, you know, we talk a lot
about climate change, we talk

558
00:27:11,797 --> 00:27:13,777
a lot about coastal wetlands.

559
00:27:13,907 --> 00:27:17,007
One of the things that coastal
wetlands is known for is sequestration.

560
00:27:17,007 --> 00:27:17,187
I talk a lot about on the, on
the podcast about how CO2 can

561
00:27:17,187 --> 00:27:18,127
be sequestered by mangroves,

562
00:27:24,747 --> 00:27:28,407
seagrasses, salt marshes, and so
forth, at a much higher rate than a

563
00:27:28,407 --> 00:27:31,257
lot of, uh, land, trees, and forests.

564
00:27:31,707 --> 00:27:34,574
Um, and that's a, a really great
thing, obviously, you know.

565
00:27:34,574 --> 00:27:39,004
And obviously with the loss of those
wetlands, uh, there's a much more need

566
00:27:39,004 --> 00:27:42,947
for restoring those wetlands to bring
some of that to help with that process.

567
00:27:43,337 --> 00:27:46,487
Uh, but what a lot of times we don't
talk about, especially on this podcast,

568
00:27:46,527 --> 00:27:50,477
is the fact that it's, that we call it
blue carbon sort of, uh, wetlands, but

569
00:27:50,477 --> 00:27:53,507
there's also blue nutrients, uh, which
is, is something you covered on, your

570
00:27:53,517 --> 00:28:00,277
newest paper with your co-authors, looking
at how nutrients really play a role in

571
00:28:00,277 --> 00:28:02,857
coastal wetlands at a pretty high rate.

572
00:28:02,857 --> 00:28:05,977
Your database was pretty
big in this situation.

573
00:28:06,297 --> 00:28:08,017
Um, so I wanna talk a
little bit about that paper.

574
00:28:08,047 --> 00:28:12,507
Can you give us sort of the synopsis of
the paper and just to kinda give us a, a

575
00:28:12,507 --> 00:28:15,527
little bit of a overview, and then we'll
kinda get into the nuances of the paper?

576
00:28:15,557 --> 00:28:15,987
Okay.

577
00:28:17,037 --> 00:28:19,080
Yeah, I mean, I'll start
with nitrogen itself.

578
00:28:19,234 --> 00:28:24,814
Well, we thought we coined this term blue
nitrogen, um, to kinda piggyback on what

579
00:28:24,814 --> 00:28:26,234
people know about blue- Yeah … carbon.

580
00:28:26,914 --> 00:28:29,294
Um, and so why are we
interested in nitrogen?

581
00:28:29,314 --> 00:28:34,344
You know, nitrogen is a nutrient
that is essential to life.

582
00:28:35,254 --> 00:28:39,864
Um, and that's exactly why
we use so much of it, because

583
00:28:39,864 --> 00:28:41,414
it tends to make things grow.

584
00:28:41,414 --> 00:28:41,434
Mm-hmm.

585
00:28:41,714 --> 00:28:43,534
We have a lot of nitrogen in our bodies.

586
00:28:43,564 --> 00:28:48,660
Plants need a lot of nitrogen to grow Um,
but you can have too much of a good thing.

587
00:28:49,220 --> 00:28:49,300
Mm-hmm.

588
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:51,547
And this is what has happened.

589
00:28:51,547 --> 00:28:58,427
You know, our ability to, um, obtain
nitrogen from different sources,

590
00:28:58,427 --> 00:29:02,297
including the atmosphere, is really
what's fueled the green revolution in

591
00:29:02,297 --> 00:29:04,007
agriculture over the last hundred years.

592
00:29:04,064 --> 00:29:05,324
We're much more efficient.

593
00:29:05,514 --> 00:29:09,764
We can grow a lot more food per
acre partly because we can take

594
00:29:09,794 --> 00:29:13,514
nitrogen out of thin air and
add it- Yeah … to our crops.

595
00:29:14,054 --> 00:29:17,147
Um, and so that, you know, you
might consider that a good thing.

596
00:29:17,147 --> 00:29:18,357
More nutrients, that's a good thing.

597
00:29:18,387 --> 00:29:20,767
Until these nutrients, you know,

598
00:29:20,817 --> 00:29:25,677
they can get to a level where they cause
problems, and that tends to happen as

599
00:29:25,807 --> 00:29:28,817
waters run off of agricultural fields.

600
00:29:28,827 --> 00:29:29,257
Mm-hmm.

601
00:29:29,267 --> 00:29:34,367
They wind up in our creeks, in our
rivers, in our estuaries, and the

602
00:29:34,367 --> 00:29:38,887
amount of nitrogen ending up there
can really build up to a high level.

603
00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:44,230
So for the exact same reason that
we use it because this level is

604
00:29:44,230 --> 00:29:50,180
damaging because it can fertilize
the growth of algae- Mm-hmm

605
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:55,000
um, to a level that is
deleterious to the ecosystem.

606
00:29:55,010 --> 00:29:58,230
So it causes… It can kill off, uh, fish.

607
00:29:58,770 --> 00:30:03,580
It can… We've had, you know, manatee
deaths in, down in Florida where they're

608
00:30:03,590 --> 00:30:06,150
just washing up in unnatural numbers.

609
00:30:06,820 --> 00:30:12,210
Um- You know, then there it's
because the nitrogen is causing

610
00:30:12,210 --> 00:30:16,850
this algal bloom, which… Well,
there's a couple things going on.

611
00:30:16,850 --> 00:30:20,267
So, uh, the algae grow and
bloom, but then they die.

612
00:30:20,487 --> 00:30:25,627
And when they die, they decompose, and
that sucks oxygen out of the water, so you

613
00:30:25,627 --> 00:30:28,807
get these oxygen dead zones in estuaries.

614
00:30:29,977 --> 00:30:34,797
Some of these algae also produce these
other toxins that have these secondary

615
00:30:34,807 --> 00:30:40,334
effects, and that can also directly
kill, uh, fish and manatees and humans.

616
00:30:40,334 --> 00:30:42,914
I mean, it can really
cause respiratory problems.

617
00:30:43,604 --> 00:30:48,044
Uh, we were talking earlier about, uh,
a red tide, and if you've ever been

618
00:30:48,044 --> 00:30:51,844
around one of those, I think it's a
really freaky thing to experience.

619
00:30:52,494 --> 00:30:55,904
I was sitting on the beach
with some friends and family,

620
00:30:56,534 --> 00:30:57,734
and suddenly everyone…

621
00:30:57,744 --> 00:30:59,414
This is down on the Gulf of Mexico.

622
00:30:59,454 --> 00:31:00,634
Everyone started coughing.

623
00:31:00,914 --> 00:31:03,424
And you couldn't see anything.

624
00:31:03,517 --> 00:31:04,767
You couldn't see the red tide.

625
00:31:04,767 --> 00:31:05,837
You couldn't smell it.

626
00:31:06,607 --> 00:31:09,707
Um, but it got difficult to
breathe, and so people started

627
00:31:09,727 --> 00:31:12,127
leaving the beach abruptly.

628
00:31:12,487 --> 00:31:14,707
Um, so that- Did they know what it was?

629
00:31:14,767 --> 00:31:15,927
Like, did they have an idea?

630
00:31:15,927 --> 00:31:18,287
I don't, I don't think people- Or they
were just, like, everyone coughing?

631
00:31:18,287 --> 00:31:22,437
Um, I think someone I, I was there with
looked it up and was like, "Oh yeah,

632
00:31:22,437 --> 00:31:24,387
there's a red tide right there." Oh, okay.

633
00:31:24,757 --> 00:31:25,097
Yeah.

634
00:31:25,117 --> 00:31:27,287
And so they, you know, they
monitor it, and they know.

635
00:31:27,287 --> 00:31:27,687
Yeah.

636
00:31:28,237 --> 00:31:32,187
So this nitrogen, we have an
unnaturally high amount of nitrogen

637
00:31:32,197 --> 00:31:33,637
that's entering our waterways.

638
00:31:34,364 --> 00:31:39,127
This getting back to the paper, um,
what we wanted to learn is how much

639
00:31:39,197 --> 00:31:44,507
can coastal wetlands, marshes and
mangroves in particular, uh, sequester?

640
00:31:44,567 --> 00:31:46,167
Like you mentioned, blue carbon.

641
00:31:46,990 --> 00:31:50,040
These coastal wetlands
take up a lot of carbon.

642
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:51,830
They put it in organic matter.

643
00:31:51,830 --> 00:31:54,790
It sticks to soil, and that
soil's accumulating, and that

644
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:56,270
organic matter's accumulating.

645
00:31:57,090 --> 00:32:00,270
Um, but to take up that
carbon, they also have a lot of

646
00:32:00,270 --> 00:32:01,570
nitrogen that goes with that.

647
00:32:02,910 --> 00:32:05,470
So we wanted to add that
up for the first time.

648
00:32:05,490 --> 00:32:08,170
People have done this many,
many times for carbon.

649
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:12,810
I think there just tends to be
more economic interest in carbon.

650
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:16,140
Um, but why not nitrogen?

651
00:32:16,140 --> 00:32:20,204
So we did it for nitrogen, You know,
we came up with a number, a big number,

652
00:32:20,254 --> 00:32:27,494
is 3.2 teragrams of nitrogen per year
that marshes and mangroves- Jeez … are

653
00:32:27,964 --> 00:32:31,394
taking up and sequestering in the soil.

654
00:32:32,315 --> 00:32:37,385
So you know, that's a hard number to wrap
your head around because a teragram- Yeah.

655
00:32:37,795 --> 00:32:41,015
Well, that's one gram
with 12 zeros behind it.

656
00:32:41,025 --> 00:32:41,655
Yeah.

657
00:32:42,075 --> 00:32:45,765
Um, so I, I was trying to think of,
like, what's that equivalent to?

658
00:32:45,765 --> 00:32:50,258
Well, it's roughly equivalent
to the amount of fertilizer that

659
00:32:50,258 --> 00:32:52,558
we add to corn fields in the US.

660
00:32:53,718 --> 00:32:55,158
So that- Geez … I don't
know if that's helpful.

661
00:32:55,158 --> 00:32:57,258
You could also say it's, um-
That's kinda scary, though.

662
00:32:58,068 --> 00:32:59,788
Like, when you think about how
much fertilizer is put down.

663
00:32:59,798 --> 00:33:00,228
Yeah.

664
00:33:00,568 --> 00:33:00,788
Yeah.

665
00:33:00,788 --> 00:33:02,688
You know, all that- And how
much pollution that causes.

666
00:33:02,688 --> 00:33:03,178
Yeah … you know, right.

667
00:33:03,468 --> 00:33:03,838
Right.

668
00:33:04,502 --> 00:33:06,966
And I was just trying to visualize,
like, what is a teragram?

669
00:33:07,816 --> 00:33:11,956
Um, so if you took 3.2 teragrams,
that would be equivalent to the

670
00:33:11,956 --> 00:33:15,226
mass of 700,000 African elephants.

671
00:33:15,696 --> 00:33:18,546
And that's if they were made of
pure nitrogen, which they're not.

672
00:33:18,556 --> 00:33:18,976
Right.

673
00:33:19,306 --> 00:33:19,736
Yeah.

674
00:33:19,786 --> 00:33:23,296
Um, so that's how much these
wetlands are taking up and

675
00:33:23,296 --> 00:33:24,656
holding- Mm-hmm … in their soil.

676
00:33:24,756 --> 00:33:28,262
When they have it in the soil, as long as
it stays there, it's pretty much inert.

677
00:33:28,682 --> 00:33:32,332
So it's not gonna contribute to
algal blooms at that point- Right

678
00:33:32,722 --> 00:33:34,672
if the wetlands are stable.

679
00:33:35,192 --> 00:33:35,622
Right.

680
00:33:36,852 --> 00:33:39,172
That's amazing.

681
00:33:39,692 --> 00:33:45,882
Now, so for this study that you did, Like,
what did you wanna get out of this study?

682
00:33:45,882 --> 00:33:53,412
You wanted people to understand what role
these wetlands play, and what's affecting

683
00:33:53,412 --> 00:33:58,622
them in their ability to continue to
keep this nitrogen sequestered and

684
00:33:58,962 --> 00:34:00,612
continue to sequester more nitrogen?

685
00:34:00,922 --> 00:34:01,302
Right.

686
00:34:01,342 --> 00:34:04,022
We wanted to- Or nutrient,
sorry … to get… Yeah, exactly.

687
00:34:04,022 --> 00:34:07,772
We've called these wetlands like
nature's kidneys because of kind of

688
00:34:07,782 --> 00:34:12,222
this property before, that they tend
to… I think people associate that

689
00:34:12,222 --> 00:34:16,222
with, like, other pollutants, but we're
talking about a nutrient pollutant.

690
00:34:16,742 --> 00:34:20,302
So we wanted to add that up
globally for the first time.

691
00:34:20,962 --> 00:34:24,352
Yeah, we wanted to project, like,
how might this change in the future?

692
00:34:24,382 --> 00:34:28,392
So this 3.2 teragrams of nitrogen
per year that they're sequestering.

693
00:34:28,402 --> 00:34:32,172
That's happening in the background
without us really knowing it or

694
00:34:32,172 --> 00:34:34,249
even thinking about it until now.

695
00:34:34,869 --> 00:34:38,089
Um, but as these coastal wetlands,
I mentioned they're really dynamic.

696
00:34:38,109 --> 00:34:41,329
As they change in the future,
how might that number change, and

697
00:34:41,329 --> 00:34:43,089
what consequences would that have?

698
00:34:43,919 --> 00:34:47,476
There's not actually, not much agreement
on exactly what's gonna happen to

699
00:34:47,476 --> 00:34:49,086
coastal wetlands in the future.

700
00:34:49,916 --> 00:34:52,816
We could gain coastal wetland
area, we could lose it.

701
00:34:53,606 --> 00:34:56,932
Um, and so we took some
different scenarios.

702
00:34:57,852 --> 00:35:02,802
If we gain coastal wetland, if we
lose it, how much more nitrogen could

703
00:35:02,802 --> 00:35:04,532
they take up if we're gaining area?

704
00:35:04,902 --> 00:35:08,042
Or how much might they
release if we lose it?

705
00:35:08,042 --> 00:35:16,794
So if these coastal wetlands erode and-
that soil that was kind of sequestered

706
00:35:16,804 --> 00:35:20,674
and all the nutrients in there got
recirculated in the ecosystem, you

707
00:35:20,674 --> 00:35:22,684
know, how much more could come back out?

708
00:35:22,684 --> 00:35:25,854
So we wanted to kind
of pose that question.

709
00:35:26,544 --> 00:35:32,454
Um, you know, hopefully, yeah, we're you
know, targeting policymakers ultimately.

710
00:35:32,864 --> 00:35:33,334
Mm-hmm.

711
00:35:34,204 --> 00:35:34,294
Mm-hmm.

712
00:35:34,294 --> 00:35:36,814
'Cause we- For them to listen and
be like, "Hey, this is what we need

713
00:35:36,814 --> 00:35:40,874
to do." Now, looking at the size
itself, you got a lot of measurements.

714
00:35:40,914 --> 00:35:44,731
I think it's over 8,000-plus
measurements, 255 sites.

715
00:35:45,671 --> 00:35:48,341
How long did it take to bring
in that amount of information?

716
00:35:48,341 --> 00:35:51,601
I want people to understand
the scale of this study.

717
00:35:52,091 --> 00:35:53,101
That was a struggle.

718
00:35:53,141 --> 00:35:56,861
Um- It's a lot of mud
But it's a lot of mud.

719
00:35:56,861 --> 00:35:59,924
Um, you know, so some of
these cores I took myself.

720
00:35:59,964 --> 00:36:05,414
Most of them we were getting, uh, data
that were available from other colleagues.

721
00:36:05,414 --> 00:36:09,744
A lot of the co-authors have taken these
themselves, and I was like, "Okay, let's

722
00:36:09,754 --> 00:36:13,264
bring all this-" Yeah … "data together."
A lot of it's already published.

723
00:36:13,264 --> 00:36:14,284
Some of it wasn't.

724
00:36:14,894 --> 00:36:18,034
Um, but yeah, You notice there's
a very long author line on here.

725
00:36:18,034 --> 00:36:22,124
I wanted to acknowledge the blood,
sweat, and tears that went into- Right

726
00:36:22,174 --> 00:36:23,474
to getting all those data.

727
00:36:23,674 --> 00:36:24,944
'Cause it's- Yeah … not easy.

728
00:36:25,544 --> 00:36:28,704
You know, that's a lot of soil
cores, yeah, taken in, uh, as

729
00:36:28,704 --> 00:36:30,484
many places as we could find.

730
00:36:31,584 --> 00:36:34,928
Um, so yeah, it took a while
to bring all that together

731
00:36:35,088 --> 00:36:36,408
and- Yeah … comb through it.

732
00:36:36,418 --> 00:36:40,758
And so looking at studies, that probably
ranged over quite a long timescale too,

733
00:36:40,758 --> 00:36:43,878
in terms of getting, like, bringing
in all those different papers and

734
00:36:43,878 --> 00:36:45,188
samples and things like that, right?

735
00:36:45,628 --> 00:36:45,948
Yeah.

736
00:36:45,948 --> 00:36:49,218
And, luckily, I think what
made this possible is how much

737
00:36:49,228 --> 00:36:50,628
interest there has been in carbon.

738
00:36:51,328 --> 00:36:55,328
Mm. Um, because a lot of these
studies were targeting carbon.

739
00:36:55,918 --> 00:36:56,878
Ah, okay.

740
00:36:56,888 --> 00:37:01,418
It just… It's, it's a nice coincidence,
or it really, um, worked out well for

741
00:37:01,418 --> 00:37:05,588
us that when you… The way we analyze
carbon, or the way most people do it,

742
00:37:05,608 --> 00:37:09,618
you happen to get nitrogen at the same
time if you use an elemental analyzer.

743
00:37:10,238 --> 00:37:15,588
Mm. So I could go in and see, find
some data, and I'd find the carbon

744
00:37:15,588 --> 00:37:18,958
data that they published, and there's,
if I go to the raw data, sometimes

745
00:37:18,958 --> 00:37:22,068
there was another column of nitrogen
data that they never published.

746
00:37:22,368 --> 00:37:22,668
Right.

747
00:37:22,698 --> 00:37:24,448
But they were- Um … just
getting it because they could,

748
00:37:24,458 --> 00:37:24,928
because that's, that's the idea.

749
00:37:24,928 --> 00:37:25,818
They were getting it because they could.

750
00:37:25,818 --> 00:37:26,008
Yeah.

751
00:37:26,928 --> 00:37:27,288
Okay.

752
00:37:27,288 --> 00:37:30,008
And, and so we took advantage
of that, and that really helped.

753
00:37:30,038 --> 00:37:34,748
This whole project really was,
like I said before, piggybacking

754
00:37:34,771 --> 00:37:35,801
Mm-hmm … on blue carbon.

755
00:37:36,551 --> 00:37:38,061
You know, that was also
kind of the motivation.

756
00:37:38,071 --> 00:37:42,578
Like, um, policymakers, you
know, internationally are

757
00:37:42,928 --> 00:37:44,408
very aware of blue carbon.

758
00:37:44,758 --> 00:37:45,318
Mm-hmm.

759
00:37:45,318 --> 00:37:45,544
For sure.

760
00:37:45,544 --> 00:37:49,588
Um, and they're putting very hard
dollar values on what it's worth.

761
00:37:50,388 --> 00:37:54,741
Um, but they're not doing that for
nitrogen, so we wanted to raise that.

762
00:37:54,831 --> 00:37:56,691
You know, that goes back
to your previous question.

763
00:37:56,691 --> 00:37:58,511
That was really- Yeah … one
of the motivations.

764
00:37:58,671 --> 00:37:58,911
Yep.

765
00:37:59,261 --> 00:37:59,751
Yeah.

766
00:37:59,791 --> 00:38:00,781
No, I love that.

767
00:38:00,791 --> 00:38:05,401
Can you talk a little bit about, you know,
looking at blue nitrogen, like burial?

768
00:38:05,511 --> 00:38:07,931
Like, how does it actually work
in soil, and does it differ

769
00:38:07,931 --> 00:38:10,551
between mangroves and marshes?

770
00:38:10,551 --> 00:38:13,191
And you don't have to go into,
like, extreme detail, but just in-

771
00:38:13,191 --> 00:38:15,161
Yeah … terms of, like, how that works.

772
00:38:15,171 --> 00:38:17,011
Does it work the same… You k-
kind of mentioned earlier with

773
00:38:17,031 --> 00:38:20,641
carbon and things, like as the
soil grows you can have more space.

774
00:38:20,641 --> 00:38:23,061
But how does it actually
get buried in there?

775
00:38:23,421 --> 00:38:23,791
Right.

776
00:38:24,261 --> 00:38:25,281
Yeah, that's a great question.

777
00:38:26,181 --> 00:38:29,291
It's largely two processes.

778
00:38:29,559 --> 00:38:35,609
I would say there's, uh, the biological
side where plants absorb this nitrogen.

779
00:38:35,609 --> 00:38:39,709
So the water infiltrates into the soil,
and it's carrying some nitrogen with it.

780
00:38:40,219 --> 00:38:45,139
Um, some of this nitrogen is coming from
nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil.

781
00:38:45,149 --> 00:38:45,239
Mm-hmm.

782
00:38:45,569 --> 00:38:53,129
But so then the plants take up that
nitrogen, they grow, they die, they

783
00:38:53,129 --> 00:38:58,029
fall over into the soil, or the below
ground structures just die in place.

784
00:38:58,449 --> 00:38:58,629
Mm-hmm.

785
00:38:58,639 --> 00:39:07,669
And it's key that these are saturated
soils, so oxygen is consumed more

786
00:39:07,669 --> 00:39:09,519
rapidly than it can diffuse in.

787
00:39:09,519 --> 00:39:15,699
And that keeps this soil really anoxic and
tends to preserve organic matter- Mm-hmm

788
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:16,619
for long time.

789
00:39:16,669 --> 00:39:20,409
You might have seen like
the bog mummy from- Right.

790
00:39:20,439 --> 00:39:20,959
… Scotland.

791
00:39:21,019 --> 00:39:25,339
So in a wetland there was a- Yeah … a
really old, I don't know how old, tens

792
00:39:25,339 --> 00:39:28,529
of thousands of years old human that
fell in, and they're- Yeah … really

793
00:39:28,529 --> 00:39:32,509
well preserved because there's no
oxygen in that bog- Right … um,

794
00:39:33,139 --> 00:39:35,339
to stimulate decomposition.

795
00:39:35,399 --> 00:39:36,709
Same thing happens here.

796
00:39:37,106 --> 00:39:38,896
So organic matter builds up.

797
00:39:39,916 --> 00:39:45,116
The other side, so there's the
inorganic side where these wetlands,

798
00:39:45,666 --> 00:39:49,056
because they have vegetation that's
sticking up into the water that

799
00:39:49,216 --> 00:39:53,266
floods through them, they tend to trap
little particles of- Okay … silt.

800
00:39:53,736 --> 00:39:54,116
Right.

801
00:39:54,796 --> 00:39:58,076
And, you know, some amount of
nitrogen will stick to those

802
00:39:58,106 --> 00:39:59,576
little particles as well.

803
00:40:00,106 --> 00:40:00,516
Okay.

804
00:40:00,636 --> 00:40:03,176
Um, you know, there's a lot
of work right now and a lot of

805
00:40:03,186 --> 00:40:05,086
interest on this very question.

806
00:40:05,086 --> 00:40:10,256
What is it that, um, helps stabilize
especially carbon, but also

807
00:40:10,286 --> 00:40:12,586
nitrogen in these wetland soils?

808
00:40:12,586 --> 00:40:13,756
What are the mechanisms?

809
00:40:13,756 --> 00:40:16,566
And I think we still don't really
know- Mm-hmm … you know, some…

810
00:40:16,656 --> 00:40:18,846
They can last for millennia down there.

811
00:40:18,856 --> 00:40:23,916
What is it that keeps any
bacterium from trying to, uh,

812
00:40:23,956 --> 00:40:25,556
consume these for that long?

813
00:40:25,606 --> 00:40:28,386
It's, uh, it's, you know,
anoxia is part of it.

814
00:40:28,396 --> 00:40:34,152
Sometimes you get some acidity in these
soils and that might help a little bit.

815
00:40:34,712 --> 00:40:34,962
Yeah.

816
00:40:34,962 --> 00:40:37,172
Um, We're really trying to explore.

817
00:40:37,172 --> 00:40:41,662
I have some colleagues working on this,
uh, Lisa Chambers down in Florida.

818
00:40:42,132 --> 00:40:49,212
Um, there's some abiotic mechanisms
where y- you just have carbon and

819
00:40:49,212 --> 00:40:54,212
nitrogen kinda stick in these little
crevices to tiny little soil particles,

820
00:40:54,292 --> 00:40:55,876
and it's- Yeah … gets locked away.

821
00:40:56,456 --> 00:40:56,766
Yeah.

822
00:40:58,540 --> 00:41:00,430
That's so cool … inaccessible
to microbes.

823
00:41:00,830 --> 00:41:01,270
Yeah.

824
00:41:01,380 --> 00:41:01,670
Yeah.

825
00:41:01,670 --> 00:41:02,570
No, that's so cool.

826
00:41:03,340 --> 00:41:05,350
Let's get into some of
the results of the study.

827
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:07,960
Um, 'cause you had this large database.

828
00:41:08,540 --> 00:41:12,240
Uh, one of the things that you guys
saw, it was like, there's like a,

829
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:16,380
a, like a th- I think this was one
of the results, like a 13% to 15%

830
00:41:16,380 --> 00:41:19,020
marine nitrogen burial figure, right?

831
00:41:19,030 --> 00:41:21,750
How significant is that number
in the context of, like,

832
00:41:21,750 --> 00:41:23,250
the global nitrogen cycle?

833
00:41:23,250 --> 00:41:24,090
I keep saying nutrients.

834
00:41:24,350 --> 00:41:25,430
Nitrogen cycle.

835
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:28,390
And what was it estimated
before the study?

836
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:36,290
, We dug and dug and it couldn't find
any good-- any estimates for a global

837
00:41:36,470 --> 00:41:38,790
nitrogen burial rate in coastal wetlands.

838
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:41,970
And I think it goes back to
what we said before, like, kinda

839
00:41:41,980 --> 00:41:43,160
slipped through the cracks.

840
00:41:43,210 --> 00:41:43,450
Mm-hmm.

841
00:41:43,450 --> 00:41:47,150
You had people that were estimating,
looking at the nitrogen cycle

842
00:41:47,150 --> 00:41:49,040
on land and that and the ocean.

843
00:41:49,690 --> 00:41:54,410
Um, and we could not find
any good global estimate.

844
00:41:54,790 --> 00:41:57,610
So we can't say we
increased or decreased it.

845
00:41:57,610 --> 00:41:58,470
There really wasn't one.

846
00:41:59,020 --> 00:42:03,450
Um, so marine burial, I
have seen numbers for that.

847
00:42:04,570 --> 00:42:09,060
Um, and so it turned out to be a
pretty significant portion of that.

848
00:42:09,750 --> 00:42:14,500
Um, as far as the global nitrogen
cycle, you know, there are some

849
00:42:14,500 --> 00:42:18,060
big fluxes in the global nitrogen
cycle- Of course … and humans have

850
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:20,790
tended to make them much larger.

851
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:24,380
This is really staggering with nitrogen.

852
00:42:24,380 --> 00:42:27,090
You know, we've affected the
carbon cycle, but we've really

853
00:42:27,090 --> 00:42:28,890
affected the nitrogen cycle.

854
00:42:29,150 --> 00:42:30,430
Um- More than the carbon cycle?

855
00:42:30,690 --> 00:42:31,570
Yeah, I would- Oh, wow.

856
00:42:31,570 --> 00:42:35,950
Yeah, that's, that's- Okay … that's
a fact, because if you look at the

857
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:45,280
natural fluxes of nitrogen into
ecosystems, um, through deposition from

858
00:42:45,280 --> 00:42:51,490
the atmosphere and fixation, um, we've
more than doubled the rate of nitrogen

859
00:42:51,490 --> 00:42:56,890
inputs through- Wow … fertilizer
production, fossil fuel combustion.

860
00:42:57,310 --> 00:43:00,164
So yeah, It is extreme.

861
00:43:00,484 --> 00:43:08,150
Um- Yeah … this rate of burial, y-
you know, and it's probably, like,

862
00:43:08,500 --> 00:43:13,780
on the order of a couple of percent
of some of these other large fluxes,

863
00:43:13,810 --> 00:43:15,810
like total input into ecosystems.

864
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:18,990
So in that, in that sense, it's not huge.

865
00:43:19,500 --> 00:43:22,850
It's on par with, um, blue carbon.

866
00:43:23,384 --> 00:43:29,690
If you look at the rate of blue
carbon burial, that is about 60

867
00:43:29,930 --> 00:43:33,260
teragrams of carbon per year globally.

868
00:43:33,747 --> 00:43:34,397
That's a lot.

869
00:43:35,357 --> 00:43:38,877
Um, but global emissions
are 10,000 teragrams.

870
00:43:38,877 --> 00:43:40,957
In fact, it's so big we
measure it in petagrams.

871
00:43:40,957 --> 00:43:43,377
It's about 10 petagrams.

872
00:43:44,117 --> 00:43:46,747
So what's that make?

873
00:43:46,757 --> 00:43:50,657
That's about, uh, a half a
percent of emissions that is

874
00:43:50,657 --> 00:43:52,197
being buried in coastal wetlands.

875
00:43:52,197 --> 00:43:52,797
That's something.

876
00:43:52,797 --> 00:43:53,297
That's big.

877
00:43:53,667 --> 00:43:56,620
Um, but, you know, in the big scheme
of things, it's a little smaller.

878
00:43:57,277 --> 00:44:01,147
And this is where nitrogen is
fundamentally different from carbon.

879
00:44:01,727 --> 00:44:06,223
So it makes sense to talk about carbon
on a global scale And it makes sense

880
00:44:06,233 --> 00:44:12,303
for nitrogen as well, but the effects of
nitrogen are really magnified locally.

881
00:44:13,463 --> 00:44:16,823
So whereas, you know, we talk
about carbon because one molecule

882
00:44:16,823 --> 00:44:20,253
of CO2 when it's emitted, it goes
up and it warms in the atmosphere,

883
00:44:20,253 --> 00:44:22,043
but that warming isn't localized.

884
00:44:22,413 --> 00:44:22,623
Right.

885
00:44:22,623 --> 00:44:27,433
That's really well mixed up there, so it
can cause warming all around the globe.

886
00:44:28,633 --> 00:44:31,683
That's not the case with nitrogen the
way we're talking about it, 'cause

887
00:44:31,683 --> 00:44:36,423
when it's taken up from an estuary
or released into an estuary, its

888
00:44:36,423 --> 00:44:39,063
effects are manifested right there.

889
00:44:39,593 --> 00:44:40,043
Mm-hmm.

890
00:44:40,173 --> 00:44:45,562
So in a way, I'd say, the role
of coastal wetlands is probably

891
00:44:45,782 --> 00:44:50,182
greater in terms of nitrogen than
it is in terms of carbon- Mm-hmm

892
00:44:50,182 --> 00:44:52,922
because of these acute local
effects that nitrogen has.

893
00:44:52,922 --> 00:44:53,292
Yeah.

894
00:44:54,262 --> 00:44:54,732
Wow.

895
00:44:55,872 --> 00:44:56,752
That's incredible.

896
00:44:57,372 --> 00:44:57,852
That's incredible.

897
00:44:57,852 --> 00:45:00,922
Now, we talked about sea level
rise earlier, uh, but you found

898
00:45:00,922 --> 00:45:05,492
that sea level rise could increase
nitrogen sequestration in wetlands,

899
00:45:05,942 --> 00:45:07,752
but only if the wetlands survive.

900
00:45:07,762 --> 00:45:08,782
What is meant by that?

901
00:45:08,852 --> 00:45:11,982
Like, what determines whether a
wetland survives in sea level rise?

902
00:45:12,292 --> 00:45:14,112
And if it does, then it's a big benefit.

903
00:45:14,645 --> 00:45:14,965
Right.

904
00:45:15,845 --> 00:45:20,435
Yeah, and this is what I said is really
not very well resolved in my field.

905
00:45:20,465 --> 00:45:25,708
I've got colleagues on both sides
that think, some think, sea level

906
00:45:26,148 --> 00:45:29,308
rise is going to drown wetlands.

907
00:45:29,368 --> 00:45:32,298
Uh, once- Right … we pass
these thresholds, there's not one

908
00:45:32,308 --> 00:45:33,958
threshold, let's not kid ourselves.

909
00:45:33,968 --> 00:45:35,158
There's a range of thresholds.

910
00:45:35,158 --> 00:45:35,388
Right.

911
00:45:35,388 --> 00:45:39,948
But in some cases, the thresholds are
being passed if the rate of sea level

912
00:45:39,958 --> 00:45:42,598
doubles, we're gonna lose more wetlands.

913
00:45:42,998 --> 00:45:44,548
Now wetlands are dynamic though.

914
00:45:44,618 --> 00:45:46,678
They can build vertically,
and that has a limit, but they

915
00:45:46,678 --> 00:45:49,448
can also transgress laterally.

916
00:45:49,505 --> 00:45:49,765
Mm-hmm.

917
00:45:49,765 --> 00:45:56,035
And so there have been papers that
suggest, um, that as sea level rises, we

918
00:45:56,035 --> 00:46:01,865
could even gain wetland area because they
just has to do with the topography of the

919
00:46:01,875 --> 00:46:03,965
inland area where they're transgressing.

920
00:46:03,975 --> 00:46:06,465
So when I say transgress,
I mean- Yeah … move.

921
00:46:06,475 --> 00:46:08,505
Like move to the right
or to the left- Landward

922
00:46:08,505 --> 00:46:09,465
or… Yeah, landward.

923
00:46:09,495 --> 00:46:09,785
Yeah.

924
00:46:10,355 --> 00:46:12,075
My hunch is that's not going to happen.

925
00:46:12,125 --> 00:46:16,095
We're gonna lose coastal wetland
area with higher rates of sea level.

926
00:46:16,095 --> 00:46:20,205
But, for the purpose of this paper,
we didn't wanna tackle that- Right.

927
00:46:20,285 --> 00:46:21,315
Of course … can of worms.

928
00:46:21,725 --> 00:46:21,745
Yeah.

929
00:46:21,745 --> 00:46:23,985
So we just took all these
different scenarios.

930
00:46:24,325 --> 00:46:29,835
So we said in the rosiest scenario,
say wet- sea level rise increases,

931
00:46:30,708 --> 00:46:33,998
and the area of wetlands expands.

932
00:46:34,228 --> 00:46:37,048
The rate of sea level rise, so if
wetlands keep up with that rate of

933
00:46:37,048 --> 00:46:41,092
sea level rise, well, that means
they're burying soil more rapidly.

934
00:46:41,322 --> 00:46:41,742
Mm-hmm.

935
00:46:41,862 --> 00:46:43,822
Um, they have to, to keep up.

936
00:46:43,842 --> 00:46:44,712
Yeah, to keep up.

937
00:46:44,772 --> 00:46:45,132
Yeah.

938
00:46:48,052 --> 00:46:51,792
But, you know, it, I think more
realistically, that scenario to me,

939
00:46:52,105 --> 00:46:56,405
a high rate of sea level rise and
wetland area gain is not very realistic.

940
00:46:56,435 --> 00:47:02,445
I think if we have higher rates of sea
level, we're gonna see more loss of-

941
00:47:02,445 --> 00:47:03,685
Makes sense … of coastal wetlands.

942
00:47:04,065 --> 00:47:04,405
Yeah.

943
00:47:05,445 --> 00:47:05,795
Yeah.

944
00:47:05,825 --> 00:47:07,385
It's like- 'Cause it would be,
it would be hard to keep up

945
00:47:07,385 --> 00:47:10,025
with that soil rising- Mm-hmm

946
00:47:10,035 --> 00:47:13,485
with that, if sea level gets
over, rates too high and it

947
00:47:13,485 --> 00:47:14,275
gets over the wetland, right?

948
00:47:14,525 --> 00:47:18,305
I think of it like a conveyor belt
and, like, if you're in a chocolate

949
00:47:18,305 --> 00:47:21,195
factory and you turn up the speed
of the conveyor belt, well, that

950
00:47:21,195 --> 00:47:25,805
might help increase production for a
while, but if you go too far- Mm-hmm

951
00:47:25,815 --> 00:47:28,465
you're gonna end up with a Lucy
and Ethel situation and the-

952
00:47:28,465 --> 00:47:29,845
Mm-hmm … whole system breaks down.

953
00:47:29,935 --> 00:47:31,405
I like the reference.

954
00:47:33,845 --> 00:47:34,305
Awesome.

955
00:47:34,435 --> 00:47:34,935
Awesome.

956
00:47:35,395 --> 00:47:38,595
Um, yeah, that definitely,
uh, makes sense.

957
00:47:38,925 --> 00:47:42,338
Um, like, are there real world
examples showing, like, already

958
00:47:42,338 --> 00:47:44,148
showing, like, this source versus sink?

959
00:47:44,268 --> 00:47:48,208
Like where we see a, maybe a
flip, or we see, um, you know,

960
00:47:48,208 --> 00:47:50,468
where wetlands actually survive?

961
00:47:50,488 --> 00:47:53,908
Have we seen that, again, with
higher rates of sea level rise?

962
00:47:54,818 --> 00:47:55,648
Or has it been the opposite?

963
00:47:56,288 --> 00:47:59,593
So I'm thinking on the other
side, I feel like we've definitely

964
00:47:59,593 --> 00:48:04,833
seen cases where we feel like the
wetlands have sunk and started to

965
00:48:04,833 --> 00:48:07,403
erode because of sea level rise.

966
00:48:08,093 --> 00:48:14,893
Um, there are some, probably some cases
maybe in the Gulf, um, where I think

967
00:48:14,893 --> 00:48:17,953
that's where you see your highest
rates of relative sea level rise,

968
00:48:17,983 --> 00:48:20,923
which can exceed a centimeter per year.

969
00:48:20,923 --> 00:48:25,513
We've been talking about millimeters, so-
Mm-hmm … because you- Which is like,

970
00:48:25,513 --> 00:48:26,943
yeah, order of magnitude more, yeah.

971
00:48:26,983 --> 00:48:27,423
Yeah.

972
00:48:27,423 --> 00:48:31,373
Because you have a lot of, uh,
subsidence of deep sediments,

973
00:48:31,983 --> 00:48:34,483
and so the whole area is sinking.

974
00:48:35,673 --> 00:48:38,983
Plus you have, you know,
whatever sea level rise rates.

975
00:48:38,993 --> 00:48:42,463
So if you add those two, that's how
much relative sea level rise is.

976
00:48:42,473 --> 00:48:43,663
So you can get some really high rates.

977
00:48:43,673 --> 00:48:46,990
And there are are certainly cases of
wetlands that are keeping up with that.

978
00:48:47,010 --> 00:48:51,720
I'd say it's- Mm-hmm … most likely where
you have a lot of sediment available to

979
00:48:51,730 --> 00:48:53,870
be deposited and help build that soil.

980
00:48:54,810 --> 00:48:59,603
Um, but I think that the net effect
that I see at my sites when I'm,

981
00:48:59,733 --> 00:49:04,593
especially in Florida, is just that
we're losing, um, in this recent paper,

982
00:49:05,083 --> 00:49:11,083
it's about a linear meter per year
off every coastline of every wetland,

983
00:49:11,993 --> 00:49:13,613
um, which is, yeah, it's extreme.

984
00:49:13,613 --> 00:49:14,373
That's significant.

985
00:49:14,653 --> 00:49:15,783
It's very significant.

986
00:49:16,213 --> 00:49:19,643
And you can go yourself on Google
Earth and look at the past, the

987
00:49:19,643 --> 00:49:22,533
older imagery compared to the
current, and you'll see- Yeah

988
00:49:22,533 --> 00:49:25,513
this, this retraction that's happening.

989
00:49:25,513 --> 00:49:26,163
And there it is.

990
00:49:26,213 --> 00:49:30,043
It's definitely partly sea level rise and
accelerating- Yeah … sea level rise.

991
00:49:30,193 --> 00:49:35,603
Um- Right … Our paper recently
points to some other human influences

992
00:49:35,603 --> 00:49:40,740
like boats, boat- Mm-hmm … traffic
along the coasts of these wetlands.

993
00:49:40,740 --> 00:49:44,633
So this study was centered on
the Intracoastal Waterway- Mm-hmm

994
00:49:44,643 --> 00:49:45,983
in northeastern Florida.

995
00:49:46,743 --> 00:49:51,313
And there are more boats, they're
moving faster, they're bigger,

996
00:49:52,033 --> 00:49:56,523
they're more frequent, and you get a
lot of wave energy that's generated

997
00:49:56,533 --> 00:49:58,983
that just wasn't there in the past.

998
00:49:58,993 --> 00:49:59,023
Mm-hmm.

999
00:49:59,243 --> 00:50:04,183
These all coastal wetlands they tend
to form in lower energy environments.

1000
00:50:04,913 --> 00:50:05,223
Yeah.

1001
00:50:05,223 --> 00:50:10,133
Um, so when you add energy to the system,
you're gonna tend to erode those edges.

1002
00:50:10,453 --> 00:50:14,913
One twist on that was we did find
that areas that had mangroves in

1003
00:50:14,913 --> 00:50:21,313
Florida tended to have lower rates
of erosion, so they seemed more, more

1004
00:50:21,313 --> 00:50:25,002
resistant- Right the shoreline erosion.

1005
00:50:25,542 --> 00:50:26,052
Yeah.

1006
00:50:26,142 --> 00:50:29,862
Now, looking at all of this, you
know, all the worry and, obviously

1007
00:50:29,862 --> 00:50:34,352
this paper adds to the demonstration
that people like policy makers and

1008
00:50:34,352 --> 00:50:39,102
regulators should be looking at managing
nutrients just as much as they're

1009
00:50:39,102 --> 00:50:41,792
managing carbon in very similar ways.

1010
00:50:42,912 --> 00:50:46,642
From a regulation and policy standpoint,
I assume that hasn't happened at

1011
00:50:46,642 --> 00:50:51,222
this point, where it's not equal, or
I assume carbon's taking the bigger

1012
00:50:51,312 --> 00:50:54,752
attention span because of climate
change and everything working on that.

1013
00:50:54,832 --> 00:51:00,602
How can policymakers or regulators gain on
this policy and make it equal if not more?

1014
00:51:00,602 --> 00:51:03,992
Because, you know, obviously we've
demonstrated here that it's got a huge

1015
00:51:03,992 --> 00:51:06,109
effect on a lot of different things.

1016
00:51:06,139 --> 00:51:09,369
You know, water quality, it's
especially we're looking at

1017
00:51:09,609 --> 00:51:11,612
erosion and security of coastlines.

1018
00:51:11,612 --> 00:51:15,102
I mean, you're making me think that this
prediction, the, this IPCC prediction of

1019
00:51:15,102 --> 00:51:19,362
sea level rise with Florida losing, you
know, half of its area at some point in

1020
00:51:19,362 --> 00:51:23,282
time is gonna happen sooner than later,
just with the way things are moving.

1021
00:51:23,732 --> 00:51:28,152
Um, how can regulators and policymakers
really start to ramp up the work

1022
00:51:28,242 --> 00:51:31,662
on looking at at nitrogen and
blue nitrogen as a focal point?

1023
00:51:32,422 --> 00:51:36,882
I think, um, what we point to
is the potential monetary value

1024
00:51:36,952 --> 00:51:38,822
and, you know, follow the money.

1025
00:51:39,402 --> 00:51:46,139
For better or worse, um, when you can
readily quantify the monetary value of

1026
00:51:46,139 --> 00:51:51,559
an ecosystem service, it's more likely
that you'll see action, and that's

1027
00:51:51,899 --> 00:51:53,969
what's happened with blue carbon.

1028
00:51:54,526 --> 00:51:59,936
We're not economists on this paper, but
we did throw out some numbers just using

1029
00:51:59,936 --> 00:52:06,366
some other people's values for how much is
it worth to sequester a gram of nitrogen

1030
00:52:06,406 --> 00:52:08,366
and to keep that out of your waterway.

1031
00:52:08,816 --> 00:52:14,526
So we took some numbers and then
extrapolated using the 3.2 teragrams

1032
00:52:14,526 --> 00:52:21,536
that we came up with, and the value
could exceed the value of blue

1033
00:52:21,536 --> 00:52:23,529
carbon, and so that's pretty big.

1034
00:52:23,529 --> 00:52:28,249
So blue carbon is calculated by saying
like how much damage can climate change

1035
00:52:28,489 --> 00:52:31,069
cause if that carbon is in the air?

1036
00:52:31,879 --> 00:52:35,549
Um, so if we store it in a wetland,
you know, how much are we offsetting?

1037
00:52:36,419 --> 00:52:41,319
So the global value of that blue
carbon in coastal wetlands was

1038
00:52:41,319 --> 00:52:43,119
estimated to be $191 billion.

1039
00:52:44,319 --> 00:52:46,819
Um, we think blue nitrogen could be more.

1040
00:52:47,442 --> 00:52:47,662
Wow.

1041
00:52:47,712 --> 00:52:52,132
It's a little, it's a little more
difficult to calculate because like I

1042
00:52:52,152 --> 00:52:54,332
said, it's not as global in its effects.

1043
00:52:54,342 --> 00:52:54,582
Mm-hmm.

1044
00:52:55,272 --> 00:53:01,546
Um, so storing, sequestering a gram of
nitrogen in a really polluted estuary

1045
00:53:01,576 --> 00:53:04,606
might be worth more than somewhere else.

1046
00:53:05,216 --> 00:53:05,796
Um- Right.

1047
00:53:05,916 --> 00:53:09,016
Right … whereas for carbon,
it's just more fungible.

1048
00:53:09,066 --> 00:53:12,166
You can probably come up with one
number maybe that works for the globe.

1049
00:53:12,196 --> 00:53:14,346
I don't know how these
economists do this, but, um.

1050
00:53:14,386 --> 00:53:14,646
Right.

1051
00:53:15,256 --> 00:53:15,636
Yeah.

1052
00:53:15,936 --> 00:53:18,356
So I do think it's a little more
complicated with nitrogen, but I think

1053
00:53:18,366 --> 00:53:22,846
those are complications that can readily
be worked out, and once you have a value

1054
00:53:23,156 --> 00:53:28,456
that we're getting by, um, protecting
wetlands or restoring wetlands, I

1055
00:53:28,456 --> 00:53:33,406
think it becomes much more clear to
policymakers, to private interests,

1056
00:53:33,406 --> 00:53:38,002
like, you know, this is why we should
save these places or restore them.

1057
00:53:38,732 --> 00:53:44,442
Saving a wetland isn't as
easy as it might sound.

1058
00:53:44,452 --> 00:53:48,352
You can't just, like, put a fence
around it and hope it survives.

1059
00:53:48,912 --> 00:53:53,179
Um, you know, when you're talking
about conserving an upland

1060
00:53:53,179 --> 00:53:54,769
forest, maybe that's what you do.

1061
00:53:54,999 --> 00:53:57,579
Just- Right … don't let-
Yeah … someone bulldoze it.

1062
00:53:58,159 --> 00:54:01,862
Um, or if you think about, like,
marine protected areas, which I'm

1063
00:54:01,862 --> 00:54:04,222
sure you've talked about a lot.

1064
00:54:04,682 --> 00:54:04,972
Yeah.

1065
00:54:05,012 --> 00:54:11,429
it's more about, like, surveying the
area and, um, having some eyes on

1066
00:54:11,429 --> 00:54:14,006
it and maybe regulating fishermen.

1067
00:54:14,716 --> 00:54:15,066
Yeah.

1068
00:54:15,066 --> 00:54:15,916
Yeah.

1069
00:54:15,916 --> 00:54:18,226
In a wetland, you know, the,
there are those threats.

1070
00:54:18,226 --> 00:54:20,476
There are some… You know,
your bulldozers are a threat.

1071
00:54:21,009 --> 00:54:23,779
That's a very acute one, but you've
got this sea level rise, and,

1072
00:54:23,779 --> 00:54:25,319
like, a fence won't keep that out.

1073
00:54:25,539 --> 00:54:25,809
No.

1074
00:54:26,629 --> 00:54:32,939
Um, so it's like, you know, ultimately,
if you want to preserve the wetland,

1075
00:54:32,989 --> 00:54:36,329
and not just the carbon and nitrogen,
but everything else they do, like you

1076
00:54:36,329 --> 00:54:43,509
mentioned, coastal protection, uh,
habitat, um, sustaining our fisheries,

1077
00:54:44,226 --> 00:54:48,466
we've kinda gotta deal with the
sea level issue, that's a big one.

1078
00:54:48,466 --> 00:54:52,816
A bigger … That's a bigger, that's
a, a bigger solution, a bigger ask.

1079
00:54:52,816 --> 00:54:53,166
Yeah.

1080
00:54:53,186 --> 00:54:53,536
Right.

1081
00:54:53,536 --> 00:54:53,926
Yeah.

1082
00:54:54,582 --> 00:54:58,782
If your endpoint is trying to reduce,
you know, nitrogen loads, you're like,

1083
00:54:58,782 --> 00:55:00,642
I think wetlands are a big part of that.

1084
00:55:01,612 --> 00:55:04,062
If we can sustain healthy
wetlands, I think they will

1085
00:55:04,072 --> 00:55:05,712
really help us with our problems.

1086
00:55:05,712 --> 00:55:09,822
But we've also got to just,
um, manage our nitrogen better.

1087
00:55:09,832 --> 00:55:09,852
Yeah.

1088
00:55:10,252 --> 00:55:17,219
One thing we're seeing in Florida
is that a lot of the nitrogen that's

1089
00:55:17,249 --> 00:55:22,066
polluting the waterways is organic- Mm-hmm
… which is different from elsewhere.

1090
00:55:22,066 --> 00:55:24,356
It tends to be, um, you know, nitrate.

1091
00:55:24,356 --> 00:55:24,446
Right.

1092
00:55:25,426 --> 00:55:27,126
But here it's, a lot of it's organic.

1093
00:55:27,136 --> 00:55:31,872
And we think that- the wetland erosion
that we're seeing might very well be

1094
00:55:31,872 --> 00:55:36,762
contributing to those higher loads
of organic nitrogen in the estuary.

1095
00:55:37,472 --> 00:55:40,772
That's one of the thrusts of what we're
trying to work on is linking those two.

1096
00:55:40,772 --> 00:55:45,902
Are we actually seeing already what
we're predicting might happen in the

1097
00:55:45,902 --> 00:55:50,762
future where we lose wetlands and they
re-release all these nutrients- That

1098
00:55:50,762 --> 00:55:51,392
they've been- … into the waterway

1099
00:55:51,392 --> 00:55:52,532
sequestering for centuries?

1100
00:55:52,532 --> 00:55:52,842
Yeah.

1101
00:55:52,902 --> 00:55:53,212
Right.

1102
00:55:53,252 --> 00:55:56,202
And you're looking at Everglades,
which covers a significant portion

1103
00:55:56,202 --> 00:56:00,642
of Florida, and you lose that,
that's a lot of nitrogen going

1104
00:56:00,642 --> 00:56:01,692
back into the system, right?

1105
00:56:02,532 --> 00:56:03,302
Oh, gosh.

1106
00:56:03,352 --> 00:56:05,762
I haven't done- … that math
on the Everglades, but that

1107
00:56:05,762 --> 00:56:06,302
would be- Don't do that math.

1108
00:56:06,322 --> 00:56:07,152
We don't wanna see that.

1109
00:56:07,152 --> 00:56:08,032
We don- don't do that math.

1110
00:56:08,032 --> 00:56:12,622
But I, I guess the, I guess the, the,
the quote-unquote quicker fix would

1111
00:56:12,632 --> 00:56:17,102
be restoration to ensure that we
don't have this loss, but that doesn't

1112
00:56:17,102 --> 00:56:20,802
necessarily replace the nitrogen
that's been sequestered because

1113
00:56:20,802 --> 00:56:22,722
those are gonna be very new systems.

1114
00:56:23,042 --> 00:56:26,012
And if we lose the other
systems, it becomes- Mm-hmm

1115
00:56:26,042 --> 00:56:27,842
it becomes a little bit more difficult.

1116
00:56:28,022 --> 00:56:33,662
The longer process is reduce climate
change, and let's hope for the… Like,

1117
00:56:33,672 --> 00:56:36,762
cross your fingers and hope for the
best at this point, 'cause we're already

1118
00:56:36,762 --> 00:56:40,082
past- Yeah … a lot of thresholds,
uh, that we weren't supposed to pass.

1119
00:56:40,182 --> 00:56:43,632
Um- Right … and of course, you know,
from a, from an action standpoint,

1120
00:56:43,632 --> 00:56:48,922
I always say vote for, uh, better
politicians who actually care about

1121
00:56:48,922 --> 00:56:52,892
the environment, and this is worldwide,
not just the US, but worldwide.

1122
00:56:53,192 --> 00:56:56,942
And realizing that coastal ecosystems,
although they might be difficult to

1123
00:56:56,952 --> 00:57:01,202
tread on, they might be difficult to,
you know, smell, like the smell's not

1124
00:57:01,202 --> 00:57:03,542
the best when you're in those areas
or, you know, things like that, but

1125
00:57:03,542 --> 00:57:04,802
they're actually quite beautiful.

1126
00:57:04,992 --> 00:57:09,292
Whole lot of biodiversity, whole lot
of nutrients, uh, and nitrogen and

1127
00:57:09,292 --> 00:57:11,332
carbon, and we literally need them.

1128
00:57:11,442 --> 00:57:13,652
We need everything we can get right
now, and, and it's, they've been

1129
00:57:13,652 --> 00:57:16,732
saving our butts for a long time,
and right now it may not be enough.

1130
00:57:18,012 --> 00:57:20,702
Because of all that, I've
learned to love the smell.

1131
00:57:21,252 --> 00:57:21,772
Yeah.

1132
00:57:21,892 --> 00:57:22,082
Yeah.

1133
00:57:22,812 --> 00:57:23,412
I like that.

1134
00:57:24,302 --> 00:57:25,192
Who's had to deal with it?

1135
00:57:26,272 --> 00:57:26,512
That's it.

1136
00:57:27,292 --> 00:57:27,772
I love it.

1137
00:57:29,002 --> 00:57:29,132
Yeah, it's great.

1138
00:57:29,132 --> 00:57:29,812
I love that.

1139
00:57:30,032 --> 00:57:30,422
I love that.

1140
00:57:30,482 --> 00:57:31,692
Adam, I wanna thank you so much.

1141
00:57:31,692 --> 00:57:34,362
You've given us so much, uh,
to think about and to work.

1142
00:57:34,362 --> 00:57:36,982
I guess, like, uh, for people who
are listening to this podcast, I

1143
00:57:36,982 --> 00:57:40,692
know there's a lot of like, uh,
high-level stuff, like a lot of policy

1144
00:57:40,692 --> 00:57:43,742
needs to be done and like tackling
climate change is a difficult thing.

1145
00:57:43,742 --> 00:57:49,752
But what could, what, like, action would
you say, uh, people could take, or what

1146
00:57:49,752 --> 00:57:54,582
would you suggest for them to do, uh,
in regards to helping with this problem?

1147
00:57:55,539 --> 00:58:00,926
Um, well, I mean, you know, I really
think this comes down to this question

1148
00:58:01,586 --> 00:58:04,186
with the same thing with carbon.

1149
00:58:04,226 --> 00:58:06,646
You know, you can calculate
your carbon footprint.

1150
00:58:07,366 --> 00:58:09,016
You can calculate your nitrogen footprint.

1151
00:58:09,026 --> 00:58:11,696
You can Google that, and
you can go look up and see.

1152
00:58:11,906 --> 00:58:15,486
You know, everything we do,
because nitrogen is so important

1153
00:58:15,496 --> 00:58:17,036
to life, everything we do- Yeah

1154
00:58:17,676 --> 00:58:20,416
generates some nitrogen waste.

1155
00:58:20,966 --> 00:58:26,026
Regarding both those questions, it's
like, can your personal actions matter-

1156
00:58:26,036 --> 00:58:29,896
Mm-hmm … compared to policy actions?

1157
00:58:30,426 --> 00:58:34,709
And, you know, it's
like, yeah, I don't know.

1158
00:58:34,859 --> 00:58:37,949
I don't know if- Yeah … if they
can- It's true … directly, but I do

1159
00:58:37,949 --> 00:58:40,989
know that they are at least symbolic.

1160
00:58:40,999 --> 00:58:41,029
Mm-hmm.

1161
00:58:41,429 --> 00:58:46,089
And when you take the action, you
know, maybe reduce your nitrogen

1162
00:58:46,089 --> 00:58:50,172
footprint, that's like eating
lower on the food chain, um,

1163
00:58:50,212 --> 00:58:53,032
reducing fossil fuel combustion-
Mm-hmm … whatever you can do, I

1164
00:58:53,032 --> 00:58:55,742
think that symbolically matters a lot.

1165
00:58:56,042 --> 00:58:56,532
For sure.

1166
00:58:57,242 --> 00:59:02,312
Um, as far as saving, you know,
coastal wetlands, uh, I'd say,

1167
00:59:02,342 --> 00:59:04,092
like, one, don't buy a super yacht.

1168
00:59:04,332 --> 00:59:07,152
Those are bad for
wetlands in multiple ways.

1169
00:59:07,322 --> 00:59:07,922
Right.

1170
00:59:08,092 --> 00:59:08,432
Right.

1171
00:59:08,472 --> 00:59:11,942
But like what you said, you know,
voting is obviously- Yeah … a lot

1172
00:59:11,942 --> 00:59:16,012
of it starts there because I really do
believe, like, it takes collective action

1173
00:59:17,012 --> 00:59:18,502
to make a difference on these issues.

1174
00:59:18,532 --> 00:59:21,852
These are- Yeah … these are
necessarily collective issues.

1175
00:59:22,002 --> 00:59:25,122
These, you know, nitrogen,
just like carbon, doesn't

1176
00:59:25,132 --> 00:59:26,762
really know borders like we do.

1177
00:59:26,842 --> 00:59:28,032
It's everybody's problem.

1178
00:59:28,562 --> 00:59:28,822
Yep.

1179
00:59:28,842 --> 00:59:30,402
And so it takes everybody to solve it.

1180
00:59:30,926 --> 00:59:31,546
Absolutely.

1181
00:59:31,746 --> 00:59:32,166
Absolutely.

1182
00:59:32,166 --> 00:59:34,666
And one day we'll get it right, but
there is a big election coming up

1183
00:59:34,666 --> 00:59:36,106
in November in the United States.

1184
00:59:36,436 --> 00:59:39,176
Uh, a lot of elections going on in
the United States that I think will

1185
00:59:39,186 --> 00:59:44,396
hopefully, if, uh, certain people win,
hopefully they'll make some decisions

1186
00:59:44,419 --> 00:59:47,829
that'll be better for the environment
and sort of bring back the funding, uh,

1187
00:59:47,839 --> 00:59:51,419
for a lot of these situations that we're
in right now that, uh, not necessarily

1188
00:59:51,459 --> 00:59:55,169
in the last three years or in the last
year or two, but, uh, hopefully help

1189
00:59:55,169 --> 00:59:56,909
us get out of it, uh, in the future.

1190
00:59:56,909 --> 00:59:59,229
So, uh, Adam, thank you
so much for the work.

1191
00:59:59,559 --> 01:00:01,609
Uh, appreciate everything you
and your colleagues have done.

1192
01:00:01,809 --> 01:00:05,399
I'll put the link to the paper so that
people can take a look, uh, and your lab

1193
01:00:05,399 --> 01:00:07,942
so people can take a look at what other
stuff that you guys have been up to.

1194
01:00:07,952 --> 01:00:10,152
And we really appreciate you coming
here, and we'd love to have you

1195
01:00:10,152 --> 01:00:13,582
back to talk more about wetlands
and, and all the latest research

1196
01:00:13,582 --> 01:00:14,332
that you guys have been doing.

1197
01:00:14,962 --> 01:00:15,792
Thanks, Andrew.

1198
01:00:15,862 --> 01:00:16,632
It's been a pleasure.

1199
01:00:17,092 --> 01:00:17,422
You bet.

1200
01:00:17,422 --> 01:00:17,882
Thank you.

1201
01:00:18,413 --> 01:00:20,793
Thank you, Adam, for joining us
on today's episode of the How

1202
01:00:20,793 --> 01:00:21,833
to Protect the Ocean podcast.

1203
01:00:21,833 --> 01:00:22,683
It was great to have you on.

1204
01:00:22,873 --> 01:00:27,033
To be able to have a discussion on coastal
wetlands that we really haven't had before

1205
01:00:27,033 --> 01:00:28,823
on this podcast is really special to me.

1206
01:00:29,133 --> 01:00:34,943
I've always admired mangroves, salt
marshes, mud flats, seagrasses,

1207
01:00:34,953 --> 01:00:37,183
even coral reefs, all these
different types of habitats.

1208
01:00:37,243 --> 01:00:40,593
Not only are they great to dive on and
dive in and just they're beautiful in

1209
01:00:40,603 --> 01:00:44,923
nature and the way they actually, uh, just
are, like, just the way they look, the

1210
01:00:44,923 --> 01:00:48,533
way they act, and what they can do for
the ecosystem, but it's also, it's really

1211
01:00:48,533 --> 01:00:51,473
important to have these conversations
to look at how climate change, how sea

1212
01:00:51,473 --> 01:00:56,663
level rise, how development has changed
the landscape, and to how sometimes that

1213
01:00:56,663 --> 01:00:58,953
could be a good thing, and sometimes
that can be a really bad thing.

1214
01:00:59,183 --> 01:01:03,413
And we talked a lot about looking at what
happens when mangroves and salt marshes

1215
01:01:03,453 --> 01:01:08,013
kind of release nitrogen into the water
if they get flooded or if they die.

1216
01:01:08,293 --> 01:01:11,293
Uh, it's just as like we see
with wildfires and carbon.

1217
01:01:11,533 --> 01:01:14,843
You know, if wildfires release as much
carbon as they've been sequestering

1218
01:01:14,843 --> 01:01:16,323
for years, it's really difficult.

1219
01:01:16,333 --> 01:01:20,263
You can do restoration on, you know,
forests as well as mangrove forests

1220
01:01:20,483 --> 01:01:23,833
along the coast and marshes, but it's
not the same because they haven't

1221
01:01:23,833 --> 01:01:29,013
been spent decades and centuries just
sequestering that carbon and that

1222
01:01:29,013 --> 01:01:32,833
nitrogen, which is very important to
our environment, very important to

1223
01:01:32,833 --> 01:01:35,653
the changes in our environment that we
could see in the future, which are a

1224
01:01:35,653 --> 01:01:40,353
lot worse and can really accelerate the
changes that we see with climate change.

1225
01:01:40,373 --> 01:01:43,053
So I wanna thank Adam for
joining us, coming in and telling

1226
01:01:43,053 --> 01:01:44,743
us all about his research.

1227
01:01:44,743 --> 01:01:48,103
Looking forward to having him come back,
talk more about wetlands, more about

1228
01:01:48,103 --> 01:01:52,243
mangroves, more about marshes, and more
about how sea level rise, as well as

1229
01:01:52,303 --> 01:01:57,643
other things like invasive species, uh,
like looking at, uh, whether they're, um,

1230
01:01:57,653 --> 01:02:02,363
nutrient pollution, rising sea levels,
at- rising atmospheric CO2 change the

1231
01:02:02,363 --> 01:02:06,453
way everything happens with the coastal
environments that we talked about today.

1232
01:02:06,473 --> 01:02:09,433
So if you have any questions
or comments for Adam or for

1233
01:02:09,433 --> 01:02:11,243
myself, please let me know.

1234
01:02:11,243 --> 01:02:13,373
If you're on Spotify, just
hit me up in the comments.

1235
01:02:13,613 --> 01:02:17,443
If you, uh, wanna go the social route,
my social media links are in the show

1236
01:02:17,443 --> 01:02:22,473
notes, and I'll put the links to Adam's
website as well as lab site so that

1237
01:02:22,473 --> 01:02:25,813
you can get to know more about him,
and we'll get to know more about him

1238
01:02:25,813 --> 01:02:27,973
when we ask him back on the podcast.

1239
01:02:27,973 --> 01:02:28,843
That'll be a lot of fun.

1240
01:02:28,843 --> 01:02:31,743
But thank you again for joining
us on today's episode of the How

1241
01:02:31,743 --> 01:02:32,793
to Protect the Ocean podcast.

1242
01:02:32,813 --> 01:02:33,783
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.

1243
01:02:33,953 --> 01:02:34,563
Have a great day.

1244
01:02:34,563 --> 01:02:36,523
We'll talk to you next time,
and happy conservation.

Blue Nitrogen: The Nutrient Story Coastal Wetlands Have Been Hiding

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