'Ghost forests': These ominously named eyesores are as menacing as they sound

Ominously named "ghost forests" on the Eastern Shore are more than eyesores in an otherwise pristine landscape, they are harbingers of saltwater intrusion in a region already grappling with climate change.

These forests have suffered from saltwater flooding the soil and killing trees as a result. Worse yet, it is these exact forests that are natural filters for carbon dioxide and creators of fresh oxygen. Yet the transition from lush forests to saltwater marshes is a slow process, so slow it take up to half a century for the environment to be irrevocably damaged.

"A healthy forest needs relatively dry periods and fresh water," said Stephanie Stotts, associate professor of Forest Ecology at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. "In areas of low-sloping land surfaces, increasingly more research is showing the ghost forests we are seeing now have been affected for several decades. When we think about current sea level rise, we could have this rapid acceleration of dead forests."

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Carbon dioxide is a killer, but is there a silver lining?

Trees that see increased stress of saltwater intrusion not only stop filtering carbon dioxide out of the environment, but also become sources of it as well.

Even after death, the carbon dioxide already stored in the tree is re-released into the atmosphere when decomposition occurs.

"There is an influx of carbon that goes back into the atmosphere when a forest dies. In terms of a silver lining in the research, in knowing we have a couple of decades of a head start to plan for ghost forests, we can do more reforestation to help keep pace. Also, salt marches can also take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.," Stotts said.

Even that is tenuous at best, as the plant life of a marsh is the key to carbon scrubbing. Once a salt marsh is converted to an area open water, that element of the land is lost altogether.

Through a process called dendrochronology, Stotts examines the characteristic patterns of annual growth rings in timber and tree trunks to track dating events and environmental changes.

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"Our research takes cores from these trees to see when they were impacted by saltwater and look at the history of their growth," Stotts said. "We can predict, going forward, how environmental scenarios will (occur) and we find correlations with different climate analysis. This can also give us information how a tree can process saltwater as in toxicity or because its not taking up water."

What leads to 'ghost forests,' and what can be done?

Unlike many naturally occurring environmental challenges, ghost forests are a product of both external and manmade stressors.

For Annie Richards, Chester Riverkeeper with ShoreRivers, that means limiting development to areas where saltwater intrusion is not already a distinct possibility. It also requires taking heed of flood plain maps and monitoring marsh migration.

"Trees are one of our best buffer defenses for our land, so as we continue to experience shoreline erosion, one of the most important things we have are forests," Richards said. "As we lose them, we could see increasing sediment loads into our waterways and loss of valuable land. They really are our first defense to climate change and increased erosion and storm activity."

Forests are also needed for absorbing nutrients and pollution.

Future predictive flood plain maps are just another tool in forecasting marsh migration, or the natural movement of that type of wetland. That can occur in both developed and undeveloped areas as well as on porous or impervious varieties of land.

"As riverkeepers we spend a great deal of time advocating for timely updates to these floodplain maps during legislative sessions," Richards said. "We work with county planning officers to promote the best possible land usage in the most vulnerable areas. When we lose these forests, we try to see what the next best habitat, and marsh migration corridors can do that for us."

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According to the University of Maryland, In Maryland’s Somerset County, for instance, 2% of farmland turned into tidal marshes over an 8-year period from 2009 to 2017. The university also started in 2020 a study of the three major sites that represent different areas of the Delmarva region, a large peninsula occupied by Delaware, Virginia, and Maryland.

This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: Climate change and 'ghost forests': Potent combo that's killing trees