British Columbia Floods: Soil and Plants Expected to Recover, But Livestock Concern Remains, Experts Say | The Canadian News

As efforts to mitigate the impacts of the floods in southern British Columbia continue, experts say land and plants are likely to recover strongly.

The natural disaster has been catastrophic for humans, but the ecosystems of the Alluvial plains of the Lower Continent and the South of the Interior they are built to withstand flooding, said Brent Ward, an earth science professor at Simon Fraser University.

“The floodplain, it’s supposed to flood,” he told Global News.

“Certainly, in the past, natural flood events were thought to be really good for farmland as they added fresh soil to the surface, which is like old-style fertilizer.”

If the floodwater contains harmful substances, such as oil or industrial chemicals, that could be a concern, Ward added, but it depends on the concentration of those substances absorbed by the soil.

Many plants will easily grow through thin layers of extra sediment deposited on top of them, and if it contains fertilizer carried over from a nearby farm, that can be an advantage.

“That makes water more dangerous for us, but it is not necessarily dangerous for soils., ” said the co-director of the SFU Natural Hazards Research Center.

Renee Prasard, an assistant professor in the Fraser Valley University agriculture program, said the only way to determine the long-term impacts of flooding will be to test the soil.

However, he did not predict major negative impacts on the Chilliwack fields, as many of the crops were harvested before the record rains arrived.

“The blueberry plants are dormant at the moment … so the risk of contamination from the flood water does not exist because there are no crops to contaminate,” he explained. “Most of our vegetable crops have already been harvested and removed from the ground, so again, there is no risk that way either.”

The root system of an established perennial crop can also withstand a certain amount of flooding, he said. According to the BC government, the province has the largest berry industry in Canada, with more than 4,500 hectares of land reserved for berries in Abbotsford alone.

Stan Vander Waal, chairman of the BC Council of Agriculture, agreed that the timing of the flood could have been worse for plant growers, but for those who raise livestock, it is never a good time.

In the Abbotsford area alone, some 2,000 head of cattle are believed to have died. Just as floodwater can make humans sick, it can also make livestock sick, Vander Waal said.

“(An animal) may need antibiotics if it has suffered a significant cold, if I may put it that way. If an animal was in the water for a long time, that can have a negative impact: the animal is too cold, the next thing it gets is pneumonia. “

Aside from livestock, the only other animal concern that Ward has identified is the risk that too much sediment has been dumped into lakes and rivers by landslides.

“It can have an initial negative effect because sometimes that large amount of sediment that goes into the stream can affect the habitat of the fish,” he explained.

“Fish need a certain grain size for reds to lay their eggs correctly, and if there is so much sediment that the water becomes very cloudy, then you know that it can actually seriously affect the fish and kill them.. “

However, like the floods, landslides have occurred in the regions affected by the atmospheric river this week for “thousands of years.” They are part of the “ecosystem mosaic,” Ward said, depositing large woody debris in streams, creating pools and rifles that really benefit fish habitat.

“Many ecosystems are quite resistant, you know, much more resistant than us, but we have affected many ecosystems.”

Unless there is a major oil spill stemming from damaged pipelines or other industrial infrastructure, he said he does not predict that this week’s natural disaster will cause substantial and lasting damage to the environment.

But it is not yet clear how these resilient lands will respond to future floods and landslides as they become more intense and frequent due to climate change, he said.