If you don’t know this yet, it’s because you’re probably living in a cave (so you’re not reading this article): the planet is in bad shape, and the deterioration of its climate is progressing at the speed of a galloping horse. National Geographic takes the example of New York, which had never known such a wet September. The city suffered the consequences of the passage of tropical storm Ophelia, which caused flooding never seen before in the American city.
The seas are rising, the storms are being filled with unprecedented energy due to climate change, and as public authorities remain amorphous in the face of the need to profoundly change our lifestyles, some civilians are forced to think about the best ways to protect their homes. and their loved ones from future natural disasters. And why not, after all, using nature itself as a bulwark?
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This is where a choice ally comes in: the oyster, which despite its inert and slimy appearance, is not only a delicacy, but also a potential superhero. It is indeed able to help us protect shorelines from waves created by storms and high tides, and also to reduce the impacts of erosion due to intense rains.
The last bastion
From China to Australia, oysters have already been used for this purpose for some time, but in the United States, New York and Louisiana have also jumped on the bandwagon. It must be said that the bivalve mollusc is capable of filtering nearly 200 liters of water per day; As a result, it would only take a billion oysters to filter all the water in New York Harbor in just three days.
Hence New York’s objective of reintroducing oysters in very large quantities into its waters. Thanks to the Billion Oyster Projectthe oyster population increases by 100 million individuals each year, with the goal of reaching one billion in 2035. All with the help of students, volunteers and members of local communities.
In partnership with the Billion Oyster Project, another New York initiative, named Living Breakwaters, intends to consolidate the coast which runs along the Staten Island area by building, over approximately 800 meters, a sea wall covered with oyster reefs. With a similar goal: to stop water invasion and coastal erosion.
But that’s not all: in addition to their filtering capabilities, oysters also have the ability to effectively capture carbon at a lower cost, which also makes them significant supporters in the fight against climate change. Only positive, according to Kate Orff, founder of SCAPE, a company working on landscape architecture for ecological purposes.
At the origin of these different projects, the American also explains that this makes it possible to involve a growing number of young people, in particular those who have embarked on careers linked to the sea: “It allows them to reconnect with water and better understand climate issues.”
2023-10-21 11:12:00
#billions #oysters #protect #storms
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