Research efforts from the Coastal Critical Zone Network (CZN) made national news with the premiere of the CBS News documentary An American River.

The crew of An American River embarked on a five-day journey along the Delaware River, showcasing threats to the river’s waterways and the ongoing efforts to lessen further damage. The trip began in New York’s Catskill Mountains and concluded in the Delaware Bay, where documentarians met with Dr. Kate Tully, an Associate Professor of Agroecology at the University of Maryland who serves as a co-PI for the CZN.

Tully met with CBS on a plot of coastal farmland outside Dover, DE threatened by saltwater intrusion, a process through which rising sea levels bring saltwater into freshwater aquifers. The area now doubles as a CZN test site, where researchers are measuring the growing level of intrusion. Findings have shown that the briny soil chemistry of nearby marshes has begun mirroring the composition of coastal farm soil. Driven to find environmentally beneficial solutions to problems faced by farmers, Tully encourages impacted farmers to plant salt-tolerant crops or take advantage of financial programs incentivizing the conversion of farmland into wetland habitats.

After the tour of the farm site, Lead PI Dr. Holly Michael led the crew through another CZN tracking site- a ghost forest bordering the Delaware Bay marshes. Patches of woods in this coastline-adjacent forest are dying at growing rates due to a lack of nutrients in the soil, another effect of saltwater intrusion. Michael explains that the impact of this intrusion on freshwater aquifers puts at risk not only our forests and farmlands, but also our drinking water. The point where the river’s freshwater meets saltwater has traveled north in recent years, closer to locations from which freshwater consumed by over 15 million people is taken.

Potential saltwater damages to farmlands are soon predicted to surpass $100m annually, and salinization threatens habitats, livelihoods, and systems we all depend on, making the CZN’s findings crucial to creating solutions that mitigate these effects. Bringing CZN’s work to a bigger platform helps ensure that a wide variety of disciplines and perspectives can be a part of the change we aim to instill through research.

An American River can be found on YouTube.