Nova Scotia’s Floodplains – Rich, Threatened, and Our Collective Responsibility

by Val Kendall and Sadie Beaton
 

Chebogue River Floodplain, Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia. Photo courtesy of G.J. LeBlanc.

“Everybody belongs to everybody else”, wrote Aldous Huxley (1932) imagining a utopian world of harmonious balance in Brave New World. 

Idealistic? Yes. Realistic? Potentially, if we extend this idea to our relationship with nature and the countless resources it generously provides. As Nova Scotia’s rich and threatened floodplains show, in nature, everything really does belong to everything else.

Flat wetland areas bordering riverbeds are known as floodplains. When river waters overflow due to seasonally heavy rains or spring runoff, these important riparian features collect and retain the floodwaters. Floodplains are designed to soak in this overflow, feeding our critically important provincial groundwater supplies.

Floodwater also carries plant material and silt laden with nutrients, creating a moist, lush environment that can support a rich diversity of plants and animals. Nova Scotia’s floodplains often appear as lush, grassy meadows in summer and are home to some very unique plants, including the rare Canadian Lily.  Dragonflies, owls, nesting birds and waterfowl, bats, beavers and whitetail deer are other species that depend on the province’s fertile floodplains.

Floodplains also attract a number of human uses. These areas may seem ideal for building our homes – after all they provide a fresh water supply, rich agricultural land, and a relatively flat topography.  However, development in floodplains can result in expensive flooding damage, erosion, and a variety of other headaches for property owners – after all, these floodwaters have nowhere else to collect. Clearing trees and vegetation to build homes, roads, farms or other infrastructure can interrupt the flow of this key ecological feature, degrading water quality along the watershed, causing erosion and degrading important wildlife habitat.

Human activities far from the floodplain can also threaten these productive ecosystems. Floodplains are part of a larger “ecological neighbourhood” known as a watershed - defined by the area of land where rainfall and snow melt drain to a larger water body, usually the sea. When any part of a watershed is exposed to pollution, it not only threatens the exposed area, but may also affect the entire system, including floodplains. These same channels that carry life-giving nutrients can also carry any number of pollutants from fertilizers and pesticides to litter and pet waste. In the end, contaminated water may destroy habitat- hurting or even killing organisms that depend on floodplain ecosystems.

Truly, floodplains don’t belong only to us, but to all inhabitants of this province - from the noble whitetail deer to the feisty Atlantic salmon and the elusive vole.  In the spirit of Huxley’s “everybody belongs to everybody” sentiment then, it is our responsibility to ensure that floodplains can continue to enrich our soils and support the healthy biodiversity that we are so lucky to have in this province. We can help by ensuring, first of all, that rivers are allowed to flood periodically.  Secondly, we can work to keep our watersheds healthy by keeping our septic systems in good working order, avoiding the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers, and cultivating healthy riparian buffer zones on our properties.

Val Kendall is a volunteer with the Coastal Issues Committee and Sadie Beaton does coastal and marine research at the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax. Coastlines is coordinated by the Coastal Issues Committee at Ecology Action Centre and  supported by the Nova Scotia Habitat Conservation Fund with contributions from hunters and trappers.