B.C. floods: Land, plants expected to recover, but concern for livestock remains, experts say
Global News
While the B.C. floods have been devastating for humans and animals, experts say long-term risk to the natural environment is minimal.
As efforts to mitigate the impacts of flooding in southern B.C. continue, experts say land and plants will likely make a strong recovery.
The natural disaster has been catastrophic for humans, but the ecosystems of the Lower Mainland and Southern Interior floodplains are built to withstand floods, said Simon Fraser University earth sciences professor Brent Ward.
“The flood plain — it’s supposed to get flooded,” he told Global News.
“Certainly in the past, natural flooding events are thought to be actually good for farmland in that they add fresh soil to the surface, which is kind of like the old-style fertilizer.”
If the floodwater contains harmful substances, such as petroleum or industrial chemicals, that could be a concern, added Ward, 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 manure swept away from a nearby farm, that can be a bonus.
“That makes the water more dangerous to us, but it’s not necessarily dangerous to the soils,” said the co-director of SFU’s Centre for Natural Hazards Research.
Renee Prasard, an assistant professor in the University of Fraser Valley’s agriculture program, said the only way to determine the long-term impacts of the floods will be to test the soil.
