Water Wheel Sept/Oct 2020: Estuaries

Abstract

Putting a price on ‘blue carbon’ water habitats South Africa has 290 river estuaries spread along its nearly 3 000 km long coastline. These are the meeting places where freshwater and nutrients have tumbled down from the land to mix slowly with the salt water of the ocean. Because they are mostly shallow, vegetated and sheltered from the crashing waves and predators of the open sea, estuaries provide an ideal nursery ground for marine fish, as well as crabs, snails, worms and other aquatic creatures. For millennia, this abundance of food, water and vegetation has attracted human communities as well as birds and animals. In some estuaries, coastal mangrove forests also provide people with firewood or timber for home building, fencing and other uses. Yet estuaries have another critical role that is less well known or appreciated: the long-term capture and storage of ‘blue carbon’ .

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