How Do Pop-Up Wetlands Work?

In California, human development has taken away migrating shorebirds' habitats -- so conservationists are renting rice fields during the farmers' off season to act as temporary habitats. Learn how it works in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation/issues/renting-rice-fields-farmers-migrating-water-fowl.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here and the sharing economy has
changed everything from how people get around a city to
how they rent rooms while traveling, and now it's even
seeping into ecology. In California's Sacramento Valley, farmers are temporarily

(00:23):
leasing flooded rice patties to the Nature Conservancy so the
migratory shore birds have a place to stop and feed
while traveling the Pacific Flyway, which is the major north
south route that extends from Alaska to Patagonia. The program,
dubbed Bird Returns, has been in development by the Nature
Conservancy since and is helping conservationists deal with the short

(00:46):
term needs of migrating birds. Because of urbanization, agriculture, and
climate change, the migrating birds have less access to wilderness
to mate, feed, nest, and rear their young. At the
same time, project gives farmers the opportunity to support conservation
efforts and maybe earn a little extra money without negatively

(01:06):
impacting crop production. During February and March of the pilot
season for the program, just two percent of Sacramento Valleys,
some five hundred thousand acres of rice fields, and that's
around two hundred thousand hectares were turned into shallow water
for shorebird habitat. That season, the pop up wetlands supported
more than a hundred and eighty thousand birds, representing fifty

(01:29):
seven different species. On average. The researchers found three times
more bird diversity and five times greater density on rice
patties that participated in the program compared to unenrolled fields.
Migrating animals, like shorebirds are in jeopardy as their ranges
cover vast swaths of land. A study published in the

(01:50):
journal Science in reported that just nine percent of over
one thousand, four hundred migratory bird species had access to
protected areas for all the stage of their annual cycle.
In California, in particular, of original wetland habitat has been
lost to agriculture and urban development. Since the Nature Conservancy

(02:12):
was founded in ninety one, it's worked to conserve habitat
by working with landowners to purchase land or permanently limit
the use of their land in order to maintain its wildness.
Each agreement is worked out individually, a process that's expensive
and can take months or years to develop. For the
article of this episode, is based on how stuff works.

(02:34):
Spoke with Mark Reynolds, PhD, the lead scientist for the
Nature Conservancy's California Migratory Bird program. He explained that he
and his colleagues, including Sandy Matsmoto, the team's project manager,
and Eric Halstein, the team's economist, thought that the demand
for purchasing migrating bird habitat could far exceed their resources. Quote.

(02:55):
We were looking at our habitat needs and thinking how
do we buy our way to success us? Sandy said,
do we need to buy land for the whole year?
It looks like the animals needed part of the time. Eric,
with his background and economics, said we could do a
reverse auction. I said, a reverse What? A reverse auction
overturned the conventional role of buyer and seller. Instead of

(03:19):
buyers competing to outbid each other to obtain a good
or service, as sellers compete to offer their goods or
services to one buyer at a competitive price. And the
sellers in this case are the owners of rice fields,
which are typically farmed in California from April through August
or May through October. During the growing seasons. The fields

(03:40):
are normally flooded, but they're also flooded during the off
seasons to decompose the rice double after harvest, Reynolds and
his colleagues saw an opportunity to work with the farmers
to provide temporary wetland habitat for shorebirds passing through. So
in early the Nature Conservancy issued an invitation to rice
farmers to submit bids that itemized their costs to flood

(04:03):
fields for four, six or eight weeks at a time
beginning in February of that same year. The farmers set
their own prices and the Nature Conservancy was able to
select the highest quality habitat for the lowest total cost.
They repeated the process in the fall often then every
year since then. Housta Works also spoke with John Brennan,

(04:24):
a partner at Brennan Jewitt and Associates, a firm that
manages rice sales for the Robbins Rice Company. He explained
that the farmers are very receptive to this concept quote
and to the extent that they can get their costs
covered to do it. They're even more receptive because they
see it as a something that they're excited about and
a way to make an environmental difference and be something

(04:45):
that really helps secure the longevity of the rice industry
in California. To figure out where and when shore birds
most needed wetland habitat for their migrations, Reynolds and his
colleagues worked with experts at Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology,
which collects information about birds through its citizen science project

(05:05):
The Bird. This online checklist allows bird enthusiasts across the
country to tabulate the kinds of birds they see, when
they see them, how many, and where. Using data from
eBird and grant money from NASA, the Cornell team built
high powered computer models that predicted, at weekly intervals, the
presence and abundance of birds at different locations. From these models,

(05:29):
Reynolds and his colleagues created maps to visualize and prioritize
where and when habitat was needed most. But once they
knew the locations, they requested bids from the local rice farmers,
and they adjust the program based on weather conditions. During
times of drought, the Nature Conservancy would pay more, and
during times of excessive rain, it would pay less. When

(05:51):
they extrapolated the potential costs for the project out and
they found the highest possible cost per year based on
the average bid, was one point are million dollars, but
that's significantly higher than what the Nature Conservancy actually paid. Meanwhile,
the estimated cost to restore rice fields to wetland habitats
equal to that land area would cost around twenty five

(06:13):
million dollars, and maintenance fees would come in and about
a hundred thousand dollars a year. So this seems like
a win win, But the researchers stress that these pop
up wetlands are tools and not meant to replace permanent protection.
If the land switched from rice farming to some other
use that wasn't compatible with seasonal flooding, another protection strategy

(06:35):
would need to be considered. For now, though rice farming
and bird conservation are working hand in hand, Reynolds said,
we're engaged with this community of farmers and thinking about
a lot of other ways to conjoin farming and environmental benefits.
Today's episode is based on the article pop up Wetlands

(06:57):
Helping migrating shorebirds on house toff works dot com, written
by Tracy Steeter. Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio
in partnership with how stuffworks dot com, and it is
produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts from my heart
Radio visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
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