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[Music]

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a mangrove forest is a forest made out

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of trees that grow in areas where

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land meets sea so these are essentially

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wetland forests

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that are only present in tropical or

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subtropical regions worldwide

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my name is dr lola fatouyenbo and i'm a

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research scientist in the biospheric

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sciences lab

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mangroves are important for a whole

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number of reasons they provide what we

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call ecosystem services to humans

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and some of those services that they

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provide are storm surge protections the

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protection from waves and erosion of the

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coast they're also really important for

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water filtration and for

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so in 2017 when hurricane irma hit

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southern florida we were really

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interested in getting a better idea of

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how resilient mangrove forests would be

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to

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expecting with changes in climate

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we worked with an airborne instrument

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suite called g-light this is the goddard

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lidar hyperspectral thermal instrument

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which is a small pod that has multiple

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instruments set up together that you can

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essentially attach to an airplane

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what we found was that actually the main

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cause of permanent die off in mangrove

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forest is when you have these really

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high storm surge that come into areas

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and result in ponding of water in these

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basin mangrove areas so essentially

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areas where salt water becomes stagnant

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and when that water becomes stagnant it

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gets a really high concentration of

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nutrients and the salt leading to a

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permanent die off of these mangrove

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areas which is in some ways becoming a

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vicious cycle because in those areas

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because they're basins you're not able

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to grow new mangroves that are then

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accumulating more soil and so you end up

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with mangroves dying the peat collapsing

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and that peak collapse

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not allowing for new mangroves to come

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in and resulting in permanent die off

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[Music]

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so i think the greatest takeaway from

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the study is that even though mangroves

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are often thought as being really

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resilient and resistant to harsh

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conditions they are still really

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vulnerable and we need to make sure that

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we are able to maintain the natural

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conditions and hydrology that they grow

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in for them to continue to protect us

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from