Aldaron Laird, who walked or kayaked all 102 miles of Humboldt Bay’s shoreline and its sloughs as part of his study, “Humboldt Bay Shoreline Inventory, Mapping and Sea Level Rise Assessment,” was the featured speaker on May 30 at the Arcata Marsh Interpretive Center.
Laird is an environmental planner who specializes in getting permits for wetland enhancement projects and doing historical studies of rivers and tidal waters. He produced the Humboldt Bay Historical Atlas in 2007.
This year, Laird is completing work for a California Coastal Conservancy grant to inventory the bay’s shoreline and “ground truth” GIS data on the shoreline’s attributes — part of a statewide effort to map areas that will be affected by sea level rise. During his tour of the bay's shoreline, Laird discovered that acres of diked farmland are currently ill-equipped to hold back the rising sea. The last native salt marsh ecosystems are also at risk of being drowned out by sea level rise. Laird’s presentation will include some of his 14,000 photographs taken during the project.
To watch online, click HERE. Thanks to Access Humboldt!
For more info, see "Aldaron's Walkabout" in January's North Coast Journal.
