German scientists say effects of erosion along Canada's Arctic coast need more study

Lennie Emaghok's coastal community of Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., is literally getting smaller.

Every year, as the turbulent waves of the Arctic Ocean crash against the edge of the community, they erode metres of coastline.

"In the fall time when it first freezes up, when I go haul wood along the coast — driftwood — you start to notice 'wow this part sure eroded last summer,'" Emaghok said.

But what becomes of that soil once it washes into the sea?

A team of researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany is trying to find out. They're calling on scientists and local northern governments to create a research program that looks at the effects coastal erosion have on fish, marine plants and birds.

Herschel Island research

Michael Fritz, along with his colleagues Jorien E. Vonk and Hugues Lantuit, has been studying the shoreline of Yukon's Herschel Island for more than a decade.

The island's coast is eroding into the Arctic Ocean at the rate of 22 metres a year.

• Climate change threatens Herschel Island

Fritz said the majority of the coastline on Herschel Island, like much of the Arctic, is subject to erosion in the summer when the sea ice retreats.

"Since 2007, we've seen one minimum after the other in terms of sea ice distribution in summer on the Arctic Ocean. That gives rise to higher waves, more storms that can affect the coast to erode it."

When that coast is eroded, the nutrient-rich soil mixes with the sea water and creates massive plumes of sediment. Fritz said the effect that murky water has on the marine ecosystem is unknown.

"With that sediment comes a lot of carbon and lot of nutrients, and those nutrients and pollutants will affect the water column," he said.

"We ask ourselves the question 'with this higher load of sediments, of nutrients and also of pollutants, what is happening with the food web' and we really don't know."

Nesting birds

One species that may be affected by these sediment plumes is the black guillemot. The birds nest on Herschel Island and mainly eat fish and crustaceans. They dive for food from the surface, swimming underwater.

"We see that their populations are receding," Fritz said.

"Why is that? Is it because the fish they feed on are getting less? What other consequences could that have?"

In order to find answers to those questions, Fritz and his team say an interdisciplinary research program needs to be created that includes scientists and local governments from across the circumpolar world.

Fritz said it is essential that the traditional knowledge of northerners like Lennie Emaghok be involved.

"The local people who live and who have lived for a long time at the coast have passed their knowledge to the next generation. What we can see is only a couple of years. What they have in their knowledge is decades, centuries."