Posted on May 28, 2025
Global Rundown
- Dredging and a continued loss of sediment in British Columbia’s Fraser River threatens the delta’s salmon populations, farmland, and resistance to floods.
- Vulnerable lesser flamingos have lost one of their four African breeding sites following the dumping of untreated sewage at a South African dam.
- Namibia, facing one of its worst droughts in over a century, has secured funding to improve water infrastructure and access.
- A proposed oil exploration project at the mouth of the Amazon River moves one step closer to breaking ground.
The Lead
Since the last Ice Age more than 10,000 years ago, the Fraser Delta in coastal British Columbia, has become a diverse freshwater ecosystem.
Retreating glaciers gave rise to productive rivers and expansive floodplains that extended inland from the Pacific Ocean. The lush region became the home of First Nations communities. Later, the city of Vancouver was founded where fresh and saltwater converged.
As recently as the 1980s, officials measured 17 million cubic meters of mud and sand passing through the province’s lower Fraser River each year, an amount “equivalent to flushing the weight of 115,000 blue whales into the sea,” Business In Vancouver reports. This shifting sediment is crucial for estuarine habitat and geology, creating gravel riffles and channels wherein salmon spawn and escape heat. Migrating birds take refuge in these same deposits. And tidal grasses and marshes protect cities from floods and sea level rise — threats that, along with population growth and sinking land, could cost Vancouver an estimated $303 billion by 2070.
But despite the importance of sediment in the region, the Canadian government no longer monitors sand and mud movement. In fact, to ensure ships can pass safely through its ports, Vancouver continues to dredge 3.7 million cubic meters of sand each year. This loss is potentially devastating for the longevity of infrastructure, the safety of ports, and the livelihoods of those living along its waterways. Farmers living near the delta have reported an inundation of saltwater on their land, with one losing some $200,000 worth of blueberries.
Over the last 50 years, dredging deepened the Fraser River’s channel by three meters; over the next 25 years, it could sink another eight meters, “a ‘huge change’ that could lead to a massive amount of erosion along the river’s edge.”
