Marcelo Ardon News Today

Greg Rubino drives his elongated spade, called a sharpshooter, into the decaying organic matter of the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. He’s a wetland scientist with the North Carolina Division of Water Resources, and once he’s dug about a foot underground, past a mat of roots, he reaches into a bed of “real soil” and grabs a sample, crumbling it between his fingers.

As sea levels rise along the North Carolina coast, saltwater encroaches on coastal freshwater wetlands. A network of drainage ditches has exacerbated the problem, transporting saltwater inland to invade forested wetlands.

The Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula covers more than 2,000 square miles on the North Carolina coastal plain, a vast expanse of forested swamps and...