A 150-year-old agricultural dike will be breached to allow salt water to flood 16 hectares of the Tantramar marsh that stretches between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

The Acadians built a complex system of dikes in the region more than a century ago. Those barriers remained in place and people in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have been benefiting from them ever since as the land has become home to farms, the CN Rail line, and the Trans-Canada Highway.

That is coming to an end on Monday as scientists began the process of breaching a 150-year-old agricultural dike.

Tom Duffy, the manager of Atlantic operations for Ducks Unlimited, said the move to flood the marsh should create a debate over the region's system of dikes.

"It should stimulate some serious discussion both in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia about the future of the dike system," Duffy said.

"And how do we manage it and how do we retreat inland recognizing that the oceans continue to rise and through climate change we're seeing more intensification in storms."

According to Ducks Unlimited, 85 per cent of salt marshes in the upper Bay of Fundy region have been degraded or destroyed. The scientists want to monitor how the restored salt marsh acts as a buffer to rising sea levels and storm surges.

The total project is anticipated to cost $1 million. The Department of Transportation invested $464,000 in the project.

Outdoor laboratory

Duffy said the 16 hectares of farmland will turn into an outdoor laboratory.

He says it will be monitored by scientists for the next three years and they will be studying the impact on sediment in the area, vegetation, fish and birds.

Duffy said he hopes the salt water marsh will become a buffer to protect old and new dikes that remain.

The project has been two years in the making with experts from Acadia University, the University of New Brunswick and Mount Allison University asking themselves one important question while they were working on the plan.

"How we can restore salt marshes, which in turn will protect those new dikes because it disperses a lot of energy that would be involved with the tidal action," Duffy said.