Decadal Changes in Salt Marsh Succession and Assessing Salt Marsh Vulnerability Using High Resolution Hyperspectral Imagery

Decadal Changes in Salt Marsh Succession and Assessing Salt Marsh Vulnerability Using High Resolution Hyperspectral Imagery PDF Author: Sarah Goldsmith
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hyperspectral imaging
Languages : en
Pages : 106

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Book Description
"Change in the coastal zone is accelerating with external forcing by sea-level rise, nutrient loading, drought and over-harvest is impacting salt marshes. Understanding marsh resilience, including recovery from coastal storms and detection of stress, is essential for conservation and prediction of ecosystem services. The ‘chronosequence approach’ of predicting future state change by examining ecosystem structure and function in existing ecosystems of different ages is a powerful tool, but assumes that the past mimics the future, and time is the dominant driver of change. This approach was evaluated by replicating a 1995 salt marsh chronosequence study in back-barrier marshes ranging from 4 to >170 yr old on Hog Island, Virginia. Physico-chemical properties, such as porewater redox potential and sediment organic matter and nutrients, followed predictable age-related patterns. However, invertebrate abundance, plant biomass, and sediment grain size instead seemed to respond to sea level rise and stochastic die-off and sand deposition. Thus, while time drives the intrinsic evolution of some physico-chemical components, extrinsic drivers exert a strong influence on key biotic-abiotic feedbacks. Exacerbation of external forcing may push the trajectory of marsh succession away from a predictable trajectory, limiting ecosystem services. This rapid evolution of marsh state makes the ability to detect stressors prior to marsh collapse important. Hyperspectral imagery of plants was collected in marshes of varying age/stressor characteristics, including salinity, sediment redox potential and nitrogen availability, and in the greenhouse, where environmental conditions were manipulated. Models developed to stressors based on plant spectral response were useful for salinity and nitrogen within the greenhouse or within the field, but were not transferable from lab to field. This study is an important step towards development of a remote sensing tool for tracking of ecosystem development, marsh health, and future ecosystem services."--Abstract.

Decadal Changes in Salt Marsh Succession and Assessing Salt Marsh Vulnerability Using High Resolution Hyperspectral Imagery

Decadal Changes in Salt Marsh Succession and Assessing Salt Marsh Vulnerability Using High Resolution Hyperspectral Imagery PDF Author: Sarah Goldsmith
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hyperspectral imaging
Languages : en
Pages : 106

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Book Description
"Change in the coastal zone is accelerating with external forcing by sea-level rise, nutrient loading, drought and over-harvest is impacting salt marshes. Understanding marsh resilience, including recovery from coastal storms and detection of stress, is essential for conservation and prediction of ecosystem services. The ‘chronosequence approach’ of predicting future state change by examining ecosystem structure and function in existing ecosystems of different ages is a powerful tool, but assumes that the past mimics the future, and time is the dominant driver of change. This approach was evaluated by replicating a 1995 salt marsh chronosequence study in back-barrier marshes ranging from 4 to >170 yr old on Hog Island, Virginia. Physico-chemical properties, such as porewater redox potential and sediment organic matter and nutrients, followed predictable age-related patterns. However, invertebrate abundance, plant biomass, and sediment grain size instead seemed to respond to sea level rise and stochastic die-off and sand deposition. Thus, while time drives the intrinsic evolution of some physico-chemical components, extrinsic drivers exert a strong influence on key biotic-abiotic feedbacks. Exacerbation of external forcing may push the trajectory of marsh succession away from a predictable trajectory, limiting ecosystem services. This rapid evolution of marsh state makes the ability to detect stressors prior to marsh collapse important. Hyperspectral imagery of plants was collected in marshes of varying age/stressor characteristics, including salinity, sediment redox potential and nitrogen availability, and in the greenhouse, where environmental conditions were manipulated. Models developed to stressors based on plant spectral response were useful for salinity and nitrogen within the greenhouse or within the field, but were not transferable from lab to field. This study is an important step towards development of a remote sensing tool for tracking of ecosystem development, marsh health, and future ecosystem services."--Abstract.

Human Impacts on Salt Marshes

Human Impacts on Salt Marshes PDF Author: Brian R. Silliman
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520258921
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
"Human Impacts on Salt Marshes provides an excellent global synthesis of an important, underappreciated environmental problem and suggests solutions to the diverse threats affecting salt marshes."—Peter B. Moyle, University of California, Davis

Assessing the Vulnerability of Salt Marsh Habitats to Sea-Level Rise in California

Assessing the Vulnerability of Salt Marsh Habitats to Sea-Level Rise in California PDF Author: Jordan Alexander Rosencranz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
Predicted sea-level rise (SLR) could have catastrophic impacts on the coastal zone. Salt marshes have evolved under low SLR, but their resilience to higher rates is uncertain. Assessing vulnerabilities of California's salt marshes is a case study of the diversity and scale of problems that land managers will face. The major questions of this study were: 1) Are recent sediment budgets allowing southern California salt marshes to keep pace with SLR; 2) within its current range, how vulnerable are two sub-species of Ridgway's rail (Rallus obsoletus; rails), a low elevation salt marsh specialist, to SLR; and 3) within its current range, how vulnerable are Belding's savannah sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis beldingi; sparrows), a high elevation salt marsh specialist, to SLR? To answer the first question, tidal creek sediment fluxes were measured in two sites with different levels of adjacent urbanization. To answer the second and third questions, original and pre-existing wildlife and habitat data were compiled at 17 sites to forecast habitat suitability. Storms and high tides led to sediment import in tidal creeks at Mugu and Seal. While sediment budgets were balanced during the dry study period, Seal's elevation declined, and Mugu's elevation plateaued, suggesting that only Mugu would persist if SLR rate stabilizes. For the Ridgway's Rail study, under a SLR scenario of +166cm/100yr, suitable habitat for the San Francisco Bay Area's (SF) sub-species will increase by 35% at mid-century, and current breeding habitat extent for Southern California's (SC) sub-species will increase by 24%. However, by 2100, SF will lose 84% of suitable habitat and SC will lose 80% of its current habitat extent. Furthermore, six salt marshes will lose over 95% of suitable habitat. Under the same scenario, the current extent of Belding's Savannah sparrow habitat will contract by 61% at mid-century before completely drowning by 2100. Results from the habitat suitability studies indicate that if no major adaptations, such as protecting the shoreline, increasing elevations, restoring marsh drainage, facilitating marsh migration, and restoring sediment delivery, are implemented soon, salt marsh-dependent wildlife in the majority of California coastal zones will be extirpated by 2100 under high SLR scenarios.

The Ecology of New England High Salt Marshes

The Ecology of New England High Salt Marshes PDF Author: Scott W. Nixon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Assessment and Characterization of Salt Marshes in the Arthur Kill (New York and New Jersey) Replanted After a Severe Oil Spill

Assessment and Characterization of Salt Marshes in the Arthur Kill (New York and New Jersey) Replanted After a Severe Oil Spill PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Restoration ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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The World of The Salt Marsh

The World of The Salt Marsh PDF Author: Charles Seabrook
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820345334
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
The World of the Salt Marsh is a wide-ranging exploration of the southeastern coast--its natural history, its people and their way of life, and the historic and ongoing threats to its ecological survival. Focusing on areas from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Cape Canaveral, Florida, Charles Seabrook examines the ecological importance of the salt marsh, calling it "a biological factory without equal." Twice-daily tides carry in a supply of nutrients that nourish vast meadows of spartina ( Spartina alterniflora )--a crucial habitat for creatures ranging from tiny marine invertebrates to wading birds. The meadows provide vital nurseries for 80 percent of the seafood species, including oysters, crabs, shrimp, and a variety of finfish, and they are invaluable for storm protection, erosion prevention, and pollution filtration. Seabrook is also concerned with the plight of the people who make their living from the coast's bounty and who carry on its unique culture. Among them are Charlie Phillips, a fishmonger whose livelihood is threatened by development in McIntosh County, Georgia, and Vera Manigault of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, a basket maker of Gullah-Geechee descent, who says that the sweetgrass needed to make her culturally significant wares is becoming scarcer. For all of the biodiversity and cultural history of the salt marshes, many still view them as vast wastelands to be drained, diked, or "improved" for development into highways and subdivisions. If people can better understand and appreciate these ecosystems, Seabrook contends, they are more likely to join the growing chorus of scientists, conservationists, fishermen, and coastal visitors and residents calling for protection of these truly amazing places.

Salt Marshes

Salt Marshes PDF Author: Duncan M. FitzGerald
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107186285
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description
A multidisciplinary review of salt marshes, describing how they function and respond to external pressures such as sea-level rise.

Salt Marshes

Salt Marshes PDF Author: Judith S Weis
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813548519
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Tall green grass. Subtle melodies of songbirds. Sharp whines of muskrats. Rustles of water running through the grasses. And at low tide, a pungent reminder of the treasures hidden beneath the surface.All are vital signs of the great salt marshes' natural resources. Now championed as critical habitats for plants, animals, and people because of the environmental service and protection they provide, these ecological wonders were once considered unproductive wastelands, home solely to mosquitoes and toxic waste, and mistreated for centuries by the human population. Exploring the fascinating biodiversity of these boggy wetlands, Salt Marshes offers readers a wealth of essential information about a variety of plants, fish, and animals, the importance of these habitats, consequences of human neglect and thoughtless development, and insight into how these wetlands recover. Judith S. Weis and Carol A. Butler shed ample light on the human impact, including chapters on physical and biological alterations, pollution, and remediation and recovery programs. In addition to a national and global perspective, the authors place special emphasis on coastal wetlands in the Atlantic and Gulf regions, as well as the San Francisco Bay Area, calling attention to their historical and economic legacies. Written in clear, easy-to-read language, Salt Marshes proves that the battles for preservation and conservation must continue, because threats to salt marshes ebb and flow like the water that runs through them.

Remote Sensing of Estuarine Salt Marsh

Remote Sensing of Estuarine Salt Marsh PDF Author: Gunnar Arne Olson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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The Ecology of a Salt Marsh

The Ecology of a Salt Marsh PDF Author: L. R. Pomeroy
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461258936
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Ecologists have two long-standing ways to study large ecosystems such as lakes, forests, and salt-marsh estuaries. In the first, which G. E. Hutchinson has called the holological approach, the whole ecosystem is first studied as a "black box," and its components are investigated as needed. In the second, which Hutchinson has called the merological approach, the parts of the system are studied first, and an attempt is then made to build up the whole from them. For long-term studies, the holological approach has special advantages, since the general patterns and tentative hypotheses that are first worked out help direct attention to the components of the system which need to be studied in greater detail. In this approach, teams of investigators focus on major func tions and hypotheses and thereby coordinate their independent study efforts. Thus, although there have been waves, as it were, of investigators and graduate students working on different aspects of the Georgia salt-marsh estuaries (personnel at the Marine Institute on Sapelo Island changes every few years), the emphasis on the holo logical approach has resulted in a highly differentiated and well-coordinated long-term study. Very briefly, the history of the salt-marsh studies can be outlined as follows. First, the general patterns of food chains and other energy flows in the marshes and creeks were worked out, and the nature of imports and exports to and from the system and its subsystems were delimited.