Transient coastal landscapes : rising sea level threatens salt marshes

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2018-05Author
Valiela, Ivan
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Lloret, Javier
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Bowyer, Tynan
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Miner, Simon
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Remsen, David P.
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Elmstrom, Elizabeth
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Cogswell, Charlotte
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Thieler, E. Robert
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https://hdl.handle.net/1912/10488As published
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.05.235Abstract
Salt marshes are important coastal environments that provide key ecological services. As sea
level rise has accelerated globally, concerns about the ability of salt marshes to survive
submergence are increasing. Previous estimates of likely survival of salt marshes were based on
ratios of sea level rise to marsh platform accretion. Here we took advantage of an unusual, long-term (1979-2015), spatially detailed comparison of changes in a representative New England salt
marsh to provide an empirical estimate of habitat losses based on actual measurements. We show
prominent changes in habitat mosaic within the marsh, consistent and coincident with increased
submergence and coastal erosion. Model results suggest that at current rates of sea level rise, marsh platform accretion, habitat loss, and with the limitation of the widespread “coastal
squeeze”, the entire ecosystem might disappear by the beginning of the next century, a fate that
might be likely for many salt marshes elsewhere.
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© The Author(s), 2018. This is the author's version of the work and is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Science of The Total Environment 640-641 (2018): 1148-1156, doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.05.235.
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Preprint: Valiela, Ivan, Lloret, Javier, Bowyer, Tynan, Miner, Simon, Remsen, David P., Elmstrom, Elizabeth, Cogswell, Charlotte, Thieler, E. Robert, "Transient coastal landscapes : rising sea level threatens salt marshes", 2018-05, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.05.235, https://hdl.handle.net/1912/10488The following license files are associated with this item:
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
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