Intertidal wetland vegetation dynamics under rising sea levels

Rayner, Duncan; Glamore, William; Grandquist, Lisa; Ruprecht, Jamie; Waddington, Katrina; Khojasteh, Danial

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144237

Cited by 37 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Mapping was undertaken by Winning [ 46 ], OEH [ 54 ], Kleinfelder [ 55 ], and Kleinfelder [ 53 ] using standard aerial imagery and ground-truthed methods including transect and point survey techniques. Additional methodological descriptions are provided in [ 27 , 53 – 55 ]. Prior to restoration, the site was dominated by pasture and grass species, with no wader bird habitat observed.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Drainage and the exclusion of tidal waters within the study site degraded the existing coastal saltmarsh habitat and fostered the growth of non-saltmarsh species [ 27 ]. Winning [ 46 ] demonstrated a change in species dominance onsite from coastal saltmarsh to the freshwater pasture species, Paspalum dilatatum .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A hydrodynamic model developed by Rayner and Glamore [ 26 ], and further detailed in Rayner, Glamore [ 27 ], was applied to simulate scenarios of existing conditions and restored tidal flushing to estimate the risks/benefits associated with each scenario. The reader is directed to [ 26 ] as well as the Supporting Information for a description of the model set-up and calibration procedures.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each stage of the restoration was modelled iteratively to adjust management of the key hydraulic control structures (i.e., reduce or increase tidal signal) to achieve optimised restoration outcomes, targeting saltmarsh vegetation establishment and minimal impacts to adjacent landholders. Further details regarding the numerical method, boundary conditions, and validation are provided in [ 26 , 27 ] as well as in S1 – S3 Figs.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Eco-hydrology as a driver for tidal restoration: Observations from a Ramsar wetland in eastern Australia

et al. 2021

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Land reclamation projects and the installation of drainage infrastructure has impacted coastal wetlands worldwide. By altering water levels and inundation extent, these activities have changed the viable ecosystems onsite and resulted in the proliferation of freshwater species. As more than 50% of tidal wetlands have been degraded globally over the last 100 years, the importance of this issue is increasingly being recognised and tidal wetland restoration projects are underway worldwide. However, there are currently limited sites where large-scale reintroduction of tidal flushing has been implemented with the explicit aim to foster the growth of a threatened ecosystem. In this study, the tidal restoration of an internationally recognised Ramsar listed wetland in eastern Australia is described to highlight how coastal saltmarsh can be targeted by mimicking inundation depths and hydroperiod across the 410-ha site. Coastal saltmarsh is particularly important to this site as it is part of the east Australasian flyway for migratory birds and the minimum saltmarsh extent, as listed within the Ramsar’s limits of acceptable change, have been breached. To recreate coastal saltmarsh habitat onsite, water level and hydroperiod criteria were established based on similar vegetation patterns within the adjacent estuary. A calibrated 2D hydrodynamic model of the site was then used to test how the preferred inundation criteria could be applied to the largest possible restored wetland area. Once optimised, a synthetic tidal signal was implemented onsite via automated hydraulic controls. The onsite vegetation response over an 8-year period was assessed to highlight the ecosystem response to controlled tidal inundation and denoted substantial saltmarsh expansion during the period. The techniques applied onsite have successfully met the restoration targets and can be applied at similar sites worldwide, offsetting sea level rise impacts to natural inundation hydroperiod.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Eco-hydrology as a driver for tidal restoration: Observations from a Ramsar wetland in eastern Australia

et al. 2021

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“…Other challenges in detecting surface sediments in tidal flats need to be recognized, such as the influence of vegetation and ponds. A dense vegetation canopy can obstruct the laser beam, thereby reducing the number of echoes bouncing from the substrate (Schmid et al ., 2011; Ward et al ., 2013; Rayner et al ., 2021). The laser signal cannot penetrate ponding water.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel approach to discriminate sedimentary characteristics of deltaic tidal flats with terrestrial laser scanner: Results from a case study

et al. 2022

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Sediments in deltaic tidal flats regulate physical and chemical processes. Grain-size distribution plays an important role in determining sediment dynamics and substrate properties. However, it is challenging to quantify large-scale depositional environments in intertidal flats, due to timeconsuming grain-size analyses and sparse sedimentary information extracted from scattered sediment samples. In this study, a novel terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) based method was developed to characterize the substrate of an intertidal flat. Surface sediment samples in the Nanhui flats in the Yangtze Delta, China, and the corresponding waveform amplitudes of TLS echoes at fixed sampling sites were collected for a total of 22 months. A negative logarithmic relationship was found between the sediment sand fraction, average grain size, D 50 , and corrected waveform amplitude of TLS echo in different hydro-meteorological conditions. The mean of average grain size of five sediment sampling sites along a transect was 58.78 μm when measured by traditional grain-size analysis, and 49.48 μm when calculated with the proposed logarithmic equation. The mean error at each site was up to 21.77%. The mean error for the sand and silt fraction at each location was as high as 27.28% and 21.75%, respectively. The spatial distribution pattern of TLSbased average grain size in the entire study area was consistent with the measured pattern with a Root Mean Square Error of 13.83 μm. These errors could be caused by the accuracy of the TLS waveform amplitude correction and by limits of the method in recognizing different substrates. The effects produced by the presence of microphytobenthos (for example, cyanobacterial mats or diatom biofilms) or bedforms have not been investigated and may have affected the results. The TLS-based grain-size measurements can rapidly and effectively discriminate sediment characteristics, thus avoiding traditional time-consuming measurements. It is expected that the TLS-based method proposed here will have wide applications in shoreline studies, especially in inaccessible tidal flats.

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Identifying Key Plant Traits and Ecosystem Properties Affecting Wave Attenuation and the Soil Organic Carbon Content in Tidal Marshes

Schulte Ostermann,

Heuner,

Fuchs

et al. 2023

Estuaries and Coasts

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Intertidal wetland vegetation dynamics under rising sea levels

Cited by 37 publications

References 37 publications

Eco-hydrology as a driver for tidal restoration: Observations from a Ramsar wetland in eastern Australia

Eco-hydrology as a driver for tidal restoration: Observations from a Ramsar wetland in eastern Australia

A novel approach to discriminate sedimentary characteristics of deltaic tidal flats with terrestrial laser scanner: Results from a case study

Identifying Key Plant Traits and Ecosystem Properties Affecting Wave Attenuation and the Soil Organic Carbon Content in Tidal Marshes

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