Understanding Lateral Marsh Edge Erosion with Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS)

Huff, Thomas P.; Feagin, Rusty A.; Delgado, Arturo

doi:10.3390/rs11192208

Cited by 10 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…For shorelines facing the predominant fetch direction only, we also measured the lateral erosion rate using Google Earth images for dates from 1954 to 2018 and found a consistent linear rate with minimal outliers, arriving at 1.13 m per year. On these same stretches of shoreline, Huff et al (2019) also recorded erosion in the field, also finding 1.13 m per year.…”

Section: Site Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 52%

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Effect of Cold Front‐Induced Waves Along Wetlands Boundaries

et al. 2020

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Salt marsh wetlands are an important component of coastal ecosystems. Marsh vegetation has a significant potential role as a barrier to storm waves (Fagherazzi, 2014; Möller et al., 2014). It also allows the enclosing estuary to act as a nursery habitat for numerous shellfish and fish species (Mathieson et al., 2000). Additionally, tidal hydrodynamics facilitate the transport of vital nutrients and tracers into and out of the wetlands (during flood and ebb tides), affecting both inshore and onshore vegetation and wildlife (Mann & Lazier, 2013). However, tidal wetlands are continuously affected by sea conditions such as storm surge (Cahoon, 2006), natural and/or human-induced regional subsidence (van der Wal & Pye, 2004) and sea-level rise (Alizad et al., 2016). It has previously been shown that wind-wave activity near salt marsh wetlands is a potential

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Section: Site Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 52%

“…On these same stretches of shoreline, Huff et al. (2019) also recorded erosion in the field, also finding 1.13 m per year.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 65%

Effect of Cold Front‐Induced Waves Along Wetlands Boundaries

et al. 2020

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“…To investigate how different plant traits affect cliff formation, S. anglica (dense vegetation type with shorter clonal step-length) and S. maritimus (sparse vegetation type with larger clonal step-length) tussocks from the first mesocosm experiment were maintained under the same conditions until winter 2017. The flume experiment was conducted under winter conditions as this is the period when wave activity is the most intense in the Scheldt estuary, and waves are well-known driving forces for erosion, cliff formation and cliff retreat at marsh edges (Marani et al 2011;Leonardi et al 2018;Huff et al 2019). The wave flume experiment was conducted in an ovalshaped racetrack flume (length of 17.5 m, width of 0.6 m) with a deeper test section (Fig.…”

Section: Flume Experiments To Determine If Compact Vegetation Growth Induces Higher Cliffsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such relationships can further be used for understanding the dynamics of marsh ecosystems under sea-level rise (Fagherazzi et al 2012(Fagherazzi et al , 2013Kirwan and Megonigal 2013) or storm conditions Möller et al, 2014;Leonardi et al 2018). Species-specific plant traits that determine the formation and maintenance of cliffs can be expected to modify landscape evolution trajectory, and ultimately determine the total aerial extent of marsh ecosystems along coastlines (Marani et al 2011;Mariotti and Fagherazzi 2013;Huff et al 2019). The mechanisms of cliff formation at marsh edges, as well as their long-term dynamics, could be investigated with models and comparative field studies across systems with very different dominant species.…”

Section: Research Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cliffs associated with vegetation edges and ranging in height from a few centimeters to meters are frequently occurring landforms feature in biogeomorphic landscapes, ranging from freshwater marshes along the banks of rivers and lakes, brackish and salt marshes in estuaries and lagoons, to seagrass meadows along coastlines (Allen 1989;De Rose and Basher 2011;Francalanci et al 2013;Wang et al 2017). In many of these areas, cliffs present at vegetation edges are laterally retreating through cliff erosion processes, leading to loss of the vegetated marsh area is lost predominantly by lateral retreat of cliff marsh edges (Marani et al 2011;Mariotti and Fagherazzi 2013;Huff et al 2019;Finotello et al 2020). Once a pronounced cliff has formed at a vegetated marsh edge, the strong topographic and vegetation discontinuity at the bare sediment/vegetation boundary often leads to a shift from lateral marsh expansion to lateral marsh erosion Bendoni et al 2016;Bouma et al 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tidal marsh dynamics in a changing climate A study on the mechanisms of pioneer establishment and erosion

Cao¹

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Seedling establishment is an important process relevant for the restoration of salt marsh within the frame work of sustainable coastal defense schemes. Recent studies have increasingly highlighted how the short-term (i.e., the day-to-day) sediment dynamics can form major bottlenecks for seedling establishment. Until recently, studies on quantifying the threshold values of such short-term sediment dynamics for marsh seedlings remain rare. As accretion/erosion trends and dynamics may differ greatly under global change, we study the effects of short-term sediment disturbance-regimes on seedling establishment of two globally distributed foundation species: Spartina alterniflora and Spartina anglica. Seedlings with different disturbance-free periods were exposed to a set of different accretion/erosion-regimes in the laboratory. Seedling survival appeared to be much more sensitive to erosion than accretion, seedlings with short disturbance-free periods were more sensitive than seedlings with longer ones, and S. alterniflora was more sensitive than S. anglica. Seedlings were less sensitive to gradual changes in sediment height (accretion/erosion) than to abrupt changes where time for morphological adjust mentis lacking. Critical erosion depth (the maximum erosion that seedlings are able to withstand) was shown to mainly depend on sedimentation history. Our results confirm that the establishment of Spartina seedlings requires a flooding disturbance-free "window of opportunity" and that sediment disturbances affect their survival both directly and via morphological adjustment. These results provide fundamental insights into seedling establishment that can be used for designing engineering measures to create suitable conditions and enable marsh creation/restoration for nature goals or as part of coastal defense schemes under global change.

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Plant traits determining biogeomorphic landscape dynamics: A study on clonal expansion strategies driving cliff formation at marsh edges

Cao

Zhu

Herman

et al. 2021

Limnology & Oceanography

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Despite the well-recognized importance of plant traits for biogeomorphic development of landscapes, our understanding remains limited of how species-specific plant traits respond to and serve as drivers for the sedimentary dynamics within a biogeomorphic landscape. By manipulating a series of laboratory experiments, using mesocosms and a flume, we examined how species-specific differences in expansion strategy, i.e., clonal step-length of laterally expanding tillers, both respond to sediment type and drive cliff formation and persistence. We compared three marsh species, with contrasting clonal expansion traits, that are dominant in many estuaries worldwide: Spartina anglica, Scirpus maritimus, and Phragmites australis. Our results revealed that S. anglica tussocks tend to have high shoot density due to a short clonal expansion step-length, whereas S. maritimus tussocks were much more diffuse and tend to have a longer clonal expansion step-length. P. australis showed intermediate traits. Clonal expansion step-length did show within-species variation in response to sediment texture, but species-specific differences remained the most important. Species with smaller clonal step-lengths, such as S. anglica in this study, are more likely to induce cliffs at the marsh edge by driving formation of larger cliff heights and also having lower capacity to grow out from cliffs. Our findings thus illustrate how dynamic landscape features like cliffs at marsh edges depend on the clonal expansion traits of the dominant species. This enhances current understanding of the formation and development of marsh edges, and is instructive for understanding the role of species-specific traits in driving distinct biogeomorphic landscape dynamics.Biogeomorphic ecosystems are among the most dynamic environments on Earth, which are wide-spread that include tidal marshes, mangroves, seagrass meadows, coastal dunes, river deltas, river beds and floodplains (Corenblit et al. 2011(Corenblit et al. , 2015Reijers et al. 2019). These ecosystems have to cope with regularly occurring physical disturbances and extreme events, such as floods,

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Understanding Lateral Marsh Edge Erosion with Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS)

Cited by 10 publications

References 23 publications

Effect of Cold Front‐Induced Waves Along Wetlands Boundaries

Effect of Cold Front‐Induced Waves Along Wetlands Boundaries

Tidal marsh dynamics in a changing climate A study on the mechanisms of pioneer establishment and erosion

Plant traits determining biogeomorphic landscape dynamics: A study on clonal expansion strategies driving cliff formation at marsh edges

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