Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Chesapeake Watershed CESU

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The US Geological Survey is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research in ¿Threshold rates of sea level rise for marsh resilience¿. Coastal wetlands survive sea level rise by transgressing inland or building vertically. Historically, marshes have survived changes in sea level rise by building vertically. In the last decade, numerical models that integrate biological and physical processes have been developed to understand how these biophysical processes influence wetland landscape morphology, and influence landscape/ecosystem persistence. One key and untested outcome of many of these models is that marshes survive sea level rise up to some threshold rate. Recent model experiments suggest that the threshold rate of sea level rise for marsh survival is determined by two relatively simple characteristics: tidal range (which sets the growth range of plants) and sediment availability. The USGS is measuring the rate of marsh accretion using marsh geochronologies (Pb210, Cs137) and historical photographs coupled with measuring the water column suspended sediment concentrations in coastal wetlands over seasonal timescales.

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