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Sustainability of a Tidal Freshwater Marsh Exposed to a Long-term Hydrologic Barrier and Sea Level Rise

A Short-term and Decadal Analysis of Elevation Change Dynamics

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Abstract

A 115-year-old railroad levee bisecting a tidal freshwater marsh perpendicular to the Patuxent River (Maryland) channel has created a northern, upstream marsh and a southern, downstream marsh. The main purpose of this study was to determine how this levee may affect the ability of the marsh system to gain elevation and to determine the levee’s impact on the marsh’s long-term sustainability to local relative sea level rise (RSLR). Previously unpublished data from 1989 to 1992 showed that suspended solids and short-term sediment deposition were greater in the south marsh compared to the north marsh; wetland surface elevation change data (1999 to 2009) showed significantly higher elevation gain in the south marsh compared to the north (6 ± 2 vs. 0 ± 2 mm year−1, respectively). However, marsh surface accretion (2007 to 2009) showed no significant differences between north and south marshes (23 ± 8 and 26 ± 7 mm year−1, respectively), and showed that shallow subsidence was an important process in both marshes. A strong seasonal effect was evident for both accretion and elevation change, with significant gains during the growing season and elevation loss during the non-growing season. Sediment transport, deposition and accretion decreased along the intertidal gradient, although no clear patterns in elevation change were recorded. Given the range in local RSLR rates in the Chesapeake Bay (2.9 to 5.8 mm year−1), only the south marsh is keeping pace with sea level at the present time. Although one would expect the north marsh to benefit from high accretion of abundant riverine sediments, these results suggest that long-term elevation gain is a more nuanced process involving more than riverine sediments. Overall, other factors such as infrequent episodic coastal events may be important in allowing the south marsh to keep pace with sea level rise. Finally, caution should be exercised when using data sets spanning only a couple of years to estimate wetland sustainability as they may not be representative of long-term cumulative effects. Two years of data do not seem to be enough to establish long-term elevation change rates at Jug Bay, but instead a decadal time frame is more appropriate.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary staff for their valuable help with logistics and laboratory space. We also thank Ferdinando Villa, Pamela Behm, Camilo Lewis Gonzales, Catherina Sikkes, Theodore Sikkes, Rachel Dickey, Lindsay Hollister, Valerie Pfeiffer, Lindsay Carroll, and Cathy Ervin for help with fieldwork. Additional thanks go to Jim Morris for providing 1989 sedimentation data. The first phase of this study was supported by a grant from the NOAA/UNH Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology (CICEET), Durham, NH. We also thank the Anne Arundel County Department of Recreation and Parks for funding support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, 580 Taylor Avenue, E2, Annapolis, MD, 21401, USA

    P. Delgado

  2. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Geodetic Survey, 1315 East–West Highway, Silver Spring, MD, 20910, USA

    P. F. Hensel

  3. Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary, 1361 Wrighton Road, Lothian, MD, 20711, USA

    C. W. Swarth

  4. Gund Institute for Ecological Economics and Department of Plant Biology, University of Vermont, 617 Main Street, Burlington, VT, 05405-1708, USA

    M. Ceroni

  5. Afordable Futures LLC, 4685 Greenbush Road, Charlotte, VT, 05445, USA

    R. Boumans

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  1. P. Delgado
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Correspondence to P. Delgado.

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Delgado, P., Hensel, P.F., Swarth, C.W. et al. Sustainability of a Tidal Freshwater Marsh Exposed to a Long-term Hydrologic Barrier and Sea Level Rise. Estuaries and Coasts 36, 585–594 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-013-9587-2

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