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Avian Community Responses to Tidal Restoration along the North Atlantic Coast of North America

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Tidal Marsh Restoration

Abstract

Salt marshes in the New England and Atlantic Canada region are widely affected by humanmade structures such as dikes, tide gates, bridges, and culverts, and from other impacts like dredge-spoil fill and mosquito ditches (Hansen and Shriver 2006), all of which alter the volume, velocity, and spatial pattern of tidal flow. In response to concerns about the impact of such management, coastal managers are now actively engaged in salt marsh restoration practices focused on the return of natural hydrology to impacted marshes (Konisky et al. 2006). Federal, state, and provincial agencies have initiated more than a hundred salt marsh restoration projects in the Gulf of Maine region since 1990 (Cornelisen 1998), and these practices continue to be a major management emphasis.

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Shriver, W.G., Greenberg, R. (2012). Avian Community Responses to Tidal Restoration along the North Atlantic Coast of North America. In: Roman, C.T., Burdick, D.M. (eds) Tidal Marsh Restoration. The Science and Practice of Ecological Restoration. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-229-7_7

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