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Salt marsh restoration: an overview of techniques and success indicators

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Abstract

Coastal wetlands including salt marshes are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth. They are known for improving the quality of coastal water and provisioning coastal fisheries. However, this ecosystem is under potential threat due to urban coastal land reclamation, limited sediment supply, increased nutrient/eutrophication, and sea level rise. Therefore, restoration efforts to protect the degraded salt marsh habitat are considerably increasing worldwide. In this paper, we present an overview of salt marsh restoration techniques and success indicators. Published scientific literature in English language was collected by searching the most relevant keywords from popular search engines, namely, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Mendeley to get the information about salt marsh restoration techniques and success indicators. This study comprehensively reviewed data from 78 peer-reviewed papers. Results indicated that much of the salt marsh was restored through assisted abiotic strategies (e.g., recovery of tidal exchange, managed realignment, and sediment level amendment). A total of 214 indicators were found, spanning over six major ecological attributes such as structural diversity, ecosystem functions, physical conditions, species composition, external exchange, and absence of threat. Author keywords analysis revealed several hotspots for recent research (e.g., 16 s rRNA, fungi, microbial communities, carbon accumulation, and blue carbon). This paper proposes a model for restoring degraded salt marsh, as well as tracking their success. The information presented here will assist the marine ecosystem restoration practitioners in getting a comprehensive understanding of salt marsh restoration success evaluation.

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Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article. More detailed data can be provided upon request to the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Professor Laura Airoldi for critically reading an earlier draft of this manuscript. We would like to acknowledge the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, Ravenna campus, University of Bologna, and Chioggia Hydrobiological Station “Umberto D’Ancona” for providing facilities for this research work. We express our gratitude to three anonymous reviewers and the editor for their thoughtful comments that contributed to the improvement of the manuscript.

Funding

MMB is supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from Interreg, CASCADE, CoAStal and marine waters integrated monitoring systems for ecosystems proteCtion AnD managemEnt (INTERREG V-A Italy-Croatia CBC Programme ID 10255941), and is grateful for this opportunity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Inter-Departmental Research Centre for Environmental Science-CIRSA, University of Bologna, Ravenna Campus, Via S. Alberto 163, 48123, Ravenna, Italy

    Md Masum Billah

  2. Department of Physical Chemistry, Faculty of Marine and Environmental Sciences, University of Cadiz, Polígono Río San Pedro s/n, 11510, Puerto Real, Spain

    Md Khurshid Alam Bhuiyan

  3. Department of Oceanography, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, 3114, Bangladesh

    Mohammad Ahsanul Islam

  4. Faculty of Fisheries and Food Science, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030, Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia

    Mohammad Ahsanul Islam

  5. Institute of Marine Sciences, University of Chittagong, Chittagong, 4331, Bangladesh

    Jewel Das

  6. Institute of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, University of Chittagong, Chittagong, 4331, Bangladesh

    ATM Rafiqul Hoque

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Contributions

MMB—conceptualization, data exactions, analysis, writing original draft, and editing. MKB—data extractions, visualization, review, and editing. MAI—review and editing. JD—review and editing. ATMRH—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Md Masum Billah.

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Billah, M., Bhuiyan, M.A., Islam, M.A. et al. Salt marsh restoration: an overview of techniques and success indicators. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 15347–15363 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-18305-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-18305-5

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