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Sediment Budget Estimates for a Highly Impacted Embayment with Extensive Wetland Loss

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Abstract

External sediment supply is an important control on wetland morphology and vulnerability to storms, sea-level rise, and land use change. Constraining sediment supply and net budgets is difficult due to multiple timescales of variability in hydrodynamic forcing and suspended sediment concentrations, as well as the fundamental limitations of measurement and modeling technologies. We used two independent observational campaigns and one hydrodynamic modeling effort to estimate the sediment supply to Jamaica Bay, New York, USA, an urbanized embayment with a history of extensive wetland loss. We found that all three estimates indicate a net import to the system, ranging from 36 to 74 kt/year, with a mean estimate of 55 kt/year ± 31 kt/year, which is consistent with a prior estimate derived from radionuclide tracers. Net sediment import is controlled by flood-ebb asymmetry in bed shear stress, which results in higher suspended sediment concentrations on flood tide relative to ebb. This indicates a seaward source of sediment that is resuspended by waves in the coastal ocean, likely offshore marine deposits or potentially from the adjacent Hudson River estuary. Despite the net sediment import, a simple sediment budget suggests that the rate of supply is not sufficient to maintain the present geomorphic planform of the system relative to sea-level rise. The convergent estimates from independent methods provide reasonable guidance as context for sediment-based restoration efforts.

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Acknowledgments

Support for RJC was provided by the grant from the Department of Interior Hurricane Sandy Recovery program and from a National Science Foundation Coastal SEES grant (1325258). RJC thanks Elias Hunter and Chip Haldeman for their field and computational skills and Ken Roma for his dedication at the helm. Support for DKR was provided by NSF Coastal SEES award OCE-1325136. NKG, AES, RAC, and Marine Parkway data collection were funded by the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program and the Department of the Interior Hurricane Sandy Recovery Program (GS2-2D). The authors thank the three anonymous reviewers for their time and for helping us improve the clarity of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

    Robert J. Chant

  2. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    David K. Ralston

  3. Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    Neil K Ganju

  4. Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, William and Mary, Gloucester Point, VA, USA

    Cassia Pianca

  5. New York Water Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Buffalo, NY, USA

    Amy E. Simonson & Richard A. Cartwright

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  1. Robert J. Chant
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  2. David K. Ralston
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  3. Neil K Ganju
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  4. Cassia Pianca
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  5. Amy E. Simonson
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  6. Richard A. Cartwright
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Correspondence to Robert J. Chant.

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Communicated by Paul A. Montagna

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Chant, R.J., Ralston, D.K., Ganju, N.K. et al. Sediment Budget Estimates for a Highly Impacted Embayment with Extensive Wetland Loss. Estuaries and Coasts 44, 608–626 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-020-00784-3

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