Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 8, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14156
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Categories
Funding
- Department of the Interior Hurricane Sandy Recovery program
- U.S. Geological Survey Coastal and Marine Geology Program
- NSF GLD [1529245]
- NSF Coastal SEES [1426981]
- NSF LTER [1237733, 1637630]
- USGS Climate and Land Use Change Research and Development Program
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [1237733] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Division Of Ocean Sciences [1426308, 1238212] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Division Of Ocean Sciences [1427105, 1426896] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Salt marshes are valued for their ecosystem services, and their vulnerability is typically assessed through biotic and abiotic measurements at individual points on the landscape. However, lateral erosion can lead to rapid marsh loss as marshes build vertically. Marsh sediment budgets represent a spatially integrated measure of competing constructive and destructive forces: a sediment surplus may result in vertical growth and/or lateral expansion, while a sediment deficit may result in drowning and/or lateral contraction. Here we show that sediment budgets of eight microtidal marsh complexes consistently scale with areal unvegetated/vegetated marsh ratios (UVVR) suggesting these metrics are broadly applicable indicators of microtidal marsh vulnerability. All sites are exhibiting a sediment deficit, with half the sites having projected lifespans of less than 350 years at current rates of sea-level rise and sediment availability. These results demonstrate that open-water conversion and sediment deficits are holistic and sensitive indicators of salt marsh vulnerability.
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