1 Using Gis to Assess Flooding Risk and Detect Changes of Salt Water Inflow in Coastal Micro Tidal Brackish Marsh
نویسنده
چکیده
Coastal wetlands form an important element of the coastal zone natural environment. This paper presents the use of GIS for detecting changes in salt water inflow and for studying the flooding risk due to sea level rise in a micro tidal Beka brackish marsh on the Polish Baltic Coast. Creating a geodatabase within a GIS makes it possible to carry out broad analyses of complex systems, to which coastal wetlands do certainly belong. The proposed methodology allows predicting flooding risk taking into consideration the role of natural dunes as obstacles to water ingress inland. A 40 cm sea-level rise would considerably increase the frequency of flooding in the investigated area because of a small range of yearly sea level oscillations there. A map of the index of changes in saltwater inflow was created with the help of a GIS model based on the cost-weighted distance function. This method proved to be useful when looking for long term effects. Results showed that the changes which had occurred along the shore, consisting in filling in all the outlets of drainage channels, might have influenced in a significant way the observed changes in the vegetation of the area.
منابع مشابه
Spartina Species Zonation along the Altamaha River Estuary
Changes in freshwater inflow can cause changes in the distribution and diversity of marsh vegetation in estuarine habitats. In the fall of 2002 bankside vegetation was surveyed along the 24 km length of the Altamaha River estuary (n= 14 sites). Sites were quantified for multiple plant and edaphic parameters, including plant density, height, and tiller diameter. In this paper we present the char...
متن کاملForecasting the effects of accelerated sea-level rise on tidal marsh ecosystem services
© The Ecological Society of America www.frontiersinecology.org T wetlands such as salt, brackish, and freshwater marshes provide essential ecosystem services to society. Such services include functions associated with regulation, habitat, and production (Daily et al. 1997; de Groot et al. 2002). Positioned at the interface between land and sea, tidal marshes are uniquely suited to provide ecosy...
متن کاملLinking Shifts in Historic Estuarine Vegetation to Salinity Changes Using a Gis
There are anecdotal reports that upstream water withdrawals over the past 50 years have altered the salinity structure of coastal Georgia estuaries. Since few consistent salinity records exist, it may be possible to use shifts in vegetation to document salinity change. The purpose of this study was to use aerial photographs and GIS analysis to determine if the location of the brackish water int...
متن کاملInorganic carbon and oxygen dynamics in a marsh‐dominated estuary
We conducted a free-water mass balance-based study to address the rate of metabolism and net carbon exchange for the tidal wetland and estuarine portion of the coastal ocean and the uncertainties associated with this approach were assessed. We measured open water diurnal O2 and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) dynamics seasonally in a salt marsh-estuary in Georgia, U.S.A. with a focus on the ma...
متن کاملMechanisms mediating plant distributions across estuarine landscapes in a low-latitude tidal estuary.
Understanding of how plant communities are organized and will respond to global changes requires an understanding of how plant species respond to multiple environmental gradients. We examined the mechanisms mediating the distribution patterns of tidal marsh plants along an estuarine gradient in Georgia (USA) using a combination of field transplant experiments and monitoring. Our results could n...
متن کامل