Cross site analysis and synthesis of the role of vegetation, sediment supply, sea level rise and storminess on intertidal coastal geomorphology

Main Goals The proposed research focused on development of a cross site applicable model to Plum Island Ecosystems (PIE), Virginia Coast Reserve(VCR) and the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems (GCE) LTER sites in which the morphological co-evolution of the tidal basin and salt marsh is determined by site specific environmental drivers including tides, wind waves, sediment supply and sea level rise (SLR). The model was built on prior work examining feedbacks between salt marsh platform stability autochthonous soil formation and sediment supply[Fagherazzi et al., 2012; Kirwan and Mudd, 2012; Mariotti and Fagherazzi, 2013] as well as feedbacks between tidal basin vegetation and sediment resuspension [Carr et al., 2010]. As a result, the model directly incorporated feedbacks that exist between vegetation, hydrologic and geomorphic drivers and synthesized our understanding of how ongoing site specific 1) anthropogenic (sediment supply), 2) pulse (storms) and 3) press (SLR) stressors affect stable states and nonlinear transitions of the coupled salt marsh tidal basin system across the three sites.