Coastal Wetlands Will Survive Rising Seas, But Only If We Let Them

When Florence slogged ashore in North Carolina last week, coastal wetlands offered one of the best lines of defense against the hurricane’s waves and surge.

A new study predicts such wetlands will survive rising seas to buffer the world’s coastlines against future storms and provide their many other ecological and economic benefits, but only if humans preserve the room needed for the wetlands to migrate inland—what scientists call “accommodation space.”

The study, published in Nature the day before Florence made landfall, addressed a major uncertainty in how saltmarshes and mangroves will respond to sea-level rise. It was authored by an international research team with members in the U.K., U.S., Belgium, Germany, and Australia. Associate Professor Matt Kirwan of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science was the sole U.S.-based contributor.

read more:https://www.enn.com/articles/55525-coastal-wetlands-will-survive-rising-seas-but-only-if-we-let-them

Posted by admin on Sep 24 2018. Filed under News at Now, News From Roots, Water & Wetland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry