Sea-Level Change and Coastal Wetlands

PRATOLONGO, P.

Encyclopedia of Estuaries

Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

Año: 2015; p. 289 - 289

Sea-level controlled wetlands comprise a wide variety of environments from salt marshes to freshwater marshes and swamps, fens, or barren salt flats, in a continuum of increasing elevation from a shoreline to the upland. In the case of the intertidal zone, the primary abiotic control on wetland structure and function is a combination of tidal inundation frequency, depth, and duration, known as hydroperiod. Wetland environments below the highest astronomical tide experience direct tidal inundation, with decreasing frequency and duration as a function of increasing elevation within the tidal frame. For coastal wetlands landward, the water table is linked to the sea-level influence, which is an important control on the groundwater position that provides the waterlogged conditions necessary for their development. The result of the interaction between hydrodynamics and elevation is a shore-parallel zonation of plants, where each zone tends to move both vertically and horizontally in response to changing sea level and associated stressors.