Competing effects of vegetation density on sedimentation in deltaic marshes
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s41467-022-32270-8.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.78 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
5b2369ac022abe114bb680556ef9e64b
Author(s)
Xu, Yuan
Esposito, Christopher R
Beltrán-Burgos, Maricel
Nepf, Heidi M
Date Issued
August 8, 2022
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Xu, Yuan, Esposito, Christopher R, Beltrán-Burgos, Maricel and Nepf, Heidi M. 2022. "Competing effects of vegetation density on sedimentation in deltaic marshes." Nature Communications, 13 (1).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
AbstractMarsh vegetation, a definitive component of delta ecosystems, has a strong effect on sediment retention and land-building, controlling both how much sediment can be delivered to and how much is retained by the marsh. An understanding of how vegetation influences these processes would improve the restoration and management of marshes. We use a random displacement model to simulate sediment transport, deposition, and resuspension within a marsh. As vegetation density increases, velocity declines, which reduces sediment supply to the marsh, but also reduces resuspension, which enhances sediment retention within the marsh. The competing trends of supply and retention produce a nonlinear relationship between sedimentation and vegetation density, such that an intermediate density yields the maximum sedimentation. Two patterns of sedimentation spatial distribution emerge in the simulation, and the exponential distribution only occurs when resuspension is absent. With resuspension, sediment is delivered farther into the marsh and in a uniform distribution. The model was validated with field observations of sedimentation response to seasonal variation in vegetation density observed in a marsh within the Mississippi River Delta.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32270-8
