Competing effects of vegetation density on sedimentation in deltaic marshes
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Marsh 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...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Springer Science and Business Media LLC
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/145509 |
| _version_ | 1826194488606851072 |
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| author | Xu, Yuan Esposito, Christopher R Beltrán-Burgos, Maricel Nepf, Heidi M |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Xu, Yuan Esposito, Christopher R Beltrán-Burgos, Maricel Nepf, Heidi M |
| author_sort | Xu, Yuan |
| collection | MIT |
| description | <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Marsh 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.</jats:p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:56:52Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/145509 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:56:52Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1455092022-09-30T17:54:16Z Competing effects of vegetation density on sedimentation in deltaic marshes Xu, Yuan Esposito, Christopher R Beltrán-Burgos, Maricel Nepf, Heidi M Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Marsh 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.</jats:p> 2022-09-19T18:56:38Z 2022-09-19T18:56:38Z 2022-08-08 2022-09-19T18:43:14Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/145509 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). en 10.1038/s41467-022-32270-8 Nature Communications Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Springer Science and Business Media LLC Nature |
| spellingShingle | Xu, Yuan Esposito, Christopher R Beltrán-Burgos, Maricel Nepf, Heidi M Competing effects of vegetation density on sedimentation in deltaic marshes |
| title | Competing effects of vegetation density on sedimentation in deltaic marshes |
| title_full | Competing effects of vegetation density on sedimentation in deltaic marshes |
| title_fullStr | Competing effects of vegetation density on sedimentation in deltaic marshes |
| title_full_unstemmed | Competing effects of vegetation density on sedimentation in deltaic marshes |
| title_short | Competing effects of vegetation density on sedimentation in deltaic marshes |
| title_sort | competing effects of vegetation density on sedimentation in deltaic marshes |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/145509 |
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