Maine Sea Grant

Daniel Belknap
Department of Earth Sciences
University of Maine
Orono , ME 04469
207.581.2159
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“We now have much more solid evidence that the marsh surfaces are not drowning in place, rather they are a highly dynamic setting in long-term equilibrium with rising sea level.” D. Belknap

Salt marshes provide protected nursery sites for fish, crustaceans, and other invertebrates, as well as open water and food for birds. Concerned that an observed increase in pannes (shallow depressions) and pools on marshes indicates that the marshes are drowning from the inside out, as sediment accumulation fails to keep up with sea-level rise, researcher Dan Belknap and graduate student Kristin Wilson studied historic aerial photographs, maps, and sediment cores of five marshes along the Maine coast to determine how marshes change over time. They discovered that salt marsh surfaces are dynamic, with pools forming, changing size and shape, draining and re-colonizing on decadal to centennial time frames. The salt marshes they studied are able to accumulate at rates greater than six mm/year, suggesting that marshes will survive under even moderately high projections of future sea-level rise.

2-year project, 2006-2008
Total: $163,886