Study Yields New Clues to Predict Tipping Points for Marsh Survival

摘要

The study, which assessed wetland distribution and resilience in hundreds of US estuaries, found that it's all a matter of scale. "At the local level, the persistence or loss of coastal marshes was invariably linked to feedbacks between two factors: erosion, which eats away at marsh edges, and vegetation, which stabilizes them," said Anna E. Braswell, a PhD graduate of Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment, who conducted the research as part of her 2017 dissertation. "But at broader spatial scales, other key drivers emerged, too."