Spatially Explicit Modeling of Coastal Vegetation Change Associated with Projected Sea Level Rise:nThe Potomac Estuary.

摘要

Coastal environments are expected to respond to rising sea levels through migration inland. This process is limited by the availability of corridors of sufficiently flat, undeveloped land to be converted to wetland. Developed land protected from tidal influence through the construction of bulkheads and levies and natural areas of elevated land will decrease the area available for conversion to marsh and wetland forest over time, leading to a loss of biodiversity. Because these processes depend strongly on the spatial configuration of vegetation-elevation relationships, they must be modeled within a framework that accounts for the specific elevation ranges over which different vegetation classes persist, and elevation change (accretion net of settling and compaction) across the full range of affected elevations. For the National Parks along the Potomac River Estuary, models must operate at both a high spatial resolution and over broad spatial extents to capture changes at scales relevant to park resource managers. This area encompasses multiple park entities, each with their own management needs and goals, but some practical applications of sea-level rise impact projections common to all areas are: (1) targeting areas for pre-emptive actions such as removal of developed land features and marsh species plantings, and (2) strategic land management partnerships, with the goal of maintaining regional biodiversity.