Vegetation controls on channel network complexity in coastal wetlands.

ABSTRACT: Channel networks are key to coastal wetland functioning and resilience under climate change. Vegetation affects sediment and hydrodynamics in many different ways, which calls for a coherent framework to explain how vegetation shapes channel network geometry and functioning. Here, we introduce an idealized model that shows how coastal wetland vegetation creates more complexly branching networks by increasing the ratio of channel incision versus topographic diffusion rates, thereby amplifying the channelization feedback that recursively incises finer-scale side-channels. This complexification trend qualitatively agrees with and provides an explanation for field data presented here as well as in earlier studies. Moreover, our model demonstrates that a stronger biogeomorphic feedback leads to

SUBMITTER: van de Vijsel RC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10630343 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature