Sediment starvation destroys New York City marshes' resistance to sea level rise.

ABSTRACT: New York City (NYC) is representative of many vulnerable coastal urban populations, infrastructures, and economies threatened by global sea level rise. The steady loss of marshes in NYC's Jamaica Bay is typical of many urban estuaries worldwide. Essential to the restoration and preservation of these key wetlands is an understanding of their sedimentation. Here we present a reconstruction of the history of mineral and organic sediment fluxes in Jamaica Bay marshes over three centuries, using a combination of density measurements and a detailed accretion model. Accretion rate is calculated using historical land use and pollution markers, through a wide variety of sediment core analyses including geochemical, isotopic, and paleobotanical analyses. We find that, since 1800 CE, urban developmen

SUBMITTER: Peteet DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6187168 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature