Document Type
Article
Department/Program
Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Publication Date
2021
Journal
Earth Surface Dynamics
Volume
9
First Page
413
Last Page
421
Abstract
Sea-level rise, saltwater intrusion, and wave erosion threaten coastal marshes, but the influence of salinity on marsh erodibility remains poorly understood. We measured the shear strength of marsh soils along a salinity and biodiversity gradient in the York River estuary in Virginia to assess the direct and indirect im-pacts of salinity on potential marsh erodibility. We found that soil shear strength was higher in monospecific salt marshes (5–36 kPa) than in biodiverse freshwater marshes (4–8 kPa), likely driven by differences in below ground biomass. However, we also found that shear strength at the marsh edge was controlled by sediment characteristics, rather than vegetation or salinity, suggesting that inherent relationships may be obscured in more dynamic environments. Our results indicate that York River freshwater marsh soils are weaker than salt marsh soils, and suggest that salinization of these freshwater marshes may lead to simultaneous losses in biodiversity and erodibility.
DOI
doi: 10.5194/esurf-9-413-2021
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Gillen, Megan N.; Messerschmidt, Tyler C.; and Kirwan, Matthew L., Biophysical controls of marsh soil shear strength along an estuarine salinity gradient (2021). Earth Surface Dynamics, 9, 413-421.
doi: 10.5194/esurf-9-413-2021
