Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Optimum vegetation height and density for inorganic sedimentation in deltaic marshes

Nature Geoscience volume 7, pages 722–726 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

River deltas support a disproportionate percentage of the world’s population and some are drowning as sea level rises1. Resilient deltas theoretically balance relative sea-level rise with vertical growth from surface sedimentation2,3,4,5,6,7. Vegetation generally enhances inorganic sedimentation and resiliency in some settings, such as tidal saltwater marshes8, but the effect of vegetation on freshwater marshes in river deltas is less clear. Here we use a hydrodynamic numerical model9 to simulate deposition in a river delta with varying vegetation characteristics and water discharge and show that vegetation does not always enhance sedimentation on a freshwater marsh. For a given flood, we find that intermediate vegetation height and density are optimal for enhancing both sand and mud deposition, whereas tall or dense vegetation causes sand to remain in the river channel, reducing marsh sedimentation. A multivariate regression analysis of remote-sensing data from Wax Lake Delta, Louisiana, USA shows that the delta exhibits a hydrodynamic response to vegetation in agreement with model predictions. Because most sediment is delivered to freshwater deltaic marshes by infrequent storm and flood events, we further suggest that the timing of such events relative to seasonal vegetation growth determines the integrated effect of vegetation on delta resiliency.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Plan view image of the delta configuration used in this study.
Figure 2: Modelled water fluxes under vegetated and non-vegetated conditions.
Figure 3: Modelled sediment fluxes for marsh platforms under vegetated and non-vegetated conditions.
Figure 4: NDVI and flood hydrograph time series for Wax Lake Delta.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Syvitski, J. P. M. et al. Sinking deltas due to human activities. Nature Geosci. 2, 681–686 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Nittrouer, J. A. et al. Mitigating land loss in coastal Louisiana by controlled diversion of Mississippi River sand. Nature Geosci. 5, 534–537 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Falcini, F. et al. Linking the historic 2011 Mississippi River flood to coastal wetland sedimentation. Nature Geosci. 5, 803–807 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Blum, M. D. & Roberts, H. H. Drowning of the Mississippi Delta due to insufficient sediment supply and global sea-level rise. Nature Geosci. 2, 488–491 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Wilson, C. A. & Allison, M. A. An equilibrium profile model for retreating marsh shorelines in southeast Louisiana. Estuar. Coast. Shelf Sci. 80, 483–494 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Edmonds, D. A., Hoyal, C. J. D., Sheets, B. A. & Slingerland, R. L. Predicting delta avulsions: Implications for coastal wetland restoration. Geology 37, 759–762 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Jerolmack, D. J. Conceptual framework for assessing the response of delta channel networks to Holocene sea level rise. Quat. Sci. Rev. 28, 1786–1800 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Kirwan, M. L. & Megonigal, J. P. Tidal wetland stability in the face of human impacts and sea-level rise. Nature 504, 53–60 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Lesser, G., Roelvink, J., Van Kester, J. & Stelling, G. Development and validation of a three-dimensional morphological model. Coastal Eng. 51, 883–915 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Stumpf, R. P. The process of sedimentation on the surface of a salt marsh. Estuar. Coast. Shelf Sci. 17, 495–508 (1983).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Fagherazzi, S. et al. Numerical models of salt marsh evolution: Ecological, geomorphic, and climatic factors. Rev. Geophys. 50, 2011RG000359 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Rosen, T. & Xu, Y. J. Recent decadal growth of the Atchafalaya River Delta complex: Effects of variable riverine sediment input and vegetation succession. Geomorphology 194, 108–120 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Morris, J. T., Sundareshwar, P., Nietch, C. T., Kjerfve, B. & Cahoon, D. Responses of coastal wetlands to rising sea level. Ecology 83, 2869–2877 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Baumann, R. H., Day, J. W. & Miller, C. A. Mississippi deltaic wetland survival: Sedimentation versus coastal submergence. Science 224, 1093–1095 (1984).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Johnson, W., Sasser, C. & Gosselink, J. Succession of vegetation in an evolving river delta, Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana. J. Ecol. 73, 973–986 (1985).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Edmonds, D. A. Restoration sedimentology. Nature Geosci. 5, 758–759 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Baptist, M. Modelling Floodplain Biogeomorphology PhD thesis, Delft Univ. Technology (2005)

  18. Nepf, H. M. Hydrodynamics of vegetated channels. J. Hydraul. Res. 50, 262–279 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Crosato, A. & Saleh, M. S. Numerical study on the effects of floodplain vegetation on river planform style. Earth Surf. Process. Landf. 36, 711–720 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Arboleda, A. M., Crosato, A. & Middelkoop, H. Reconstructing the early 19th-century Waal River by means of a 2D physics-based numerical model. Hydrol. Process. 24, 3661–3675 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Baptist, M. et al. On inducing equations for vegetation resistance. J. Hydraul. Res. 45, 435–450 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Mudd, S. M., D’Alpaos, A. & Morris, J. T. How does vegetation affect sedimentation on tidal marshes? Investigating particle capture and hydrodynamic controls on biologically mediated sedimentation. J. Geophys. Res. 115, F03029 (2010).

    Google Scholar 

  23. Twilley, R. R. & Rivera-Monroy, V. Sediment and nutrient tradeoffs in restoring Mississippi River delta: Restoration vs eutrophication. J. Contemp. Wat. Res. Educ. 141, 39–44 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Bennett, S. J., Pirim, T. & Barkdoll, B. D. Using simulated emergent vegetation to alter stream flow direction within a straight experimental channel. Geomorphology 44, 115–126 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Temmerman, S. et al. Vegetation causes channel erosion in a tidal landscape. Geology 35, 631–634 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Partheniades, E. Erosion and deposition of cohesive soils. J. Hydraul. Div. ASCE 91, 105–139 (1965).

    Google Scholar 

  27. Nittrouer, J. A. & Viparelli, E. Sand as a stable and sustainable resource for nourishing the Mississippi River delta. Nature Geosci. 7, 350–354 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Kim, W., Mohrig, D., Twilley, R., Paola, C. & Parker, G. Is it feasible to build new land in the Mississippi River Delta? Eos Trans. AGU 90, 373–374 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Shaw, J. B., Wolinsky, M. A., Paola, C. & Voller, V. R. An image-based method for shoreline mapping on complex coasts. Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L12405 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by an NSF Frontiers in Earth Systems Dynamics grant (EAR-1135427), NSF grant OCE-1329542, and funds from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. We would like to thank S. Fagherazzi for insightful conversations about vegetation and sedimentation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geological Sciences and Center for Geospatial Data Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA

    William Nardin & Douglas A. Edmonds

  2. Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA

    William Nardin

Authors
  1. William Nardin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Douglas A. Edmonds
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

All authors contributed equally in this research.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to William Nardin or Douglas A. Edmonds.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (PDF 1943 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Nardin, W., Edmonds, D. Optimum vegetation height and density for inorganic sedimentation in deltaic marshes. Nature Geosci 7, 722–726 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2233

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2233

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Anthropocene

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Anthropocene