Coastal wetlands and maritime forests are unique communities of vegetation that can exist along coastal zones. They are directly affected by coastal conditions including changes in water level due to tides, coastal river influx, freshwater, saltwater, wave activity, wind and salt spray, and storm surges. Inasmuch as they are communities uniquely synced to the conditions of their environment, even subtle changes in one condition can cause widespread deleterious changes to the plants themselves.
The term coastal wetlands defines an area of land that is permanently or seasonally inundated with fresh, brackish, or saline water and contains a range of plant species that are uniquely adapted to the degree of inundation, the type of water that is present, as well as the soil conditions.
In some cases, coastal wetlands can extend across extremely large areas, as is the case for southern Louisiana along the north-central Gulf of Mexico. The importance of coastal wetlands is well known in southern Louisiana because there, like many other places, the coastal wetlands provide important habitat for a wide range of organisms. They also protect inland communities from the large storm surges that tropical cyclones can produce, by creating friction against an incoming storm surge, resulting in a reduction of the magnitude and extent of inland flooding during tropical cyclones. The greater the width of intact wetlands, the less likely it is that more inland areas will experience the full force of a tropical cyclone. Southern Louisiana has been, however, experiencing drastic loss of wetland at rates that for the last several decades have been equivalent to the loss of a U.S. football field every approximately 30 minutes.
Coastal wetland is used broadly here to identify areas where wetland plants inhabit the coastal zone, in either freshwater or saltwater environments of the coastal zone. For this reason, along the continental U.S. coastal zones, it includes vegetated environments such as salt marshes, fresh marshes, bottomland hardwood swamps, and mangrove swamps. In the United States, coastal wetlands extend across nearly 40 million acres and constitute approximately 38% of the total wetlands in the conterminous U.S.
Maritime forests are coastally located areas of woods that develop on elevations and topography that is higher than that of coastal wetlands. They primarily rely upon shallow freshwater and cannot tolerate long exposure to salty water; even salt spray can be detrimental to some species of trees that establish maritime forests habitats. Such systems are discontinuously distributed along the U.S. Atlantic coast, but can be found elsewhere as well. In most cases, the soil composition promoting the growth of these forests is sand, either derived from sedimentary units deposited in the past or more recent deposits, such as beach ridges.
Coastal wetland and maritime forests represent unique provinces of vegetation that are uniquely adapted to the harsh conditions of the coastal zone. They provide a range of different habitats for coastal animals and simultaneously provide an important coastal barrier to more inland-located environments, as well as people and infrastructure. There is, however, much concern for the future of our modern coastal vegetation as the different provinces of coastal vegetation face continued exposure to pollution and excess nutrient inputs, changes in the elevation of sea level, and repeat large-scale storm impacts.
Please take a few minutes to think about what you just learned and then answer the questions below.
Links
[1] https://www.epa.gov/wetlands/about-coastal-wetlands
[2] http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/pabu/h/weknow.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_marsh_die-off
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_marsh
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6RdTH5heD8
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_marsh
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_forest