![]() ![]() They are common along much of the eastern coast of the United States and the Frisian Islands. ![]() Back-barrier marshes are sensitive to the reshaping of barriers in the landward side of which they have been formed. Such marshes are located in Awhitu Regional Park in Auckland, the Manawatū Estuary, and the Avon Heathcote Estuary / Ihutai in Christchurch. In New Zealand, most salt marshes occur at the head of estuaries in areas where there is little wave action and high sedimentation. They are also extensive within the rivers of the Mississippi Delta in the United States. Deltaic marshes are associated with large rivers where many occur in Southern Europe such as the Camargue, France in the Rhône delta or the Ebro delta in Spain. Such marsh landforms include deltaic marshes, estuarine, back-barrier, open coast, embayments and drowned-valley marshes. Salt marshes are located among different landforms based on their physical and geomorphological settings. Most salt marshes have a low topography with low elevations but a vast wide area, making them hugely popular for human populations. In the tropics and sub-tropics they are replaced by mangroves an area that differs from a salt marsh in that instead of herbaceous plants, they are dominated by salt-tolerant trees. These typically include sheltered environments such as embankments, estuaries and the leeward side of barrier islands and spits. Commonly these shorelines consist of mud or sand flats (known also as tidal flats or abbreviated to mudflats) which are nourished with sediment from inflowing rivers and streams. Salt marshes occur on low-energy shorelines in temperate and high-latitudes which can be stable, emerging, or submerging depending if the sedimentation is greater, equal to, or lower than relative sea level rise ( subsidence rate plus sea level change), respectively. However, recent acknowledgment by both environmentalists and larger society for the importance of saltwater marshes for biodiversity, ecological productivity and other ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, has led to an increase in salt marsh restoration and management since the 1980s. Additionally, sea level rise caused by climate change is endangering other marshes, through erosion and submersion of otherwise tidal marshes. Salt marshes have historically been endangered by poorly implemented coastal management practices, with land reclaimed for human uses or polluted by upstream agriculture or other industrial coastal uses. They also support terrestrial animals and provide coastal protection. Salt marshes play a large role in the aquatic food web and the delivery of nutrients to coastal waters. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh in trapping and binding sediments. It is dominated by dense stands of salt-tolerant plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. A coastal salt marsh in Perry, Florida, USA.Ī salt marsh, saltmarsh or salting, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. ![]()
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