By Alex P. ,Haley, and Preema

Salt Marshes

FUNCTIONAL

Human and Marine Interactions

• Salt marshes provide more ecosystem services to coastal populations then any other environment. Salt marshes have experienced intense and varied human impacts that range from reclamation, waste disposal, and livestock grazing. Salt marshes now must be understood as highly valuable habitats whose worth is generated by a suite of ecosystem services that are critical in sustaining healthy lifestyles for coastal populations and the natural resources they depend on.

• Human use of Salt Marshes varies, but does include tourism in some areas as nature reserves, bait collecting for fishermen, and also provide ideal conditions for the farming of some species of shellfish. Marshes have a very high levels of biological productions, therefore are very important in supporting fisheries.

Human and Marine Interactions

• This coastal zone has living animals, it’s crawling with hundreds of kinds of invertebrates. Fiddler crabs, hermit crabs and stone crabs join snails, mussels and worms in finding food and shelter in the salt marsh. Fish and shrimp come to this coastal zone looking for food and a place to lay their eggs. They also look for shelter in the salt marsh until they have fully grown. Marine animals aren’t the only ones to benefit from the marsh, ducks, geese and wading birds come to feast on the grass, fish and insects. The animals can not migrate there for they do not have big enough spaces for them too.

• fishermen use this coastal zone to catch bate for fishing. Birdwatchers go there to take pictures and enjoy looking at the birds. Photographers go their to take pictures of the wildlife that happens there. • Slat marshes benefits humans and

surrounding ecosystems by sheltering coasts from erosion and filtering nutrients and sediments from the water column

GEOGRAPHICAL

Location, Formation, and Types

• Salt Marshes usually form in areas that are well sheltered. Areas such as creeks, inlets and estuaries where fine sediments can be deposited. Salt marshes may be formed behind spits. The zone behind a spit becomes a sheltered area, water movement slows down and more material gets deposited. The deposition may form a salt marsh. Coastal areas that already have mud flats may also form marshes.

• Salt marshes are found in sheltered intertidal areas. Hey are located all over the world, in middle to high latitude places. Salt marsh grasses build up the habitat by trapping fine sediments that have washed up from uplands. Marshes thrive along protected shore lines and are a common habitat in estuaries. Almost half coast of the USA’s salt marshes are located along the gulf

• Ramped Marsh Shore

Smooth sloping surface over a mudflat with no greenery that slowly changing upwards and landwards, turns into a salt marsh.

• Cliffed marsh shore

Channel migration

Changes in sediment supply

Changes in wind climate which affects waves

• Spur and Furrow Marsh shore

Occur in finger-like spurs and furrows as erosion occurs.

Characteristics and Physical Features

Characteristics of salt marshes:• Marshes tend to have a rotten-egg-like

odour, this is because of Hydrogen sulphide.

• Red streaks in the mud of marshes indicate the presence of oxidized iron. This is a common and important element in marshes.

• Normally salt marshes are directly connected to a sea coast, it can form off something like an estuary or embayment with shallow water features.

Physical Features of salt marshes:• Plants living in marshes need

to be able to deal with being engulfed in salt water• Marshes tend to thrive along

quiet coasts• Salt marsh soils tend to be

waterlogged and low in oxygen

Political

Control• Locally: Provincial Ocean Network• Nationally: Coastal Zone Canada Association• Globally: North American Waterfowl Management Plan• From what I can find, no, The United Nations does not

control any salt marshes.• Some Countries like the United States and Europe control

their Salt Marshes. Other Countries like China tend to ignore their marshes and keep developing over them.

Laws and Disagreements

• In Canada the North American Wetlands Conservation Council (Canada) along with the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, helps develop and implement national level wetland policies and programs in Canada

• Coastal Marshlands Protection Act, created in 1970, by the state of Georgia, this act is to protect the marsh and estuaries’ so that the people are able to fish, boat, and enjoy the salt water marshes, without destroying it.

• The National Estuarine Research Reserve System: protects a total of more than one million acres of estuarine habitat divided between twenty-five different reserves in the United States

•As I have looked over websites a numerous amount of times, I can not seem to find any disagreements on who controls Salt Marshes.

Environmental

Problems• The first problem is that the plants that tend to

live in Salt Marshes are freshwater plants. This causes water stress. This reason causes them to have to take up water against the osmotic pressure. To overcome the negative osmotic pressure, they generate a negative hydrostatic pressure (by transpiration processes). The plants have thin, fleshy leaves and are sensitive to extra stress such as pollution. A well-developed epidermis and succulent leaves and stems help plants adapt to these conditions. Evaporation can be limited by thin leaves with scale-like hairs. Physiologically, plants are adapted by accumulating salt in their tissues. In this way, normal osmosis is possible. Other plants have salt gland cells on the lower surface of their leaves and excrete the salt from their tissue.

• The salt marshes are normally associated with mud flats but also occur on sand flats. These mud flats are sometimes dominated by algae.

• A second problem is the anoxic environment. The underground in which the root of the plant is drenched with water. The tissue of the plants require oxygen for respiration (breathing). Gas diffusion between gas particles can only supply this need in soils that are not waterlogged. Even when the water is drenched with oxygen, its concentration is too low and the diffusion in the water is very slow. This problem is solved by aerenchyma, a tissue that is able to provide air to the submerged parts of the plants. Roots are superficial systems because of the anoxic sediments. These systems are composed of perennial thick roots with a corky layer and without root hairs. To fix the short, thin and strongly branched roots, numerous root hairs are developed so that they can take up nutrients.

• Salt marshes have been disintegrating and dying over the past two decades along the U.S. Eastern seaboard and other highly developed coastlines

Abiotic Factors, Temperature, and Salinity Changes

• The abiotic factors in salt marshes are highly irregular, as the salinity can alternate. The estuary is a place where incoming fresh water and ocean water mix, and the salinity can vary depending on the phase in the tidal cycle and the amount of rainfall.

• Salt marshes may experience salinities ranging from almost freshwater to full seawater, and anything living there must be able to tolerate these wide swings in environmental conditions.

• Temperature can also be vary in wide ranges, as the air in summer is much warmer than the water, and the air in winter is much colder than the water. Air temperature may be below freezing in winter and over 32.2° C in the summer.

• Because of these wide changes, salt marshes do not have a large biodiversity of animals and plants. They only have a limited number of species, that are able to tolerate these conditions. Animals and plants in salt marshes include some that have terrestrial origins, like grasses, insects, birds and mammals, and others with marine origins like algae, mollusks, and fish.

• Salt marsh plants cannot grow where waves are strong, but thrive along quiet coasts.

• Salt marshes are periodically flooded by tides, so the plants living there must be able to deal with being submerged in salt water.

• This is stressful for two reasons: the salt and the water. The salinity, or salt content, varies depending upon whether the marshes are located directly adjacent to the ocean or further upstream in the estuary.

• Salt marsh soils tend to be waterlogged and low in oxygen which is also stressful to a plant. The water level and salinity level determine which species are found in a particular marshes.

Requirements for a Salt Marsh to develop

• They need fine-grained sediments.

• There may be no strong waves or tidal currents. • They need salty conditions to grow. They are halo tolerant and have

adaptations to these conditions. • They need a temperate or cool temperature. Freezing temperatures

can occur, but are not damaging the plants. • They need a wide tidal range. This is important because it limits the

erosion, makes deposition of sediments possible and causes a well-marked zonation.

Ending Words

Salt marshes have a whole range of functions. It plays an important role as a sediment trap. In this way, it regulates the water quality and helps stabilize coastlines. Salt marshes function as filtering systems and retain sediments, excess nutrients, toxic chemicals and disease-causing organisms. They remove nitrates and phosphates from rivers and streams which receive waste water effluents. They recharge and discharge groundwater attributing to the water supply. Salt marshes function as an important habitat, nursery grounds small organisms, shelter, providing food and a breeding ground for wading birds and other organisms

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k/pages/physical/coastal/saltmarsh.html

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The End