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H2020Individual fellowship2019–2022

TIGER · Tidal marshes: bio-geomorphic self-organization and its implications for resilience to sea level rise and changing sediment supply

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2019-09-01 → 2022-08-31
EU contribution
€258,530
Participants
2
Scheme
MSCA-IF

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

Tidal marshes: bio-geomorphic self-organization and its implications for resilience to sea level rise and changing sediment supply

Intertidal landscapes are complex environments located between land and sea, which are regularly flooded by tides. They provide highly valuable ecosystem services that are threatened by increasing sea level rise and decreasing sediment supply. Previous studies showed that the small-scale (order of square meters) interactions between vegetation dynamics, water flow and sediment transport (so-called biogeomorphic feedbacks) have a great impact on channel network formation and evolution at the landscape-scale (order of square kilometers). This process is called biogeomorphic self-organization. Our objective is to investigate the impact of plant species traits on biogeomorphic self-organization of intertidal landscapes. More specifically, we hypothesize that (1) different plant species traits lead to the self-organization of different channel network patterns, and (2) the resulting self-organized landscape structures determine the efficiency to distribute and trap sediments on the intertidal floodplains, and hence the resilience of the landscape to increasing sea level rise and decreasing sediment supply. By using a combination of remote sensing analyses and numerical simulations, we aim at producing new fundamental knowledge on landscape self-organization by biogeomorphic feedbacks, and its implications for the resilience of intertidal landscapes against environmental changes.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Intertidal landscapes are complex environments located between land and sea, and that are regularly flooded by tides. They provide highly valuable ecosystem services that are threatened by sea level rise and changing sediment supply.Previous studies showed that the small-scale (order of square meters) interactions between vegetation dynamics, water flow and sediment transport (so-called bio-geomorphic feedbacks) have a great impact on channel network formation and evolution at the landscape-scale (order of square kilometers). This process is called bio-geomorphic self-organization.My objective is to investigate, for the first time, the impact of plant species traits on bio-geomorphic self-organization of intertidal landscapes. More specifically, I hypothesize that (1) different plant species traits lead to the self-organization of different channel network patterns, and (2) the resulting self-organized landscape structures determine the efficiency to distribute and trap sediments on the intertidal floodplain, and hence the resilience (adaptability) of the landscape to sea level rise and decreasing sediment supply.By using a combination of remote sensing, field measurements and numerical simulations, I aim at producing new fundamental knowledge on landscape self-organization by bio-geomorphic feedbacks, and its implications for the resilience of intertidal landscapes against environmental changes.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN · AntwerpenCoordinatorBelgium
  • THE TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY · BOSTON MAUnited States

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union