MONITORING OF COASTAL WETLAND SEDIMENTATION AND PLANT COMMUNITY CHANGE UNDER A REGIME OF SEA LEVEL RISE AT ACE BASIN NERR, S.C

Intertidal wetlands along the east coast of the United States are currently threatened by a number of factors including climate change-induced sea level rise. A study has been undertaken within the ACE Basin National Estuarine Research Reserve (S.C.) to monitor the boundaries of different types of coastal wetland plant communities as they respond to sea level rise and to study the effects of plant community shifts on sedimentation rates and carbon sequestration. Monitoring sites are being established within these intertidal wetlands where transitions between plant communities exist. Vegetation survey transects, balloon mapping, elevation surveys, and sediment marker horizons are being used as part of this effort. Initial data collected in the summer of 2012 show that separate plant communities identified in vegetation transects can be recognized in the air photographs acquired through balloon mapping. Follow up work in the summer of 2013 at these monitoring sites will be designed to measure sedimentation rates and carbon storage over the sediment marker horizons that were established in 2012 and will also allow observation of plant community shifts over that time period.