TIDAL WETLAND CREATION AND RESTORATION, CHITTENDEN PARK, GUILFORD, CONNECTICUT

Tidal wetland restoration is important for preserving and recreating critical salt marsh habitat which are hotspots for biodiversity, protect coastal infrastructure, and are important carbon sinks. As sea-level continues to rise and marsh platforms continue to lose ground, protection and preservation of salt marshes and their dependent species is a conservation priority. Restoration is crucial especially in New England, where conversion and fragmentation have devastated many areas of historic habitat. In the summer of 2023, a salt marsh ecosystem creation and restoration was completed at Chittenden Park in Guilford, Connecticut on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the West River Material was removed from a lawn area and degraded marsh to form a new 740 LF long sinuous tidal channel which receives flow from two sources, an adjacent tidal creek and a small marsh on Long Island Sound. Channel banks were graded to restore 0.3 acres in the channel’s new downstream reach and create 0.45 acres of wetland in the new upstream reach to form a high marsh platform within a former lawn area. The constructed channel was cut through a former monoculture of invasive common reed (Phragmites australis), which was eradicated as a part of this project, and the southern reach of a town manicured lawn. In the fall of 2023, halophytic vegetation was planted along the channel banks and on the marsh platform. Intense precipitation and extreme high tides in the late summer and fall induced geomorphic change including platform and channel incision and the creation of a tidal pond. Future study will monitor the tidal wetland geomorphology, common reed reestablishment, and halophytic vegetation success during future growing seasons.