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- Title
Groundwater dynamics along forest-marsh transects in a southeastern salt marsh, USA: Description, interpretation and challenges for numerical modeling.
- Authors
Gardner, Leonard R.; Reeves, Howard W.; Thibodeau, Peter M.
- Abstract
Long-term and spatially dense time series of total head measured along three forest-marsh piezometer transects across a finger marsh basin, together with bimonthly groundwater salinity measurements, reveal dynamic features that present challenges to the interpretation and modeling of this shallow water table aquifer. These include: 1. Rapid response of forest water table to rain events. 2. Daytime lowering (drawdown) of the water table in the forest and high marsh due to evapotranspiration and its recovery due to rain, seepage or tidal inundation. 3. Upward gradients in head along the western margin of the marsh but downward gradients in the eastern, more seaward, high marsh and forest. 4. Rapid head responses to the tide in parts of the high marsh and forest that are not actually inundated. 5. Asymmetrical distribution of salinity with higher values in the eastern marsh and forest than in the west. 6. Sharp salinity gradients across the tidal creek that bisects the basin. We discuss modeling issues related to these features because a comprehensive understanding of them may have a bearing on patterns of botanical zonation and primary production, the transport of nutrients and contaminants, and the response of this system to sea level rise.
- Subjects
GROUNDWATER; SALT marshes; PIEZOMETERS; SALINITY; FLOODS; PLANT transpiration
- Publication
Wetlands Ecology & Management, 2002, Vol 10, Issue 2, p145
- ISSN
0923-4861
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1023/A:1016571909992