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- October 17, 2012
Salt marshes have been disintegrating and dying over the past two decades along the U.S. Eastern seaboard and other highly developed coastlines, without anyone fully understanding why. A new paper reports that nutrients—such as nitrogen and phosphorus from septic and sewer systems and lawn fertilizers—can cause salt-marsh loss. http://goo.gl/7OeFI
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Nilanjan Gupta
14 years agoWhy do u need a salt marsh? isnt it a good thing they are falling apart and giving way to new more fertile land? +Annals of Botany Nice pic.
Alison Stewart
14 years agoSalt marshes are complex ecosystems which provide habitat for a huge array of animals… beyond that, offshore wetlands act as buffer zones for storms coming in off the ocean. Wetlands restoration is currently underway in the Gulf of Mexico because Hurricane Katrina made a lot of people realize how much the wetlands soften the impact of hurricanes and tropical storms.
The land that you get when salt marshes die off isn't fertile anyway — "salt marsh" is a descriptive term. 🙂 You get land which is boggy and far too saline for many commercial crop plants.
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