Coastal wetlands depend on vertical accretion to keep up with sea level rise in cases where embankment restricts accommodation space and landward migration. For coastal wetland survival, autogenic productivity (litter, root decay) as well as allogenic matter input are crucial. Beach wrack composed of seagrass and algae can serve as an important allogenic matter source, increase surface roughness, elevate the backshore, and influence the blue carbon budget. The objective of this study is to understand how human footpaths in a frequently accessed Baltic coastal wetland influence beach wrack transport and accumulation. Beach wrack monitoring during the winter storm season 2021/2022 was conducted in high spatial and temporal resolution with bi-weekly UAV flights. Object-based identification, segmentation, and classification of orthophotos with open-source software allowed the detection of beach wrack patches with a mean area of 0.6–2.7 m². Three major storm events occurred during the monitoring period (Arwen, Malik, Eunice). Regardless of wind speed or direction, the main accumulation zones remained stable. The east-west footpath that crosses the coastal wetland and connects the tourist hotspots served as a “highway” for water-mediated transport of beach wrack. Total area covered by beach wrack fluctuated between 1,793 and 2,378 m² with a peak after storm Malik in January 2022. The densely accumulated beach wrack along the main east-west footpath formed an elongated micro-cliff-like structure and limited landward transport. Additional aerial image analysis for the last 15 years showed that the position of the footpaths remained stable. This pioneering study offers first insights into the fate of beach wrack in an anthropogenically influenced Baltic coastal wetland where larger tidal channels that usually generate hydrological connectivity are missing. The identified transport patterns and accumulation hotspots are a starting point for further research on how beach wrack behaves in (waterlogged) coastal wetlands compared to decomposition on sandy beaches.
Communicating environmental changes and scenarios to stakeholders and decision-makers can be challenging. Immersive environments offer a novel tool to transfer knowledge and allow the interactive discussion of scenarios. With the increase of space- and airborne remote sensing and coherent classification of ecosystems, many large-scale geospatial datasets are produced. Virtual environments can play an important role in conveying and discussing the findings gathered from these datasets. However, textured meshes and point clouds directly imported to a virtual reality are not always suited to create a truly immersive environment and often poste geometrical artifacts, which are miss-interpreted during the import to a game engine. In our study, we use an asset-based approach to create an immersive virtual representation of a coastscape. The focus hereby is on the coastal vegetation and changes in species distribution, potentially triggered by climate change impacts. We present an easy-to-use blueprint for the game engine EPIC Unreal Engine 5. In contrast to traditional virtual reality environments using static textured mesh data derived from photogrammetry, this asset-based approach enables the use of dynamics and physical properties (e.g. vegetation moving due to wind or waves) which makes the virtual environment more immersive.
<p>The ability to trap and accumulate sediment and thereby to change the bathymetry makes coastal wetlands bioengineers of their own environment. While wind and wave attenuation directly contribute to hazard mitigation, the influence on bathymetry and thus shoreline change acts on longer time scales. In addition, sediment trapping impacts not only hazard mitigation but also blue carbon storage or the nutrient removal potential. The wetland in Stein at the Kiel Bay (German Baltic Sea) is a primary example of a site that offers &#8216;nature based coastal protection&#8217;, while at the same time the site is exposed to increasing anthropogenic pressures. Space for natural development at the study site is limited as the wetland is squeezed by a dyke in the hinterland, a marina and construction sites in the east, a popular tourist beach in the west and waterway dredging in the north. We aim to achieve a deeper understanding of short-term vs long-term processes of sediment trapping and vegetation propagation at this site.</p><p>We are combining remote sensing methods with vegetation mapping in field and on-site measurements (e.g. water level, oxygen saturation and waves). Vegetation mapping exposed a striking biodiversity with inter alia <em>Tripolium pannonicum, Atriplex littoralis, Lathyrus japonicus, Bolboschoenus maritimus</em> or <em>Honckenya peploides </em>besides the dominating <em>Phragmites australis</em>. Habitat variety is further enhanced by a manifold topography with small-scale basins, micro-cliffs and micro-depressions. Aerial images from 2007 to 2019 are analyzed to get insights into past development of vegetation patches and shoreline evolution. Preliminary results reveal that the wetland edge is relatively stable, while beach lake size varies significantly. However, this data lacks the spatiotemporal resolution to identify whether changes occurred gradually or after extreme events such as storm surges or winter ice. In contrast, our weekly to monthly UAV flights offer sufficient spatial and temporal resolution to monitor changes in microtopography. We anticipate that our results will help to better understand ecosystem dynamics as a response of gradual and abrupt disturbances, which may foster confidence in more sustainable coastal adaptation strategies.</p>
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