Morphological responses of an estuarine intertidal mudflat to constructions since 1978 to 2005: The Seine estuary (France)

Cuvilliez, A.; Deloffre, Julien; Lafite, Robert; Bessineton, Christophe

doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2008.08.010

Cited by 41 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(45 reference statements)

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“…Anthropogenic impacts such as those described for the river Elbe are also common in other estuaries in Europe, like the Scheldt (Meire et al 2005), the Seine (Cuvilliez et al 2009) and the Severn estuary (Rovira et al 2014). Therefore, we believe that the conclusions drawn in this study for the Elbe estuary might be applicable to other estuaries.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

Vegetation succession of low estuarine marshes is affected by distance to navigation channel and changes in water level

et al. 2016

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Climate change and engineering activities have modified the hydrology and morphology of estuaries. However, the potential effects of these modifications on vegetation succession in estuarine marshes are still poorly understood. Therefore, we studied temporal changes in tidal habitats of the Elbe estuary over a period of 30 years. We compared vegetation maps from 1980 to 2010 and calculated the change in area of habitats with respect to three salinity and three elevational zones. To analyze the direction of the temporal change, we differentiated between progressive and regressive succession. By using regression tree models (conditional inference trees), we identified the most influential factors determining progressive or regressive succession of low marshes. The total area of the estuarine tidal marshes at the Elbe increased by 2 % from 1980 to 2010, but changes were unequal among the salinity zones. In the salt and brackish zones, the area covered by high marshes increased substantially but decreased in the tidal freshwater zone, while that covered by low marshes decreased in all the salinity zones. Additionally, we determined high persistence of tidal flats and high marshes, whereas only 19 to 28 % of the low marshes found in 1980 remained in 2010. In salt and brackish marshes, more than two-thirds of the area that had been identified as low marshes in 1980 had progressively developed into high marshes. In contrast, 44 % of the area of low marshes in tidal freshwater marshes showed regressive succession back into tidal flats. The distance to the navigation channel was the main factor determining successional direction in salt and brackish marshes. Here, greater proximity to the channel was correlated with higher risk of regressive succession. In tidal freshwater marshes, we identified both the distance to the navigation channel and the situation on the river shore (i.e. inner bank, outer bank or straight bank) as the main factors for marsh succession. Here, considerable engineering activities in the channel had simultaneously decreased the mean low water level and increased the mean high water level between 1980 and 2010, which led to an increase in tidal amplitude. It is quite likely that these changes negatively modified marsh distribution, increased regressive succession and, thus, lowered the quality of tidal freshwater marshes.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

Vegetation succession of low estuarine marshes is affected by distance to navigation channel and changes in water level

et al. 2016

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“…The current dumping site (Kannik, situated inside the estuary) is known to have contributed over the last decades to maintaining the silting up of the northern bank of the estuary (i.e. the northern mudflat and associated channel, Cuvilliez et al, 2009). For that reason, the SCES has recommended that GPMR should locate a new sediment deposit area outside the Seine estuary.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collaborative approach for the management of harbour-dredged sediment in the Bay of Seine (France)

Marmin

Dauvin

Lesueur

2014

Ocean & Coastal Management

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“…the volume of ebb discharge during a tidal cycle). This reduction leads to smaller water velocities and increasing rates of sediment deposition after embankment construction (Hood, 2004;Cuvilliez et al, 2009;Xie et al, 2018). In the Scheldt estuary, in contrast, no reduction in the volume of the tidal prism was observed over the past centuries because the reduction of intertidal surface area was compensated for by an increase in the celerity and amplitude of the tidal wave (Van den Berg et al, 1996).…”

Section: Landscape-scale Changes In Soil Organic Carbon Storagementioning

confidence: 99%

Soil organic carbon stocks in a tidal marsh landscape are dominated by human marsh embankment and subsequent marsh progradation

Broek

Baert

Temmerman

et al. 2018

European J Soil Science

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Summary Tidal marshes are coastal and estuarine ecosystems that store large amounts of sedimentary organic carbon (OC). Despite the valuable ecosystem services they deliver, tidal marshes have been converted to other land‐use types over the past centuries. Although previous studies have reported large decreases in soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks after tidal marsh embankment, knowledge on the magnitude and rate of OC losses is still limited. Here, we studied the effect of stepwise embankments of brackish and salt marshes and subsequent marsh progradation on SOC stocks in the Scheldt estuary (the Netherlands). We collected samples from soil profiles along tidal marsh–reclaimed tidal marsh chronosequences and determined total OC stocks and the stable carbon signature of the OC. Our results showed that large losses of previously sequestered SOC occur on a decadal timescale with the embankment of brackish (−8.7 ± 0.7 kg OC m−2) and salt marshes (−6.7 ± 0.8 kg OC m−2). The (incomplete) replacement of tidal marsh OC by agricultural OC is substantially faster in topsoils (ca. a century) compared with subsoils (multiple centuries). Simulations with a coupled land use–SOC model showed that large rates of marsh progradation following embankment construction resulted in a substantial increase in landscape‐scale SOC storage, whereas large SOC losses occurred in landscapes dominated by embanked tidal marshes. The findings of our study might help to assess how these management practices affect regional SOC stocks. Highlights We studied how OC stocks in tidal marsh sediments are affected by embankment construction OC stocks of both brackish and salt marsh sediments were reduced by ca. 60% with embankment Gains in landscape‐scale SOC storage occurred with marsh progradation after embankment If no marsh progradation occurs, embankments always lead to SOC loss at the landscape scale

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Morphological responses of an estuarine intertidal mudflat to constructions since 1978 to 2005: The Seine estuary (France)

Cited by 41 publications

References 34 publications

Vegetation succession of low estuarine marshes is affected by distance to navigation channel and changes in water level

Vegetation succession of low estuarine marshes is affected by distance to navigation channel and changes in water level

Collaborative approach for the management of harbour-dredged sediment in the Bay of Seine (France)

Soil organic carbon stocks in a tidal marsh landscape are dominated by human marsh embankment and subsequent marsh progradation

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