One Salt Marsh at a Time: Building Coastal Resiliency After Hurricane Sandy

Dr. Susan Adamowicz is standing on a salt marsh along the shores of the Webhannet River at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Maine. This refuge is practically her home, where she has worked for the past 13 years as a land management and research demonstration biologist for the Service.

Coastal marshes are a habitat she has known and loved since she was a child. But today, salt marshes are facing new and unprecedented threats from climate change. We asked her to talk to us about the important role salt marshes play in protecting coastlines and building coastal resiliency.

Q: What are salt marshes and what makes them important?

Susan: Salt marshes are exciting places to work! They are dynamic areas. Salt marshes form where rivers meet the sea and where the velocity of water is slow enough to allow the sediment to deposit and for plants to take root. Over time, as salt marshes continue to grow, they rise in elevation and expand outward horizontally.

They support a wide variety of wildlife that’s specialized to live in this salty, tidal environment, everything from micro biota to birds such as the saltmarsh sparrow to numerous species of mammals and fish. They also provide environmental services, such as storing carbon, filtering water and providing natural defenses against storms by buffering the force of both storm surges and storm waves.

Q: Let’s talk about storms—how did Hurricane Sandy change the way we think about protecting coastal communities?

Susan: The coast was forever changed, as was our perception of what it means to live along the coast. We saw the tremendously destructive force of what nature can do, but we also saw how this force can be lessened by having salt marshes in place to protect our shores.

After Hurricane Sandy, I think many of us woke up to the challenge of having to think about our coastal systems in new ways. How might we redesign our coasts so that in some areas we could restore the natural systems, like salt marshes, that can provide more natural flexibility and protection from storm surge, big storm waves or even additional rainfall?

Q: How do we prepare for future storms and sea-level rise and stay resilient?

Susan: Salt marshes play a vital role in the resiliency of coastal systems. Imagine if this salt marsh was not here. There would be no buffer from the turbulence of storms. And because healthy salt marshes can grow higher in elevation, they can provide a continuing protection to human communities if sea levels don’t rise too high too quickly. By being able to handle the force of storms and recover quickly, we say that salt marshes are resilient and they pass this protection on to surrounding human communities.

We’re also using all kinds of new techniques to restore coastal marshes and improve resiliency. Thin-layer deposition is one example. It uses clean dredge sediments to build up the marsh surface elevation to a height that’s optimal for the salt marsh grasses to continue to build the marsh on their own over time. We have several thin-layer deposition projects on national wildlife refuges as a result of Hurricane Sandy funds [for example, at John Chafee National Wildlife Refuge in Rhode Island and Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey].

Susan Adamowicz shows interns how to take salt marsh elevation samples. Credit: USFWS

Q: You’ve worked in coastal marshes for a long time—how has your work changed and what do you see for the future?

Susan: A lot has changed. We no longer talk about restoring a salt marsh to the configuration it had in the 1600s. Now we talk about restoring the trajectories of salt marsh-building forces so that a salt marsh can sustain itself and have a high degree of integrity over time.

With super storms, climate change and their effects, we’re seeing unprecedented forces placed on the coast.

It’s like Godzilla is walking all over our picnic and we are trying to figure out how best to prepare ourselves, how best to respond to this climate change Godzilla. I may be exaggerating a little bit, but maybe only a little bit because it has been such a challenge to us.

Some of the models predict that our coastlines are going to be entirely changed by sea-level rise in the next 100 years and I worry a great deal about the kind of planet that my nieces and nephews and their children will inherit.

I take hope in realizing it is not just me alone, but within the family of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and my family of other professional scientists, there are a lot of us that are concerned about the same thing. We want to pass on a healthy planet to future generations. If we can bring these salt marshes 50-75 years into the future, I think we will have done a service for the next generation of scientists, wildlife lovers and folks that live on the coast, a service that they can then build on.

Reprinted from Fish and Wildlife News, Fall 2016, p. 18-19

Susan Adamowicz along the Webhannet River at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Maine. Credit: USFWS

Meet #ScienceWoman Susan Adamowicz

Our #ScienceWoman campaign kicked off during Women’s History Month, and we’re going to keep on rolling! We’re looking forward by honoring women across the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and female conservationists who are making history in our agency and in conservation. With each #ScienceWoman, we’ll share a photo and a couple questions and answers about her work. Stay tuned for more posts later this week honoring Hurricane Sandy Women in Science.

Meet science woman Susan Adamowicz, Ph. D. She’s our Land Management Research and Demonstration Biologist at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. In her words: “I develop and execute innovative ways to restore salt marsh ecosystems, I also help coordinate the Salt Marsh Integrity assessment project.”

She’s studied at numerous prestigious schools, including BU, UVM, IU, SDSU and URI/GSO and lists her conservation heroes as Rachel Carson and Joy Adamson.

Q. How did you get interested in conservation? A. I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s and saw what people were doing to the planet – mostly in terms of pollution and animal extinction.  I had thought about being a wildlife veterinarian for a while but then decided there were enough of those.  But there were hardly any planet doctors.

Q. If you could have one animal adaptation, what would it be and why? A. I love salt marshes because I grew up alongside of them, and coastal systems are where things are happening on the natural and human scales.  We joke about having “salt marsh super power,” and my favorite would be to walk on mud like a Great Blue Heron.

See more #ScienceWoman profiles.

Science Women Building a Stronger Atlantic Coast

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s #ScienceWoman series is highlighting some of the amazing women who are working to strengthen natural defenses along the Atlantic Coast as part of the federal Hurricane Sandy recovery program. With their help, communities and wildlife are being protected against future storms, sea-level rise and other impacts predicted with a changing climate. Three of these women — Martha Naley, Katie Conrad, and Kate O’Brien — already have been profiled in the #ScienceWoman series, and four more will be featured this week, so stay tuned!

Julie Devers is a fishery biologist stationed at the Maryland Fishery Resources Office in Annapolis, Maryland. Julie’s Hurricane Sandy funded work focuses on the removal of Bloede Dam and Centreville Dams in Catonsville and Centreville, Maryland, which will help reduce flooding from future storms and increase fish passage. Her favorite part about working with the service is  “meeting new Service employees and partners who are making a difference in the conservation of coastal and freshwater species through new and innovative approaches”. For more on Julie, view her profile in the #ScienceWoman series.

Georgia Basso is wildlife biologist working with the Service’s Coastal Program located in Charlestown, Rhode Island. Some of Georgia’s work focuses on assessment and removal of the Pond Lily Dam in New Haven, Connecticut, which will help reduce flooding from future storms and increase fish passage. Her favorite part about working for the Service is her colleagues. “I feel lucky to work with so many smart, dedicated, passionate people. They are an inspiration,” she says. View Georgia’s profile in the #ScienceWoman series.

Beth Freiday is a fish and wildlife biologist located in the New Jersey Field Office. Some of her work focuses on a project to restore and strengthen more than 36,000 acres of tidal marsh on the Atlantic coast and the Delaware Bay in New Jersey. Bird ecology has fascinated Beth since she was a child living in Florida. Back then, her family rescued a brown pelican entangled in a fishing line. “That one bird opened up a whole world of birds that I didn’t know existed until that day,” she says. Read Beth’s profile in this week’s #ScienceWoman series.

Susan C. Adamowicz, Ph.D. is a Land Management Research and Demonstration (LMRD) Biologist stationed at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. Her job is to  develop and execute innovative ways to restore salt marsh ecosystems. Part of her role in Hurricane Sandy funded projects is to help coordinate the regionwide Salt Marsh Integrity assessment project which will assess the integrity of over 30,000 acres of coastal marsh on Northeast Region refuges and prioritize them for restoration. For more on Susan, read her #ScienceWoman series profile.

Kate O’Brien is a wildlife biologist stationed at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Maine. She is leading a part of the Hurricane Sandy resilience project focused on protecting property and helping coastal wildlife on nearly 50 acres in coastal Maine. These efforts involve youth and volunteers in coastal shrub planting projects which will sustain marsh habitat for Trust species while creating a natural buffer against the impacts of future storms. “I love working for the Service because I know I am making a difference for endangered species, with both direct management, working with partners, and working with the public,” she says. See Kate’s #ScienceWoman series profile.

Katie Conrad is a fish and wildlife biologist located in the New Jersey Field Office. She leads two large Hurricane Sandy funded projects in New Jersey: Gandy’s Beach shoreline protection efforts will construct a living shoreline to combat coastal erosion against future storms; and the Wreck Pond restoration will install a box culvert to help improve fish passage and restore dunes to add nesting ground for piping plovers while providing storm surge protection for nearby towns. “I’m most interested in seeing how these projects can benefit both animals and surrounding communities,” says Katie. Check out her profile on the #ScienceWoman series.

Martha Naley is a fish and wildlife biologist stationed at the Sunderland Fishery Resources Office in Massachusetts. She is currently involved in the Sandy-funded Shady Lea Dam Removal project in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, which will help increase fish passage and reduce the risk of dam failure and flooding during future storm events. “The Sandy funds make it possible for people to do the right thing – in terms of the environment and the economy,” she says. Learn more about Martha’s work or read her #ScienceWoman series profile.

Check out more of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s women making a difference in the #ScienceWoman series!

Science Women Building a Stronger Coast was co-written by intern Amber Lira and Margie Brenner, the Northeast Region’s communications and outreach specialist for Hurricane Sandy recovery.