Salt Marsh Monitoring and Analysis Network

The Salt Marsh Monitoring and Analysis Network is a collaborative group with expertise in salt marsh health working to improve Long Island Sound salt marsh management under climatic pressures. Salt marshes, poised at the land-sea boundary, are important contributors to coastal health of both communities and wildlife populations. Beyond the multitude of ecological functions that these habitats provide both within and beyond their borders, salt marshes are highly protective of their adjacent shorelines. Specifically, salt marshes provide protection from storms through buffering wave damage and resisting shoreline erosion, are a critical habitat for key stages of reproduction for many species, and are a natural filter that supports cleaner waters, among other benefits.

Despite the importance of salt marshes, we lack comparable data and a vetted consistent understanding of the climate impact on the salt marshes of Long Island Sound. This network is working to assess the existing knowledge gaps in salt marsh health, determine standard practices to evaluate salt marsh health parameters under climate change, establish a coordinated project directory, and recommend locations to monitor climate change impacts. Together, this network will implement new monitoring activities to fill these identified gaps, establish a consensus on thresholds for critical impacts on salt marsh parameters, and create recommendations for salt marsh management to promote resilient marshes.

The data collected in this project will support decision-making by local, state, and federal managers and practitioners, but the primary beneficiaries will be local people living and working in coastal communities that will benefit from improved management of these important habitats and the ecosystem services provided, such as storm protection and erosion control. Protecting salt marshes also benefits a vast network of species and processes from carbon sequestration to nutrient retention. Locally, this will lead to better implementation of individual habitat restoration and stewardship projects. Regionally, this project will result in significantly improved data collected in a coordinated, comprehensive fashion, with the impact that critical coastal habitats will be restored more efficiently and effectively, with benefits to coastal resilience and the Long Island Sound ecosystem generally.

Project Partners

The Salt Marsh Monitoring and Analysis Network is a collaborative effort between the following partners: Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, Connecticut National Estuarine Research Reserve, University of Connecticut, The Nature Conservancy New York and Connecticut chapters, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Natural Resource Conservation Service, LIS Partnership Habitat Restoration and Stewardship Work Group, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems, Audubon Connecticut, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the EPA Long Island Sound Office.