Narragansett Bay Campus, Coastal Institute Building auditorium

Title: Assessing Marine-Sourced Sediment Supply and Its Influence on Salt Marsh Resilience to Sea Level Rise Using Satellite Observations

Speaker: Wenxiu Teng, PhD Candidate, UMass Amherst

Abstract: Suspended sediment delivery is a key driver in the formation and maintenance of muddy coastal landscapes such as river deltas, mudflats, and tidal wetlands. While the critical role of riverine sediment in supporting tidal marsh resilience has been widely recognized, many marshes globally receive limited fluvial input. In these systems, marine-sourced sediments, delivered by waves and tides, may provide a crucial sediment supply that enhances marsh accretion and resilience to relative sea level rise.
Directly measuring sediment dynamics in energetic coastal zones is challenging, and traditional satellite ocean color products, with coarse spatial resolution (~1 km), are insufficient for resolving nearshore processes at fine spatial scales. As a result, the contribution of marine sediments to marsh resilience has been underexplored.
To fill this gap, this study:
1. Develops a particle composition-adaptive algorithm for high spatial resolution mapping of suspended sediments in global coastal waters using satellite observations;
2. Examines the role of marine-sourced sediment in supporting tidal marsh resilience across the Northeastern United States;
3. Analyzes global trends in coastal sediment availability and their implications for marsh vulnerability under accelerating sea level rise.
Our results demonstrate the potential of satellite remote sensing to fill observational gaps and reveal the overlooked importance of marine sediment supply in maintaining tidal marsh resilience to sea level rise. This work provides new insights into sediment-driven marsh sustainability and offers a scalable approach to inform coastal restoration and climate adaptation efforts.

Lectures / Presentations