| Popis: |
In January of 2012, a permanent Site Specific Intensive Monitoring (SSIM) station was established at Dividing Creek, in Downe Township, Cumberland County, New Jersey. This SSIM location is a part of a larger monitoring scheme entitled the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Wetlands Assessment (MACWA). The major goal of MACWA SSIM is to provide long term monitoring data to aid land managers in the conservation and protection of wetlands, especially from the threats of sea level rise due to climate change. Several permanent fixtures were installed at the Dividing Creek SSIM station including surface elevation tables (SETs) and permanent vegetation plots. These fixtures were monitored from 2012 to 2013, along with a suite of other metrics including water quality, surface elevation, and plant biomass. Two years of data, is inadequate to make conclusions about long-term trends, but preliminary data reported here suggest that between 2012 and 2013 the marsh platform increased in elevation at SET benchmarks. At least 3 years of data is needed to determine whether this represents a trend or reflects the inherent natural variation. Additional sampling years will be needed to elucidate trends in physical, chemical and biological relationships and to assess stressor-response relationships in the tidal wetlands within the Dividing Creek watershed, as compared to other SSIM stations. |
