Planting after shoreline cleanup treatment improves salt marsh vegetation recovery following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
| Autor: | Scott Zengel, Mengni Zhang, Zachary Nixon, Nicolle Rutherford, Jacqueline Michel, Brittany M. Bernik, Jennifer Weaver |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Hydrology
Shore geography Environmental Engineering geography.geographical_feature_category Marsh biology Sowing 04 agricultural and veterinary sciences Vegetation 010501 environmental sciences Management Monitoring Policy and Law Spartina alterniflora biology.organism_classification 01 natural sciences Disturbance (ecology) Salt marsh 040103 agronomy & agriculture Erosion 0401 agriculture forestry and fisheries Environmental science 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Nature and Landscape Conservation |
| Zdroj: | Ecological Engineering. 169:106288 |
| ISSN: | 0925-8574 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.ecoleng.2021.106288 |
| Popis: | The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (2010) resulted in ~100 km of heavily oiled salt marsh shorelines with severe marsh vegetation impacts. Approximately 27 km of these shorelines had marsh cleanup treatments aimed at limiting oil spread and facilitating ecological recovery. Heavy oiling impacts and disturbance from intensive cleanup treatments left marsh shorelines largely bare of live vegetation. Following operational-scale shoreline cleanup and experimental planting of Spartina alterniflora, we compared oiling degree and vegetation recovery among three types of heavily oiled salt marsh plots over three years: oiled control (no cleanup treatment, no planting); mechanical cleanup treatment (unplanted); and mechanical treatment coupled with planting. Nearby reference plots were used to define recovery targets and determine recovery progress. Mechanical treatment with planting showed the most improvement in oiling conditions and was most effective in re-establishing vegetation cover and dominant plant species composition approaching reference conditions. In contrast, the oiled controls and mechanical treatment plots without planting were similar and showed much slower recovery trends. Vegetation planting should be considered as a shoreline treatment or restoration approach for heavily oiled salt marshes, especially where oil impacted areas are left largely unvegetated, natural recovery is delayed, marsh shorelines are at risk of erosion, and as a possible condition for the use of intensive cleanup treatments. Vegetation planting following oil spills could be incorporated into shoreline treatment operations during emergency response as shoreline stabilization and for oil removal via phytoremediation, or as emergency restoration under the Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA) process, to limit the degree and duration of natural resource impacts. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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