• Overall
• Components
  • Resilience Assessment & CNH Modeling • Historical Sedimentation Rate • Hydrology & Sediment Interactions • Vegetation Responses & Biomass Estimation • Land Pricing & Population Changes • Energy Sustainability • Adaptive Governance & Planning
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Vegetation Responses and Biomass Estimation

Researcher:
Dr. Victor H Rivera-Monroy (Co-PI)
Xiaochen Zhao (PhD student)
Courtney Elliton (MS student)

This research component examines the vegetation response and biomass change due to subsidence. Two questions will be addressed: (1) what is the response (in terms of biomass and spatial distribution) of freshwater, brackish, and salt marshes vegetation communities to changes in freshwater and sediment inputs at different spatial scales in a drowning delta region versus a recently formed delta? (2) How large Specific Questions and Hypotheses a river diversion (flow/m3) has to be implemented to maintain/create wetlands in the range of 1800- 3000 km2 to warrant long-term vegetation sustainability?

We will: (1) summarize local and regional information related to the ecogeomorphic process controlling vertical accretion and elevation changes across different vegetation communities to inform the cellular automata/agent based models; (2) conduct an analysis to link the biomass with remote sensing imagery so that an estimate of biomass loss due to different types of vegetation loss (forest, marsh) over the study area can be estimated.