Saltmarshes and Mangroves is a group or singular strand of a costal ecosystem. A salt marsh is a coastal ecosystem between land and open salt water that is regularly flooded by tides. A salt marsh is dominated by highly dense groups of salt- tolerant plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are essential to the stability of the salt marsh in trapping and binding sediments. Salt marshes play a large role in the aquatic food web and in delivering nutrients to coastal water. Salt marshes also provide coastal protection for animals. Salt marshes occur in shorelines in temperate and high latitudes. The shorelines that salt marshes occur on consist of mud or sand flats which have the sediments that come from inflating rivers/streams. In the tropics and subtropics salt marshes are replaced by mangroves that are different from salt marshes, that instead of have a group of plants they are dominated by salt tolerant trees. Mangroves as mentioned before are salt tolerant trees, and are adapted to life in harsh coastal systems. They contain a complex salt filtration system and a complex system in their roots to cope with salt water immersion and wave action. They have also adapted to low oxygen conditions of mud that has been waterlogged. Mangroves and Salt marshes both provide shelter and protection for aquatic organisms.
Rising Sea levels can have a negative impact on salt marshes as well as a positive impact on mangrove forests. This is because rising sea levels means that the forests are getting more water and marshes aren’t getting enough. This is because government near coastal areas are building sea walls to stop rising sea levels washing houses away. Salt marshes are located where high tide hits so if the walls are being built, they do not get supplied with enough water to keep growing. Whereas mangroves are located towards the shore and receive sufficient amounts of water to keep growing. Because of the lack of water, animals in salt marshes are dying, but in the mangroves, there are more species and animals going in them. There is a diverse amount of species and organisms in saltmarshes including biotic and abiotic organisms. The biotic organisms include a diverse range of crab species, prawn, mussels, gulf killifish, mosquito fish and more. Though there may be many biotic factors there are also many abiotic factors is a salt marsh. If the salt marsh declines there would be unfiltered water to drink as they would not filter it and there would be lots of soil erosion.
Saltmarshes and mangroves are very important ecosystems that are both equally as important as the other and with one of them declining in numbers and the other increasing the balance is lost. Therefore science is a solution that will help maintain balance again. Rising sea levels threaten about a tenth of the world’s population who live in low-lying areas and islands which are at risk of flooding, including the Caribbean, Maldives and Asia-Pacific island groups. More than 180 countries are negotiating a new global climate pact which will come into force by 2020, and force all nations to cut emissions to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, this century A level scientists say is the minimum temperature required to prevent catastrophic effects.
Scientists have concurred that the rising sea levels were a cause from global warming but they also agreed that even if global warming were to stop the sea levels would still rise. Sea walls are not a long-term solution as the salt from the water would cause them to erode and over time, they will need to be built higher and higher which is very costly. Some countries have had these problems for a long time and have adapted to the rising levels and have already added in solutions for this issue. For example, in the Netherlands by using involved water management systems, encouraging the use of floating homes and generally incorporating adaptations into city planning. A lot of climate research shows that rising greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for increasing global average surface temperatures by about 0.17 degrees Celsius a decade from 1980-2010 and for a sea level rise of about 2.3mm a year from 2005-2010 as ice caps and glaciers melt.
Advantages Disadvantages
Economic
An advantage from the solution is that sea walls will no longer be needed and built so there will be a significant amount of money saved for the government that can be used to fix other issues in society or in the environment. Another advantage is for real estate. If the rising level threats go down then the real estate around coastal areas will also make money. An economic disadvantage is that campaigning and advertising to decrease emissions will take a lot of money as It will need to be a global campaign. Another disadvantage is that if they have to knock down the sea walls it would have been a waste of money.
Environmental
An Environmental advantage posed by the solution is that to achieve the goal scientist believe we need to cut down on our greenhouse gas emissions in hope to bring the temperature down. By reducing our emissions, the environment will become less polluted and cleaner. This will also fix global environment such as pollution in our oceans and in the city. It will take a long time for the sea levels to come down so the greenhouse gases will still be polluting our environment until we solve this issue. Once sea levels rise governments may want to take down the sea walls, although the salt will erode the concrete it does not happen super-fast and animals may mistake the little pieces for food and try to eat them. Another disadvantage is that scientists are not 100% sure it will work and say that even if we decrease our emissions sea levels may still continue to rise.
From Researching and gathering all of my information I think that the solution posed by scientists is good. Even though they themselves say that it may still cause rises the height would still come down. It is also more environmentally efficient than sea walls because by reducing emissions we are getting rid of our main source of pollution (greenhouse gasses). It also saves money by seawalls no longer needing to be built anymore.