Sediment Strategy Seeks to Save Salt Marsh Species

The coast of Orange County, California, one of the few remaining tidal salt marshes in Southern California, is threatened by global sea level rise and local subsidence. Concerned by USGS’s modelling results of marsh loss, county managers and refuge managers collaborated to use county’s dredge sediment from an adjacent waterway to build up the refuge’s salt marshes. Guided by USGS’s modeling of salt marsh change under different sea level scenarios, the team implemented their sediment-supply project. This project received funding from California's State Coastal Conservancy, USFWS, and Orange County Parks. Monitoring efforts are conduct by scientists from USGS and local universities.