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Departmental Research Seminars via Zoom on Physical Geography
Via Zoom: link will be provided upon successful registration
Enquiry: geog.event@hku.hk
Topic:
Large-scale effects induced by salt marsh and seagrass loss in tidal lagoons
Global assessments predict the impact of sea-level rise on salt marshes with present-day levels of sediment supply from rivers and the coastal ocean. However, these assessments do not consider that variations in salt marsh extent and the related reconfiguration of intertidal area affect local sediment dynamics, ultimately controlling the fate of the salt marshes themselves. I conducted a meta-analysis of six tidal lagoons along the United States East Coast to show that a reduction in the current salt marsh area decreases the ability of back-barrier systems to trap sediment inputs through changes in regional-scale hydrodynamics. This positive feedback between salt marsh disappearance and the ability of tidal lagoons to retain sediments reduces the trapping capacity of the whole tidal system and jeopardizes the survival of the remaining salt marshes. In the second part of my talk, I will show how changes in bottom friction associated with seagrass disappearance influence the hydrodynamics and wave energy along the shoreline in back-barrier systems.
Speaker:
Dr. Carmine DONATELLI
Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Estuarine and Delta Systems, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), Yerseke
Carmine is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Estuarine and Delta Systems at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), Yerseke. He graduated as a civil engineer from the University of Pisa (Italy) and studied the large-scale effects induced by salt marsh and seagrass loss in shallow tidal lagoons for his PhD at the University of Liverpool (UK). He is interested in coastal dynamics, hydrodynamics in back-barrier systems and resilience of tidal environments to climate change. In the last year, his work has centered also on spatiotemporal analyses, freshwater dynamics and residual transport. He uses numerical modelling simulations for his research.
