Salt Marsh Habitats
Strategies for Adapting to Sea Level Rise
Many of Rhode Island’s salt marshes are not keeping pace with accelerated sea level rise, showing signs of degradation including die off of vegetation, shallow, impounded water on the marsh surface and unstable peat conditions.
Wenley Ferguson, Director of Habitat Restoration at Save the Bay, will discuss how restoration scientists and practitioners are partnering with municipalities and land trusts on adaptation activities to enhance the health and function of salt marshes and to help facilitate marsh migration in low lying upland areas. She will highlight some of the ongoing adaptation activities including shallow creek excavation, elevation enhancement using sand from dredging or upland sources and infrastructure removal in low lying uplands as well as some of the challenges to protecting the diversity of species that rely on coastal marshes.
For Wenley, the love of salt marshes runs deep. As a child she explored the marshes of Sandy Neck on Cape Cod with her grandmother before spending her adult life doing the same in Rhode Island both at Save The Bay and with her own boys. “The signs of degradation are disheartening yet add to the urgency of identifying and protecting areas where marshes are migrating inland. My hope is that my boys might have the ability to share with their children the smells, sights and sounds of these unique and special areas between land and sea.”
Read an article from the Providence Journal on Save the Bay’s upcoming Salt Marsh Restoration project.
Schedule of Events
1:00 to 1:30 — Business Meeting
1:30 to 2:00 — Refreshments & Fellowship
If your last name begins with the letters A through M, please bring refreshments to share.
2:00 to 3:30 — Guest Speaker, Wenley Ferguson
Free and Open to the Public