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EUROSSAM: European Salt Marshes Modelling

Type of Entry: Project
Website: http://ecobio.univ-rennes1.fr/eurossam/
Description:

EUROSSAM project is to develop a policy and management tool for the conservation and restoration of salt marshes.The project will aim at :

  1. The improvement and testing of a range of ecological processes and hydrodynamic models to predict the likely responses of various salt marsh ecosystems to environmental changes such as potential impacts of predicted rise of sea level or human activities on the functionning of salt marshes and on the fluxes of various nutrients between the salt marshes and the marine coastal waters.
  2. The calibration of the process models to specific conditions encountered in various European salt marshes,
  3. The linkage of the process models and the hydrodynamic model in order to develop a decision support system tool.

The project identifies four goals:

  • To investigate and model salt marshes in regard to the interactions between sedimentation or accretion and plants. This study intends to develop a typology of pioneer salt marshes which will take into account population processes, genetic aspects of plant colonisation in pioneer littoral zones and the geomorphology of those wetlands. Models will be constructed which allow to predict the behaviour of salt marsh ecosystems subject to environmental changes. For example, to predict the effects of a potential rise in sea level on plant communities and/or organic matter production
  • To develop a robust ecological model of processes taking place inside salt marshes and mudflats, including organic matter production and nutrient cycling within and between the vegetation and sediment compartments. The ecological salt marsh model will be developed in such a way that it will be easy to run different modules for each process. This will render the model a strong research tool and make it flexible enough to using it in different geographically or functionally different marshes. The modelling objectives will be complemented by specific process studies needed to calibrate the model
  • To investigate the colonisation of mudflats and salt marshes by wildlife fauna and the integration of organic matter from these ecosystems in food webs. The study of animal communities, their involvement in food webs and in organic matter fluxes will provide supplementary information to the general understanding of the global functioning of coastal hydrosystems
  • To develop hydrodynamic models at 3 different scales : at the salt marsh, at the bay and at the estuary scale. In order to support the prediction of the functioning of the bay, the morphological dynamics of the salt marsh and the distribution of plant and animal communities will be investigated.
Keywords: Decision-making process, Hydrodynamics, Saltmarsh, Sea level, Sediment transport
Documents:
General aspects of EUROSSAM project. (252.385 Bytes)
 
Contact: Jean-Claude.Lefeuvre
Université de Rennes I
Laboratoire ESNM , UMR 6553
35042 Rennes
FRANCE
Telephone: +33 2 99 28 61 42
Fax: +33 2 99 28 14 58
E-Mail: Jean-Claude.Lefeuvre@univ-rennes1.fr
Website: www.uni-rennes1.fr
Partner: LaB COASTAL (Laurie.Boorman@btinternet.com)
CEH Dorset Winfrith Technology Centre (www.ceh.ac.uk)
DLO - Institute for Forestry and Nature Research (www.ibn.dlo.nl)
IMAR - Instituto do Mar Universidade de Lisboa (www.compuserve.com)
IMAR - Universidade de Evora (ABettencourt@mail.telepac.pt)
Instituto Superior Tecnico (www.hidrol.ist.utl.pt)
Instituto de Oceanografia (www.cc.fc.ul.pt)
Ifremer Brest (www.ifremer.fr)
Financed by: European Commission