Stammermann, R. and Piasecki, M., 2012. Influence of sediment availability, vegetation, and sea level rise on the development of tidal marshes in the Delaware Bay: a review.

The ecological value of tidal marsh systems for the environment and their adjacent water body is increasingly recognized. Natural and anthropogenic changes in the environment represent challenges to the development and sustainability of marsh systems that can lead to degradation and losses when negative impacts accumulate. Physical, chemical, and biological processes in marshes are complex, highly intertwined, and still not entirely understood. A better understanding is essential for the management of marshes and the assessment of impacts caused by future changes. This paper presents a review of tidal marshes in general and the problems they are facing with a special emphasis on the Delaware Estuary. The number of factors affecting tidal marshes is large, and a review of all would go beyond the scope of this paper. In this respect, three major influencing parameters are examined more closely: sediment transport, sea level rise, and vegetation. Furthermore, research approaches for these parameters, ranging from field measurements to numerical modeling, are examined, including an overview of studies that have been conducted in the Delaware Estuary. The review showed that the Delaware Bay is an active area for tidal marsh research, with many projects focusing on ecological field studies, restoration efforts, sediment inventories, and the long-term accretion of tidal marshes. Numerical modeling was primarily used for hydrodynamic studies in the pelagic zone, but only few studies exist that model marsh processes in a high spatial and temporal resolution.