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Hopple AM, Doro KO, Bailey VL, Bond-Lamberty B, McDowell N, Morris KA, Myers-Pigg A, Pennington SC, Regier P, Rich R, Sengupta A, Smith R, Stegen J, Ward ND, Woodard SC, Megonigal JP. Attaining freshwater and estuarine-water soil saturation in an ecosystem-scale coastal flooding experiment. Environ Monit Assess 2023; 195:425. [PMID: 36826723 PMCID: PMC9958149 DOI: 10.1007/s10661-022-10807-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2022] [Accepted: 12/02/2022] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Coastal upland forests are facing widespread mortality as sea-level rise accelerates and precipitation and storm regimes change. The loss of coastal forests has significant implications for the coastal carbon cycle; yet, predicting mortality likelihood is difficult due to our limited understanding of disturbance impacts on coastal forests. The manipulative, ecosystem-scale Terrestrial Ecosystem Manipulation to Probe the Effects of Storm Treatments (TEMPEST) experiment addresses the potential for freshwater and estuarine-water disturbance events to alter tree function, species composition, and ecosystem processes in a deciduous coastal forest in MD, USA. The experiment uses a large-unit (2000 m2), un-replicated experimental design, with three 50 m × 40 m plots serving as control, freshwater, and estuarine-water treatments. Transient saturation (5 h) of the entire soil rooting zone (0-30 cm) across a 2000 m2 coastal forest was attained by delivering 300 m3 of water through a spatially distributed irrigation network at a rate just above the soil infiltration rate. Our water delivery approach also elevated the water table (typically ~ 2 m belowground) and achieved extensive, low-level inundation (~ 8 cm standing water). A TEMPEST simulation approximated a 15-cm rainfall event and based on historic records, was of comparable intensity to a 10-year storm for the area. This characterization was supported by showing that Hurricane Ida's (~ 5 cm rainfall) hydrologic impacts were shorter (40% lower duration) and less expansive (80% less coverage) than those generated through experimental manipulation. Future work will apply TEMPEST treatments to evaluate coastal forest resilience to changing hydrologic disturbance regimes and identify conditions that initiate ecosystem state transitions.
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Affiliation(s)
- A. M. Hopple
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352 USA
- Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD 21037 USA
| | - K. O. Doro
- University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606 USA
| | - V. L. Bailey
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352 USA
| | - B. Bond-Lamberty
- Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, MD 20740 USA
| | - N. McDowell
- Atmospheric Science and Global Change Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, WA 99352 Richland, USA
- School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164 USA
| | - K. A. Morris
- Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, MD 20740 USA
| | - A. Myers-Pigg
- University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606 USA
- Marine and Coastal Research Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Sequim, WA 98382 USA
| | - S. C. Pennington
- Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, MD 20740 USA
| | - P. Regier
- Marine and Coastal Research Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Sequim, WA 98382 USA
| | - R. Rich
- Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD 21037 USA
| | - A. Sengupta
- California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 USA
| | - R. Smith
- Global Aquatic Research LLC, Sodus, NY 14551 USA
| | - J. Stegen
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352 USA
| | - N. D. Ward
- Marine and Coastal Research Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Sequim, WA 98382 USA
- University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 USA
| | | | - J. P. Megonigal
- Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD 21037 USA
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