saltmarsh

New growth of glasswort and salt marsh spike grass in the Wellfleet marsh follows the clearing of 80 acres of dead trees and other upland vegetation.

Scientists studied twelve salt marsh sites on the South Coast and Upper Cape and found that tidal restrictions, nitrogen pollution, and, most impactfully, climate-change driven sea level rise are turning areas of marsh that were once vegetated to mud flats or open water.

“[Runnels] are very shallow channels [we dig] to drain the pools that have rested on the marsh due to the effects of sea level rise,” explained Danielle Perry, coastal resilience program director with Mass Audubon, as she stood calf-deep in mud at Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary in Dartmouth this spring.

Wearing tall rubber boots, a scientist walked along an overgrown path to the Little Bay salt marsh in Fairhaven. “I'm going to kind of weave us up through…