Wetland Biomass and Productivity in Coastal Louisiana: Base Line Data (1976–2015) and Knowledge Gaps for the Development of Spatially Explicit Models for Ecosystem Restoration and Rehabilitation Initiatives

• Published in: Water (Basel) Vol. 11; no. 10; p. 2054
• Main Authors: Rivera-Monroy, Victor H., Elliton, Courtney, Narra, Siddhartha, Meselhe, Ehab, Zhao, Xiaochen, White, Eric, Sasser, Charles E., Visser, Jenneke M., Meng, Xuelian, Wang, Hongqing, Xue, Zuo, Jaramillo, Fernando
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.10.2019
• Subjects: Biomass; Calibration; Chenier Plain; coastal Louisiana; Coastal zone; Coasts; delta plain; Dredging; Ecological models; Ecosystem services; Environmental aspects; Environmental restoration; Experiments; Flood management; Flood protection; Hydrology; Infrastructure; Marine transportation; Measurement; Mississippi River; Natural gas; Natural gas exploration; Net Primary Productivity; Oil and gas exploration; Oil exploration; Primary productivity (Biology); Productivity; Rehabilitation; Spatial discrimination; Spatial resolution; Vegetation; wetland; wetland restoration; Wetlands; United States; Louisiana; United States > US
• ISSN: 2073-4441; 2073-4441
• DOI: 10.3390/w11102054

Coastal Louisiana hosts 37% of the coastal wetland area in the conterminous US, including one of the deltaic coastal regions more susceptible to the synergy of human and natural impacts causing wetland loss. As a result of the construction of flood protection infrastructure, dredging of channels across wetlands for oil/gas exploration and maritime transport activities, coastal Louisiana has lost approximately 4900 km2 of wetland area since the early 1930s. Despite the economic relevance of both wetland biomass and net primary productivity (NPP) as ecosystem services, there is a lack of vegetation simulation models to forecast the trends of those functional attributes at the landscape level as hydrological restoration projects are implemented. Here, we review the availability of peer-reviewed biomass and NPP wetland data (below and aboveground) published during the period 1976–2015 for use in the development, calibration and validation of high spatial resolution (<200 m × 200 m) vegetation process-based ecological models. We discuss and list the knowledge gaps for those species that represent vegetation community associations of ecological importance, including the long-term research issues associated to limited number of paired belowground biomass and productivity studies across hydrological basins currently undergoing different freshwater diversions management regimes and hydrological restoration priorities.