The Hudson River Estuary marshes have been increasing in size, showing a remarkable resilience. But that’s not the only surprise: the marshes also appear to have been created by accident.
The arrival of the railroad and associated structures in 1850 along the banks of New York’s Hudson River Tidal Estuary in several areas created the conditions for marshes to form. Credit: the Dams and Sediment in the Hudson project.
Conservationists love tidal marshes. For starters, they’re excellent carbon sinks, but they also provide numerous services, from supplying rich habitats and biodiversity to protecting shorelines against erosion. These areas also tend to absorb and trap pollutants from water. In recent times, however, the world has been losing its tidal marshes as an effect of human activity. But human activity can also create marshes, researchers note in a new study.
New Study Finds More than Half of Hudson River Tidal Marshes were Created Accidentally by Humans; Resilient Against Sea Level Rise Details
UMass Amherst geologist and team studied marshes from Wall Street to Albany
In a new study of tidal marsh resilience to sea level rise, geologist and first author Brian Yellen at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and colleagues observed that Hudson River Estuary marshes are growing upward at a rate two to three times faster than sea level rise, “suggesting that they should be resilient to accelerated sea level rise in the future,” he says.
Writing in Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, Yellen and colleagues documented that more than half of Hudson River tidal marshes formed since 1850. That year, the channel was straightened and a riverside railroad, berms, jetties and human-made islands of dredged soil were built. This all trapped sediment and created backwaters that often – but not always – turned
ADAMS â Adams Plumbing & Heating is one of eight contractors being sued by the University of Massachusetts Building Authority and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst for damages incurred after kitchen ductwork installed by the contractors collapsed within three years.
The plaintiffs are seeking more than $2.8 million it cost to replace and repair the ductwork in a dining hall at the UMass campus in Amherst. The suit cites âdamage caused by defendantsâ faulty design, construction, testing, review and commissioning of the kitchen exhaust systems,â according to the complaint filed in Hampshire Superior Court on Dec 1.
Amy Moresi, president of Adams Plumbing & Heating on Printworks Drive in Adams, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
A Final 2020 DMR Update from Commissioner Keliher
As 2020 slowly draws to a close, I’d like to share with you one last monthly update on the work of Maine DMR before we close the books on a year of challenges. Pat.
Policy and Management Bureau
The New England Fishery Management Council met on December 1-3 via webinar. Much of the current work of the Council is focused on identifying specifications for fishing year 2021, including catch limits for the federal scallop, whiting, and spiny dogfish fisheries. The Council did take final action on groundfish catch limits for FY2021 as a part of Framework 61. The Council will continue work on Framework 61 in January when it is slated to take final action on a redfish universal sector exemption.
The
New York Times managed to find some young people whose silver spoons provide a sour taste in their mouths. To hear them talk, their good fortune is making them sick.
“I want to build a world where someone like me, a young person who controls tens of millions of dollars, is impossible,” Sam Jacobs, 25, told the
Times. Jacobs went off to college a normal young man and came back a socialist. Suddenly his family’s “extreme, plutocratic wealth” became too much of a burden for him.
“He wants to put his inheritance toward ending capitalism,” Zoë Beery wrote for the