Marsh migration potential in response to sea-level rise in the northeastern United States

Salt marshes are valuable ecosystems that may be able to migrate landward as sea level rises. This data release provides estimates of the marsh migration potential of salt marshes in the northeastern United States (Maine to Virginia), calculated in terms of the available migration area for each marsh unit, as defined by the US Geological Survey. The area available for landward migration is based on NOAA's marsh migration predictions in response to various local sea-level rise (SLR) scenarios. The migration space is divided by the National Hydrography Dataset Plus (NHDPlus) catchments and assigned to each marsh unit. Migration rates of each marsh unit are calculated to estimate how much area may potentially be converted to marsh per year, based on the local SLR estimates derived from the global mean sea-level scenarios for 2100 from Sweet and others (2022). The U.S. Geological Survey is expanding its national assessment of coastal change hazards and forecast products to coastal wetlands with the goal of providing managers with tools to estimate the vulnerability and ecosystem service potential of these wetlands. Understanding how these wetlands adapt to change is key to this effort.

The Chesapeake Bay marsh migration dataset can be found here: https://doi.org/10.5066/P18BWN2U.

This data release will be updated as marsh migration calculations are completed across the northeastern United States.

Reference: Sweet, W.V., Hamlington, B.D., Kopp, R.E., Weaver, C.P., Barnard, P.L., Bekaert, D., Brooks, W., Craghan, M., Dusek, G., Frederikse, T., Garner, G., Genz, A.S., Krasting, J.P., Larour, E., Marcy, D., Marra, J.J., Obeysekera, J., Osler, M., Pendleton, M., Roman, D., Schmied, L., Veatch, W., White, K.D., and Zuzak, C., 2022, Global and regional sea level rise scenarios for the United States- updated mean projections and extreme water level probabilities along U.S. coastlines: NOAA Technical Report NOS 01, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Ocean Service, Silver Spring, MD, 111 pp., https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/noaa-nos-techrpt01-g…