co-hosted by COPRI and EWC

Deltaic wetlands are uniquely vulnerable to Sea Level Rise due to their coastal setting, low elevation gradient, and high rate of subsidence in recently deposited sediments. Despite the inherent vulnerability, deltaic societies are also uniquely able to adapt to Sea Level Rise by making use of the riverine sediment transport system to locally increase elevation. Our research investigates how vegetation controls flow and sediment delivery to a deltaic marsh in the Mississippi River Delta. We show that the seasonal vegetation regrowth plays a dominant role in determining channel / marsh exchange, and in determining flow heterogeneity on the marsh. But also that the interaction of the seasonal flood and seasonal vegetation cycle is variable, a lesson that has profound consequences for efforts to use riverine sediment load to create healthy wetlands. We further contextualize this research by presenting a unique setting where the research community and the restoration practitioner community are leveraging restoration and management activity to co-develop landscape scale experiments into optimized sediment management strategies both in the wetlands and in the channels that feed them.

Speaker: Christopher Esposito, Ph.D., Research Scientist, The Water Institute of the Gulf 

Esposito has more than a decade of field and modeling experience studying sediment transport and deposition in river deltas. His research is primarily focused on the connections between river channels and their floodplains, a topic which is closely related to channel management and planned river diversions in deltas. Prior to joining the Institute, Dr. Esposito obtained his Ph.D. at Tulane University and his master’s degree at The University of New Orleans. Before entering graduate school, Dr. Esposito taught math and environmental education in public high schools. His interest in coastal zone management in Louisiana was sparked while leading students on field trips throughout the Mississippi River Delta.