TIGER · Tidal marshes: bio-geomorphic self-organization and its implications for resilience to sea level rise and changing sediment supply

Intertidal landscapes are complex environments located between land and sea, and that are regularly flooded by tides. They provide highly valuable ecosystem services that are threatened by sea level rise and changing sediment supply.Previous studies showed that the small-scale (order of square meters) interactions between vegetation dynamics, water flow and sediment transport (so-called bio-geomorphic feedbacks) have a great impact on channel network formation and evolution at the landscape-scale (order of square kilometers). This process is called bio-geomorphic self-organization.My objective is to investigate, for the first time, the impact of plant species traits on bio-geomorphic self-organization of intertidal landscapes. More specifically, I hypothesize that (1) different plant species traits lead to the self-organization of different channel network patterns, and (2) the resulting self-organized landscape structures determine the efficiency to distribute and trap sediments on the intertidal floodplain, and hence the resilience (adaptability) of the landscape to sea level rise and decreasing sediment supply.By using a combination of remote sensing, field measurements and numerical simulations, I aim at producing new fundamental knowledge on landscape self-organization by bio-geomorphic feedbacks, and its implications for the resilience of intertidal landscapes against environmental changes.