Coastal and estuarine saltmarsh has long been recognised as having key physical, ecological, and recreational value, acting as sediment and nutrient traps and as natural coastal protection structures functioning as protective buffers between the land and sea. Additionally, they are important areas for shelter, feeding and breeding of diverse forms of wildlife (Doody, 2007). Recent work suggests that saltmarshes are particularly good for demonstrating how the coast can change in response to environmental influences, including relative sea level rise. The pace of current Scottish relative sea level rise (Rennie and Hansom, 2011) may lead to inundation of coastal saltmarsh, with...
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