Predicting the Resilence of Coastal Habitats to Climate Change

淡水沿海湿地（如沙丘“松弛”）具有高度的生物多样性，并支持许多罕见的英国植物，无脊椎动物和脊椎动物物种。它们的多样性是由于地下水和土壤水文状况的关键影响。然而，它们受到人类活动的严重威胁，特别是气候变化及其造成的海平面上升。在过去的20年里，这些栖息地的范围在关键地点减少了30%。因此，迫切需要了解未来环境变化对这些优先保护的栖息地的潜在影响。海平面正以每年3毫米的速度上升，而且速度还在加快。未来的预测有相当大的不确定性，但专家现在认为，到2100年，在沿海生态方面，海平面上升可能超过1米（Bamber等人，2019年），这种上升将对海岸线产生巨大影响，并将由于地下水动力学受到干扰而向内陆延伸。该项目旨在考虑未来海平面上升对淡水沿海湿地植被的影响。

Freshwater coastal wetlands (such as dune "slack") are highly biodiverse and support many rare UK plants, invertebrate and vertebrate species. Their diversity is due to the key influence of groundwater and the hydrological regime of the soil. They are, however, severely threatened by human activities, in particular climate change and resulting sea level rise. The extend of these habitats has declined by 30% at key sites, over 20 years. As a result, there is an urgent need to understand the potential impacts of future environmental change on these conservation-priority habitats.Sea level is rising at 3 mm per year and the rate is accelerating. Future predictions have considerable uncertainty, but experts now believe the rise could exceed 1 m by 2100 (Bamber et all 2019) in terms of coastal ecology, such a rise would have a huge impact on the coastline, and would extend inland due to groundwater dynamics being perturbed. This project aims to consider the impact of future sea-level rise on vegetation in freshwater coastal wetlands.