DNERR

Assessing spatial distributions and vulnerability of stored soil carbon in St. Jones and Blackbird Marshes

Project Contact(s)

Delaware is home to extensive networks of tidal marshes, which provide an array of critical ecosystem services including carbon sequestration. These marshes accumulate carbon due to their relatively high plant productivity and relatively low rates of litter decomposition.

Workshop on Delaware high water marks

Date

Delaware Sea Grant-funded researchers John Callahan, Kevin Brinson and Tina Callahan organized a workshop on Delaware high water marks at the Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserve (DNERR) St. Jones Reserve Training Center in Dover on June 23. The workshop included an update on current progress to catalog, display, and distribute high water mark data collected in Delaware for past flooding events from 1960-present, and discussed plans for regional coordination of pre-storm deployment of water level sensors at temporary monitoring locations for future storms. Callahan, an associate scientist with the Delaware Geological Survey, subsequently shared a similar update on the project with the Delaware State Hazard Mitigation Council at the Delaware Emergency Management Agency’s main offices in Smyrna on June 30 to help assess the impacts from past storms and better prepare for future events.