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The hidden influence of terrestrial groundwater on salt marsh function and resilience

Nature Water volume 3, pages 157–166 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Salt marshes are hotspots of nutrient processing and carbon sequestration. So far, studies addressing spatiotemporal variability in and drivers of salt marsh biogeochemical function, carbon storage and resilience have focused on ocean-driven surface hydrologic influences, neglecting effects of terrestrial hydrology through subsurface connections. Here we evaluate drivers of salt marsh redox potential, a proxy for biogeochemical state, through wavelet analyses and information theory using data from seven marshes. The results point to terrestrial groundwater level as a dominant control on redox variability across all sites. Because redox is a key driver of biogeochemical processes, and specifically oxidation of organic matter that sequesters carbon and maintains marsh elevation, these terrestrial influences are critical to understanding marsh function and evolution. The newly identified links between onshore groundwater levels and marsh redox conditions shift the traditional paradigm and suggest that terrestrial hydrology is a primary control on salt marsh carbon sequestration potential and resilience.

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Fig. 1: Time series and continuous wavelet spectrum for Elkhorn Slough and St Jones.
Fig. 2: MI between Eh time series and other hydroclimatic parameters used to explore the temporal variability of Eh at Elkhorn Slough and St Jones.
Fig. 3: Conceptual diagrams of terrestrial groundwater impacts on salt marsh hydrology and Eh.
Fig. 4: MI between Eh time series and TGWL and MGWL at seven sites.

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Data availability

All data are available in public repositories or included as supplementary data as indicated in the text.

Code availability

The codes to replicate the analysis are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10855140 (ref. 62).

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Acknowledgements

J.A.G. was supported by WHOI’s Ocean Vision Program. E.G. received support from funds through CDFW Climate Change Impacts on Wildlife and from a COAST Grant Development Program. B.A. was supported by the Watershed Function Science Focus Area project at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231. H.A.M., D.P. and the CZN data collection were supported by the National Science Foundation Coastal Critical Zone Collaborative Network (EAR 2012484). Funding for SMARTX was provided by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Environmental System Science program under awards DE-SC0014413, DE-SC0019110 and DE-SC0021112, and the Smithsonian Institution. The SMARTX automated redox system was designed by R. Rich. TEMPEST monitoring data were supported through the Field, Measurements, and Experiments (FME) component of the Coastal Observations, Mechanisms, and Predictions Across Systems and Scales (COMPASS) programme (https://compass.pnnl.gov/). COMPASS-FME is a multiinstitutional project supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research as part of the Environmental System Science Program. E.H., M.J.B. and data collection at Wax Lake Delta were supported by a grant to E.H. through the Early Career Research Program through the DOE Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research programme. I.F. and data collection at PIE LTER were supported by DOE award DE-SC0022108. Notice: This paper has been authored in part by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US DOE. The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this paper, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (https://www.energy.gov/doe-public-access-plan).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    Julia A. Guimond

  2. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, California State University East Bay, Hayward, CA, USA

    Emilio Grande

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

    Holly A. Michael

  4. Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

    Holly A. Michael & Dannielle Pratt

  5. Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA

    Elizabeth Herndon & Matthew J. Berens

  6. Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD, USA

    Genevieve L. Noyce

  7. Coastal Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Sequim, WA, USA

    Nicholas D. Ward & Peter Regier

  8. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA

    Inke Forbrich

  9. Marine Biological Laboratory, Ecosystems Center, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    Inke Forbrich

  10. Geochemistry Department, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Bhavna Arora

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Contributions

J.A.G., E.G. and B.A. conceived the study idea and design. J.A.G., E.G., H.A.M., D.P., E.H., G.L.N., N.D.W., I.F., P.R. and M.J.B. contributed data. E.G. conducted the analyses. J.A.G., E.G. and B.A. analysed the results. J.A.G. wrote the paper with important input from E.G. and B.A. E.G. wrote the Supplementary Information text. All co-authors provided edits and feedback on the paper text and figures.

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Correspondence to Julia A. Guimond.

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Nature Water thanks Zhan Hu and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–11, Tables 1–3, and Texts 1 and 2.

Supplementary Data 1

Data for two field sites (PIE and WLD) with metadata.

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Guimond, J.A., Grande, E., Michael, H.A. et al. The hidden influence of terrestrial groundwater on salt marsh function and resilience. Nat Water 3, 157–166 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00384-6

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