Effects of oil spills on coastal wetlands and their recovery: Year 4, final report
Oil spills can have a significant short-term impact on coastal marshes, but the long term effects and perhaps eventual recovery are not well documented. The overall goal of the investigation is to document the long-term recovery rate of a Louisiana brackish marsh impacted by an oil spill on 23 April 1985, to separate the effect of the oil spill on marsh deterioration from ambient rates of marsh degradation, and to test means by which recovery can be accelerated and the damage mitigated. These goals have been accomplished through both remote sensing and ground truth assessments, ground based vegetation stress measurements, and manipulative field experiments. A total of 68 permanent plots that were established in the oiled and control marshes at the study site in 1985 were re-surveyed for plant and soil recovery in the fall of 1989 and assessed for species composition, live and dead percentage cover, and residual oil impact. Significant vegetative recovery of the oil-impacted marsh four years after the spill was evident as indicated by significant increases in vegetative cover.
- Research Organization:
- Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, Baton Rouge, LA (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 5177772
- Report Number(s):
- PB-94-136215/XAB; CNN: DI-14-34-0001-30470
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
OIL SPILLS
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
WETLANDS
SURVEYS
TOXICITY
AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS
ECOSYSTEMS
020900* - Petroleum- Environmental Aspects
540220 - Environment
Terrestrial- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport- (1990-)
540320 - Environment
Aquatic- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport- (1990-)