Date of Award

Spring 2026

Abstract

Salt marshes across New England are struggling to outpace sea-level rise, resulting in increased inundation, interior pool formation, and loss of vegetative productivity. Despite an increasing emphasis on protecting and restoring salt marshes for their ecosystem services, rapid methods for assessing marsh health remain limited. In-situ evaluation of New England salt marshes is particularly underrepresented compared to their southern counterparts, leaving region-specific relationships misunderstood. This study proposes a rapid assessment framework for evaluating marsh health by quantifying the relationship between geotechnical strength and biological productivity. Soil strength, represented by deceleration data collected from a portable free fall penetrometer (PFFP) was compared against two biological markers for marsh health, subsurface live belowground biomass concentrations, and the percentage of vegetative cover. The correlations between deceleration and the biological productivity markers will determine if rapid assessment using a PFFP can be used as a reliable proxy of marsh health. To further understand salt marsh resilience dynamics, an exploration into GIS-based interpolation using inverse distance weighting (IDW) as a tool to map the heterogenous geotechnical and biological conditions that influence site conditions. This study shows how establishment of a PFFP as a rapid, in-situ sampling device combined with GIS based analysis could provide a scalable framework for identifying vulnerable marsh areas, enhancing the cost-benefit of restoration projects that will enhance the regional marsh resilience to sea-level rise, storm events, and anthropogenic impacts.

Document Type

Master's Thesis

First Advisor

Julie Paprocki

Second Advisor

Gregg E Moore

Third Advisor

Majid Ghayoomi

Department or Program

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Degree Name

Master of Science

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