Beatriz Marin Diaz

University of Florida | UF

Salt marshes fronting coastal structures, such as seawalls and dikes, may offer important ecosystem‐based coastal defence by reducing the wave loading and run‐up levels during storms. We question (i) how the long‐term salt marsh development in the Dutch Wadden Sea relates to the tidal‐flat foreshore bathymetry and (ii) how the wave run‐up onto dike...

Reef‐forming species form integral aspects of coastal ecosystems, but are rapidly degrading world‐wide. To mitigate these declines, nature managers increasingly rely on the restoration of habitat‐structuring, reef‐forming species by, for example, introducing artificial reefs that may directly function as complex reef habitat. Since the use of biode...

Salt marshes provide valuable ecosystem services including coastal protection by reducing wave loading on dikes and seawalls. If the topsoil is erosion‐resistant to fast flowing water, it may also reduce breach depth if a dike fails. In this experiment we quantified the topsoil erosion resistance from marshes and bare tidal flats with different soi...

Worldwide, coastal ecosystems are rapidly degrading in quality and extent. While novel restoration designs include facilitation to enhance restoration success in stressful environments, they typically focus on a single life-stage, even though many organisms go through multiple life-stages accompanied by different bottlenecks. A new approach – life...

Combining foreshore ecosystems like saltmarshes and mangroves with traditional hard engineering structures may offer a more sustainable solution to coastal protection than engineering structures alone. However, foreshore ecosystems, are rapidly degrading on a global scale due to human activities and climate change. Marsh-edges could be protected by...

Combining natural saltmarsh habitats with conventional barriers can provide a sustainable and cost‐effective alternative for fully engineered flood protection, provided that a minimal salt marsh width can be guaranteed for a long period. Hence, it is essential to understand both the key factors and management options driving the lateral erodibility...

Coastal vegetation is widely attributed to stabilize sediment. While most studies focused on how canopy causes flow reduction and thereby affects sediment dynamics, the role of roots and rhizomes on stabilizing the surface sediment has been less well studied. This study aims to quantify interactions between above‐ and belowground biomass of eelgras...