Lindsey Smart

The Nature Conservancy · Climate

Tidal marshes are threatened coastal ecosystems known for their capacity to store large amounts of carbon in their water-logged soils. Accurate quantification and mapping of global tidal marshes soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks is of considerable value to conservation efforts. Here, we used training data from 3710 unique locations, landscape-level...

The short-rotation coppice (SRC) culture of trees provides a sustainable form of renewable biomass energy, while simultaneously sequestering carbon and contributing to the regional carbon feedstock balance. To understand the role of SRC in carbon feedstock balances, field inventories with selective destructive tree sampling are commonly used to est...

Aim Tidal marsh ecosystems are heavily impacted by human activities, highlighting a pressing need to address gaps in our knowledge of their distribution. To better understand the global distribution and changes in tidal marsh extent, and identify opportunities for their conservation and restoration, it is critical to develop a spatial knowledge bas...

Tidal marshes are threatened coastal ecosystems known for their capacity to store large amounts of carbon in their water-logged soils. Accurate quantification and mapping of global tidal marshes soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks is of considerable value to conservation efforts. Here, we used training data from 3,710 unique locations, landscape-level...

Tidal marshes store large amounts of organic carbon in their soils. Field data quantifying soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks provide an important resource for researchers, natural resource managers, and policy-makers working towards the protection, restoration, and valuation of these ecosystems. We collated a global dataset of tidal marsh soil organ...

This dataset presents global soil organic carbon stocks in mangrove forests at 30 m resolution, predicted for 2020. We used spatiotemporal ensemble machine learning to produce predictions of soil organic carbon content and bulk density (BD) to 1 m soil depth, which were then aggregated to calculate soil organic carbon stocks. This was done by using...

As interest in natural climate mitigation solutions continues to grow, there is an essential role for coastal and ocean ecosystems (“blue carbon”) to play. To meet mitigation targets, however, it is crucial that human actions to protect or restore blue carbon sinks are based on solid science and actionable human management opportunities to increase...

Context Sea level rise will have unprecedented impacts on rural coastal communities. Adaptation will be a critical strategy to reduce community vulnerability, but requires a change in land management behaviors, the capacity for which is affected by a wide range of social-psychological factors. Objectives Because much of the USA coastal landscape i...

Context Engaging stakeholders in research is needed for many of the sustainability challenges that landscape ecologists address. Involving stakeholders’ perspectives through narratives in participatory modeling fosters better understanding of the problem and evaluation of the acceptability of tradeoffs and creates buy-in for management actions. How...

Aim Tidal marsh ecosystems are heavily impacted by human activities, highlighting a pressing need to address gaps in our knowledge of their distribution. To better understand the global distribution and changes in tidal marsh extent, and identify opportunities for their conservation and restoration, it is critical to develop a spatial knowledge bas...

Invasive species are an important and growing issue of concern for land managers, and the ability to collect and visualize species coverage data is vital to the management of invasive and native species. This is particularly true of spatial data, which provides invaluable information on location, establishment rates, and spread rates necessary for...

National parks are vital public resources for the preservation of species and landscapes, and for decades have provided natural laboratories for studying environmental and cultural resources. Though significant scholarship has taken place in national parks, syntheses of research trends and biases are rarely available for needs assessments and decis...

Wetlands have unique soil, vegetation, and biogeochemistry that arises from their landscape position and wetland hydrology, which creates low oxygen levels in the soil. With reduced oxygen availability, plants develop adaptations to survive, such as aerenchyma, that allow transport of atmospheric oxygen to their roots, and soil microbial communitie...

This work is part of a collaborative effort between researchers at NC State University, the Progressive Club, the Center for Heirs' Property Preservation, and the Lowcountry Land Trust. The work was supported by funding from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelly Foundation. Development pressure and loss of traditional ways of life have been identified b...

As coastal land use intensifies and sea levels rise, the fate of coastal forests becomes increasingly uncertain. Synergistic anthropogenic and natural pressures affect the extent and function of coastal forests, threatening valuable ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and storage. Quantifying the drivers of coastal forest degradation is...

Sea level rise and urbanization exert complex synergistic pressures on the provision of ecosystem services (ES) in coastal regions. Anticipating when and where both biophysical and cultural ES will be affected by these two types of coastal environmental change is critical for sustainable land-use planning and management. Biophysical (provisioning a...

Participatory research is increasingly used to better understand complex social-environmental problems and design solutions through diverse and inclusive stakeholder engagement. A growing number of approaches are helping to foster co-production of knowledge among diverse stakeholders. However, most methods don’t allow stakeholders to directly inter...

Coastal forests sequester and store more carbon than their terrestrial counterparts but are at greater risk of conversion due to sea level rise. Saltwater intrusion from sea level rise converts freshwater-dependent coastal forests to more salt-tolerant marshes, leaving 'ghost forests' of standing dead trees behind. Although recent research has inve...

The salinization of freshwater-dependent coastal ecosystems precedes inundation by sea level rise. This type of saltwater intrusion places communities, ecosystems, and infrastructure at substantial risk. Risk perceptions of local residents are an indicator to gauge public support for climate change adaptation planning. Here, we document residential...

Rising sea levels dramatically alter the vegetation composition and structure of coastal ecosystems. However, the implications of these changes for coastal wildlife are poorly understood. We aimed to quantify responses of avian communities to forest change (i.e., ghost forests) in a low-lying coastal region highly vulnerable to rising sea level. We...

The persistence of freshwater degradation has necessitated the growth of an expansive stream and wetland restoration industry, yet restoration prioritization at broad spatial extents is still limited and ad-hoc restoration prevails. The River Basin Restoration Prioritization tool has been developed to incorporate vetted, distributed data models int...

Population growth and unrestricted development policies are driving low-density urbanization and fragmentation of peri-urban landscapes across North America. While private individuals own most undeveloped land, little is known about how their decision-making processes shape landscape-scale patterns of urbanization over time. We introduce a hybrid a...

Fine-resolution spectral imagery provides rich spectral measures of complex landscapes, while small-footprint LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data are ideal for capturing the three-dimensional structure of objects on the landscape. To utilize the complementary characteristics of both data sources, data integration has proven to be an effective...

The accuracy of volumetric estimates using traditional methods is resource-intensive and often limited by project timelines and resource availability. Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and the miniaturization of remote sensing devices have proven to be cost-effective tools that allow for highly accurate three-dimensional (3D) mapping. In this study, we...

Accurate and repeatable mapping of biological plant invasions is essential to develop successful management strategies for conserving native biodiversity. While overstory invasive plants have been successfully detected and mapped using multiple methods, understory invasive detection remains a challenge, particularly in dense forested environments....

Landscapes are increasingly recognized for providing valuable cultural ecosystem services with numerous non-material benefits by serving as places of rest, relaxation, and inspiration that ultimately improve overall mental health and physical well-being. Maintaining and enhancing these valuable benefits through targeted management and conservation...

Over the last decade, Johns Island, SC has experienced unprecedented growth, threatening a set of unique natural and cultural resources that reflect the Island’s rich civil rights era history and a near-contiguous landscape of mixed forest types, wetlands, agricultural operations and marine waterways. City, county and state government, along with N...

Urban growth often influences the production of ecosystem services. The impacts of urbanization on landscapes can subsequently affect landowners’ perceptions, values and decisions regarding their land. Within land-use and land-change research, very few models of dynamic landscape-scale processes like urbanization incorporate empirically-grounded la...

In many parts of the U.S., population growth combined with continued demand for low-density housing is transforming the structure of peri-urban landscapes. Despite the substantial amount of privately owned land, the important decision-making roles that individual landowners play in shaping patterns of urbanization and landscape change is understudi...

Remote sensing tools that directly characterize canopy structure would be beneficial for management activities and conservation planning. LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) is such a tool, as an active remote sensing technology that provides fine-grained information about the three-dimensional structure of ecosystems across a broad spatial extent....