W.J. Freeland’s scientific contributions

... Marked geomorphological changes to estuaries and coastal plains in northern Australia over the past 50 years have been associated with saltwater intrusion in the Alligator River region (Winn et al., 2006) and Mary River (Knighton et al., 1991;Mulrennan and Woodroffe, 1998). The gradual extension of tidal influence along stream channels, the expansion of tidal creeks, and the formation of new tidal creeks (Winn et al., 2006) are linked to the encroachment of mangrove and saline mudflats into freshwater vegetation (Finlayson et al., 1998), localized scour and dieback within Melaleuca forests, accretion of sediment on floodplains (Knighton et al., 1991;Woodroffe and Mulrennan, 1993;Bell et al., 2001), changes in subsurface hydrology (Jolly and Chin, 1992), and land cover changes (Ahmad and Hill, 1995;Bell et al., 2001). Changes since 1950 are significant with bare saline mudflats on the East Alligator River exhibiting a ninefold increase and an associated loss of 64% of Melaleuca forests by 2000 (Winn et al., 2006). ...

Reference:

The Shifting Saltmarsh-Mangrove Ecotone in Australasia and the Americas