Abstract
Coastal wetlands play an important role in the global water and
biogeochemical cycles. Climate change is making them more difficult to
adapt to the fluctuation of sea levels and other environment changes.
Given the importance of eco-geomorphological processes for coastal
wetland resilience, many eco-geomorphology models differing in
complexity and numerical schemes have been developed in recent decades.
But their divergent estimates on the response of coastal wetlands to
climate change indicate that substantial structural uncertainties exist
in these models. To investigate the structural uncertainty of coastal
wetland eco-geomorphology models, we developed a multi-algorithm model
framework of eco-geomorphological processes, such as mineral accretion
and organic matter accretion, within a single hydrodynamics model. The
framework is designed to explore possible ways to represent coastal
wetland eco-geomorphology in Earth system models and reduce the related
uncertainties in global applications. We tested this model framework at
three representative coastal wetland sites: two saltmarsh wetland
(Venice Lagoon and Plum Island Estuary) and a mangrove wetland (Hunter
Estuary). Through the model-data comparison, we showed the importance to
use a multi-algorithm ensemble approach for more robust predictions of
the evolution of coastal wetlands. We also find that more observations
of mineral and organic matter accretion at different elevations of
coastal wetlands and evaluation of the coastal wetland models at
different sites of diverse environments can help reduce the model
uncertainty.