Many coastal tidal marshes have been significantly degraded by roadways and other projects that restrict tidal flows, limiting their ability to provide vital ecosystem services including support of fish and wildlife populations, flood protection, water quality maintenance, and open space.
Tidal Marsh Restoration provides the scientific foundation and practical guidance necessary for coastal zone stewards to initiate salt marsh tidal restoration programs. The book compiles, synthesizes, and interprets the current state of knowledge on the science and practice of salt marsh restoration, bringing together leaders across a range of disciplines in the sciences (hydrology, soils, vegetation, zoology), engineering (hydraulics, modeling), and public policy, with coastal managers who offer an abundance of practical insight and guidance on the development of programs.
The work presents in-depth information from New England and Atlantic Canada, where the practice of restoring tidal flow to salt marshes has been ongoing for decades, and shows how that experience can inform restoration efforts around the world. Students and researchers involved in restoration science will find the technical syntheses, presentation of new concepts, and identification of research needs to be especially useful as they formulate research and monitoring questions, and interpret research findings.
Tidal Marsh Restoration is an essential work for managers, planners, regulators, environmental and engineering consultants, and others engaged in planning, designing, and implementing projects or programs aimed at restoring tidal flow to tide-restricted or diked salt marshes.
"Tidal Marsh Restoration fills a need in providing practical and scientific insight to restoration planning." "The volume is an outstanding summary of what we have learned about salt marsh restoration in New England and the Maritimes..." "a useful synthesis of regional restoration issues that will add to the growing list of handbooks and reviews of tidal marsh restoration from around the country." "Tidal Marsh Restoration is good piece of work and a compliment to any professional library." "Editors/coastal ecologists Roman and Burdick, along with numerous contributors, provide chapters covering the basics of tidal marsh restoration, techniques used in restoration, and many case studies of projects." "Tidal Marsh Restoration: A Synthesis of Science and Management explores the advances in the attempts to restore damaged salt marshes that have been reduced in number through human excesses. ... Many writers come together to give a scholarly review on these elements on how they have succeeded and failed throughout the world. With a great amount of information, charts, and graphs spread throughout, Tidal Marsh Restoration is a scholarly take on this international project, highly recommended." "If you are interested in coastal wetlands and their restoration, especially in New England, this book is an essential addition to your library. It is comprehensive, nicely organized, and the chapters are based on up-to-date compilations of the literature as well as a wealth of knowledge based on teh practical experiences of well-chosen authors."---Dennis F. Whigham, Senior Botanist, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center "In their foreword to Tidal Marsh Restoration, Hood and Simenstad observe that restoration scientists and managers are physicians for dysfunctional ecosystems. To make the analogy more specific, Roman and Burdick's book is a bible for 'ecosystem cardiologists': If the circulatory system of the salt marsh is not functioning, then nothing else matters. This is a must-read book for those interested in wetlands 'vascularization' and its consequences."---Jack Gallagher, Professor Emeritus, Halophyte Solutions Laboratory, University of Delaware
