Creating a Predictive Vegetation Model to Guide Wetland Restoration in the South Arm Tidal Marshes

I will be focusing my study on a small tidal marsh called Frenchies Island within the South Arm Marshes of the Fraser River, which has become overrun with an invasive species of cattail. Frenchies, like many tidal marsh islands has had a dike constructed around its perimeter and has therefore been cut off from the natural incoming of water from the tidal cycle, as well as from high flows of the Fraser river. The goal of this project is to create a predictive model to forecast the type of plant cover that is likely to grow on the site, once the invasive cattail has been weakened or eradicated on the site. The model will be created by first characterizing both Frenchies and areas that are not dominated by cattail (undisturbed sites) through ground surveys in terms of the distribution of elevation, soil salinity and plant cover. The results from my mapping of the non-disturbed sites will be applied to Frenchies Island to create the predictive model. TO BE CON’T

Faculty Supervisor:

Anayansi Cohen-Fernandez

Student:

Kyla Sheehan

Partner:

Ducks Unlimited Canada

Discipline:

Environmental sciences

Sector:

University:

Program:

Accelerate