Salt marshes play an enormously important ecological role throughout New England as nurseries for commercially important marine species, habitat for shorebirds, protecting uplands from storm surges and floods, and as sinks for nutrient runoff from nitrogen and phosphorus. Healthy, functioning salt marshes also provide enormous resources to increase the resilience of coastal shorelines in the face of climate change impacts.
The Nantucket Conservation Foundation owns the highest proportion of salt marshes on Nantucket Island, and we are currently invested in many projects to research salt marsh restoration and pilot projects to increase natural salt marsh resilience. The Foundation just published work on our completed Medouie Creek project, restoring a tidal restriction to an important salt marsh.
