Impacts of Transient Events on Ecosystem Resistance and Resilience along Western Gulf of Mexico Coast

The importance of the river-delta-ocean continuum in global carbon cycling is undeniable and yet there exists a lack of understanding about the temporal and spatial linkages between highly productive coastal wetlands and the adjacent coastal waters. Recent work around the Gulf of Mexico has significantly advanced our knowledge on river nutrient delivery and organic matter export from estuaries, as well as coastal ocean's response to these terrestrial inputs. However, what is not well represented in these models are the impacts of episodic and extreme events such as flooding and hurricanes, which are expected in increase in intensity in future. The overarching goal of this proposed work is to quantify event-driven carbon export and cycling in two contrasting regions - the semiarid coastal Texas, where hydrological and carbon balances are vulnerable to intensive precipitation and strong wind disturbance from hurricane events, and the humid Louisiana shelf, which is heavily influenced by the export from the wetland along the Mississippi Delta.

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