ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the potential for living shoreline created marshes to remove nitrogen from groundwater and tidal surface waters, thus improving water quality. The fresh groundwater Total inorganic nitrogen (TIN) flux, neglecting removal due to biogeochemical processes occurring within the living shoreline marsh, was estimated as the product of groundwater volumetric discharge and TIN concentration in the zero-salinity end member. Coastal groundwater often plays an important role in nutrient transport and processing in coastal ecosystems, influencing biodiversity, ecosystem structure and function, and benthic and pelagic productivity. Groundwater salinity variation across the transects indicated that living shorelines effectively represent subterranean estuaries, where fresh, meteoric groundwater mixes with saline groundwater. Living shoreline marshes can intercept nitrogen (N) in both surface waters and groundwater and may be in a position to reduce N loading to estuarine ecosystems. The results of the current work demonstrate that living shorelines can function to remove fixed nitrogen from both meteoric groundwater and recirculated seawater.
