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This paper presents a comprehensive review of shear strength measurements in wetland soils, which can be used to make inferences of the influence of nutrients and sediments on wetland health. Ecosystem restoration is increasing across the Gulf of Mexico and in other coastal systems, with management questions related to soil strength among the most critical to address for the sustainability of restoration programs. An overview of geotechnical engineering principles is provided as a starting point to understand basic soil mechanics concepts of stress, effective stress, pore-water pressure, unit weight, and shear strength. The review of wetland shear strength measurements focuses on the hand-held vane shear, torvane, cone penetrometer, and wetland soil strength tester. This synthesis shows that vane shear measurements can identify the shear strength trend in horizontal and vertical spaces and may be an indicator of wetland soil strength. However, the significant uncertainty of the vane shear measurements may preclude making conclusions about shear strength values without further testing and calibration of the devices. The torvane results show considerable scatter such that it is not recommended for quantitative shear strength measurements. The cone penetrometer represents a technique that is independent of operators and provides a high density of measurements with depth. It signifies the state-of-practice of wetland shear strength testing and is a reasonable tool to measure spatial and temporal variations in soil strength and other geotechnical properties (e.g., pore-water pressure, soil moisture, resistivity, and temperature) in wetlands. The wetland soil strength tester provides insight into the wetland soil resistance in the first 15 cm, which is the zone where most belowground biomass is present. Recommended future research includes evaluating the uncertainty in all in-situ soil strength testing methods, developing relationships between different field instruments, and establishing consistent statistical methods and field-testing procedures to make inferences and assessments.

Deltas are globally important locations of diverse ecosystems, human settlement, and economic activity that are threatened by reductions in sediment delivery, accelerated sea level rise, and subsidence. Here we investigated the relative contribution of river flooding, hurricanes, and cold fronts on elevation change in the prograding Wax Lake Delta (WLD). Sediment surface elevation was measured across 87 plots, eight times from February 2008 to August 2011. The high peak discharge river floods in 2008 and 2011 resulted in the greatest mean net elevation gain of 5.4 to 4.9 cm over each flood season, respectively. The highest deltaic wetland sediment retention (13.5% of total sediment discharge) occurred during the 2008 river flood despite lower total and peak discharge compared to 2011. Hurricanes Gustav and Ike resulted in a total net elevation gain of 1.2 cm, but the long-term contribution of hurricane derived sediments to deltaic wetlands was estimated to be just 22% of the long-term contribution of large river floods. Winter cold front passage resulted in a net loss in elevation that is equal to the elevation gain from lower discharge river floods and was consistent across years. This amount of annual loss in elevation from cold fronts could effectively negate the long-term land building capacity within the delta without the added elevation gain from both high and low discharge river floods. The current lack of inclusion of cold front elevation loss in most predictive numerical models likely overestimates the land building capacity in areas that experience similar forcings to WLD.

We present here an integrated analysis of coastal deltaic floodplains in the active Atchafalaya Coastal Basin coupled to downstream deltaic estuaries to review how ecosystem properties self-organize around fluvial processes during river re-occupation as part of the delta cycle. The flood pulse of the river is critical to providing autogenic feedbacks between flow patterns, sediment delivery, vegetation productivity, and organic/inorganic accretion that produce spatial patterns of land elevation, habitat diversity, and estuary dynamics. Coastal deltaic floodplains form in the proximal region of an active delta as bar-shaped islands with interdistributary bays shape hydrogeomorphic zones influenced by both geophysical and ecological processes. Hydrogeomorphic zones in coastal deltaic floodplains of the proximal sedimentation zone can also be defined by time since subaerial emergence accounts for variability in vegetation community composition and soil successional development. The reduction in sedimentation and increase in both above- and belowground biomass associated with formation of hydrogeomorphic zones results in significant increase in organic matter density in soils, with higher N:P ratios reflecting the biotic feedback of ecological succession on delta floodplain development. In both the proximal and distal sedimentation regions, episodic events, such as river floods and cold fronts, control seasonal water levels, marsh platform inundation, and increase in elevation capital. In coastal deltaic floodplains, an increase in vegetation height and density has a twofold effect: it favors trapping of sediment on the islands; whereas an increase in roughness deflects water flow and sediment into the channels thus bypassing the marsh surface. There is evidence that this is in contrast to more constant positive feedback of vegetation on sedimentation in distal estuarine marsh platforms. Delta estuaries go through a transformation from a near-riverine estuary in the winter-spring season to a near-marine lagoon in the summer-fall season. Geomorphological displacement of vegetation types occurs as platform elevation increases in the proximal sedimentation zone as delta landform emerges, with specific vegetation dominating the respective subtidal, intertidal and supratidal hydrogeomorphic zones. This does not occur in the distal sedimentation zone that lack sediment input as marsh platform elevation decreases. This is due to presence of salinity and H2S that limit the capacity of biotic feedbacks to contribute to marsh stability. The growth of a coastal deltaic floodplain in the proximal sedimentation region of Atchafalaya Coastal Basin along with stable estuarine marshes in distal sedimentation region demonstrate the value of long-term riverine influence by preventing loss of wetland platform elevation.