Abstract
This paper discusses the possible effect of a rise in sea level of about 1 m in 100 years on the birds that utilise inshore waters and the sedimentary intertidal zone in North-West Europe. In open coastal areas, such an increase in sea level could especially affect the sediments, marshes and invertebrates. These changes in turn could affect the feeding and breeding of many species of birds through the greater erosion of the intertidal flats and marshes, and the consequent reduction in the quality and area of habitat available for both feeding and breeding, and possibly through an increase in the levels of turbidity of inshore waters. In more sheltered areas, the effects are more difficult to predict because of uncertainty about how the sediment regime may change, relative to the rate of rise of the sea level.
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© 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Goss-Custard, J.D., McGrorty, S., Kirby, R. (1990). Inshore Birds of the Soft Coasts and Sea-Level Rise. In: Beukema, J.J., Wolff, W.J., Brouns, J.J.W.M. (eds) Expected Effects of Climatic Change on Marine Coastal Ecosystems. Developments in Hydrobiology, vol 57. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2003-3_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2003-3_22
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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