The georgia rivers land margin ecosystem research program

The Land Margin Ecosystem Research (LMER) Program in the United States is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation through two of its subsidiary units, Long Term Studies and Biological Oceanography. The LMER program was designed to address gaps in the coverage of certain ecosystems by multi-disciplinary teams, specifically the lack of studies of coastal boundary zones. Our Georgia interdisciplinary team effort is the newest of four such LMER sites around the United States (two additional sites had LMER funding in the past). We are studying the transport and transformation of materials in all five of the rivers flowing into the South Atlantic Bight within the coast Georgia. In particular, we are interested in the effects of: 1) land-use pattern in the larger watershed, 2) the effects of tidal freshwater riparin forests, and 3) the effects of backish and saltwalter marshes in modifying the materials entering and flowing with the rivers. Here we present a detailed description of our study rivers, the questions being asked and a summary of the data obtained during our first two exploratory cruises.