Coastal wetlands are complex and diverse ecosystems, they are
highly productive, essential to the carbon cycle (among other biogeochemical
cycles), and mitigate the impacts of wave action and sealevel
rise upon the coast (e.g., Duarte et al., 2013). At the same time,
on-going climate change and associated sea-level rise are considered
to be major threats to coastal wetlands as they will exacerbate the
anthropogenic impacts affecting coastal geomorphology, erosion, and,
especially, wetland loss. Accelerated rates of sea-level rise will potentially
affect coastal wetlands by overwhelming the mechanisms of
self-maintenance of these ecosystems, thus increasing coastal wetland
loss globally (e.g., Nicholls and Cazenave, 2010). Given the uncertainty
of these alternative futures, it is essential that we improve our understanding
of wetland evolution in relation to sea-level changes over different
time scales, and in different physical settings (Kolker et al., 2009).