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The World of the Salt Marsh: Appreciating and Protecting the Tidal Marshes of the Southeastern Atlantic Coast
The World of the Salt Marsh is a wide-ranging exploration of the southeastern coast€”its natural history, its people and their way of life, and the historic and ongoing threats to its ecological survival.Focusing on areas from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Cape Canaveral, Florida, Charles Seabrook examines the ecological importance of the salt marsh, calling it ";a biological factory without equal."; Twice-daily tides carry in a supply of nutrients that nourish vast meadows of spartina (Spartina alterniflora)€”a crucial habitat for creatures ranging from tiny marine invertebrates to wading birds. The meadows provide vital nurseries for 80 percent of the seafood species, including oysters, crabs, shrimp, and a variety of finfish, and they are invaluable for storm protection, erosion prevention, and pollution filtration.Seabrook is also concerned with the plight of the people who make their living from the coast’s bounty and
367 pages, Hardcover
First published April 23, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 7, 2017
For many years in my childhood, we spent the month of August in Ocean City, NJ. We drove across Route 40, taking a turn south at Mays Landing, where we got our first sniff of the salt air. The road hugs the Great Egg Harbor River, and its network of marshes. Over the length of the road, the freshwater marshes gave way to salt marsh, ending in Great Egg Harbor itself. I didn't know it at the time, this was my start of my affection for marshes. As a child, all I knew was that the wonderful marshy smell meant that we were almost at the beach.
Charles Seabrook's The World of the Salt Marshes spends its time in the salt marshes of the Carolinas and Georgia. This isolated world of spartina grass, birds, sea creatures, algae, and historic communities is rapidly being lost to thoughtless development. Seabrook makes clear that the salt marshes are an integral part of our food web and natural water purification systems. We poison the marshes — we poison ourselves.
This is a slow read. There's a lot of information, but it's well worth the time.
Charles Seabrook's The World of the Salt Marshes spends its time in the salt marshes of the Carolinas and Georgia. This isolated world of spartina grass, birds, sea creatures, algae, and historic communities is rapidly being lost to thoughtless development. Seabrook makes clear that the salt marshes are an integral part of our food web and natural water purification systems. We poison the marshes — we poison ourselves.
This is a slow read. There's a lot of information, but it's well worth the time.
October 7, 2019
A Review of The World of the Salt Marsh by Charles Seabrook
I have always felt wetlands were fascinating and I also knew from research that they are considered one of the most productive ecosystems in the world. They rank with rainforests and coral reefs. Wetlands are marshes, bogs, and other low-lying areas that are typically covered in water. Many wetlands, if not all, are affected by a body of water like the ocean, rivers, lakes, and so on. Though I knew of these things, I never considered how hard it must be for the creatures to live in that environment. This is especially true of the salt marshes that Seabrook investigates in his book.
The tides are always changing, the salinity levels of the water are always changing but usually high, and do not forget the influx of construction, pollution, and people. It is amazing there are any creatures left in the marshes. Seabrook says in one acre, there are estimated to be over one million fiddler crabs! Over one trillion gallons of water are cycled through as the tides do their never-ending dance. There is a grass, Spartina, that is the life-giver of a salt marsh; without it, there is no salt marsh.
This book was hard to read. Yes, it is sad. I knew that it would be hard prior to reading it because it is big and long. I also knew that the destruction of wetlands is never-ending, much like the tides. But, here’s what I did not expect: it reads like a textbook. In another time, when in my baccalaureate or graduate studies, I would have loved to have had a textbook like this. Something different and seemingly not textbook-like. Unfortunately, textbook it is.
This book has a depth of information that rivals any field experience you could have or another book you might find. But it is boring. I say that with a level of hesitance. I have a special affection for wetlands; I love teaching about them. However, as I have learned time and again, if the information is not presented in a unique or universally interesting way, it will not be learned. I felt my eyes glaze over immediately, which saddened me to the core. I kept trying to find new ways of reading the material so I would be interested. Nothing I discovered worked.
I will mention some good parts, good parts I do not find in all books (boring or otherwise). It has short chapters, a favorite thing of mine. There are pictures that the author includes throughout the book, not just squished in the middle. There is probably at least one picture per chapter. There is one thing for sure: if you don’t think everything works together or that changing a single part won’t affect the rest: YOU ARE WRONG. Ecosystems are a system; it requires a specific procedure in order to work. If you take step three away, step four will never happen. It is much like our cars, electricity, learning the alphabet, whatever. Every part is valuable, even if we do not see it or understand it.
If you need a source for a research paper, this is for you. Leisurely read? No.
Content: 4/5 (only because I found it boring.)
Structure: 5/5
Meets Objectives: 4/5 (He wants to share appreciation of the salt marshes. I do not think that I have a greater appreciation for the marshes, I still love them. But riveting tale that I will recommend to others, no.)
Creativity: 3/5 (Kudos for all of the pictures and research.)
I have always felt wetlands were fascinating and I also knew from research that they are considered one of the most productive ecosystems in the world. They rank with rainforests and coral reefs. Wetlands are marshes, bogs, and other low-lying areas that are typically covered in water. Many wetlands, if not all, are affected by a body of water like the ocean, rivers, lakes, and so on. Though I knew of these things, I never considered how hard it must be for the creatures to live in that environment. This is especially true of the salt marshes that Seabrook investigates in his book.
The tides are always changing, the salinity levels of the water are always changing but usually high, and do not forget the influx of construction, pollution, and people. It is amazing there are any creatures left in the marshes. Seabrook says in one acre, there are estimated to be over one million fiddler crabs! Over one trillion gallons of water are cycled through as the tides do their never-ending dance. There is a grass, Spartina, that is the life-giver of a salt marsh; without it, there is no salt marsh.
This book was hard to read. Yes, it is sad. I knew that it would be hard prior to reading it because it is big and long. I also knew that the destruction of wetlands is never-ending, much like the tides. But, here’s what I did not expect: it reads like a textbook. In another time, when in my baccalaureate or graduate studies, I would have loved to have had a textbook like this. Something different and seemingly not textbook-like. Unfortunately, textbook it is.
This book has a depth of information that rivals any field experience you could have or another book you might find. But it is boring. I say that with a level of hesitance. I have a special affection for wetlands; I love teaching about them. However, as I have learned time and again, if the information is not presented in a unique or universally interesting way, it will not be learned. I felt my eyes glaze over immediately, which saddened me to the core. I kept trying to find new ways of reading the material so I would be interested. Nothing I discovered worked.
I will mention some good parts, good parts I do not find in all books (boring or otherwise). It has short chapters, a favorite thing of mine. There are pictures that the author includes throughout the book, not just squished in the middle. There is probably at least one picture per chapter. There is one thing for sure: if you don’t think everything works together or that changing a single part won’t affect the rest: YOU ARE WRONG. Ecosystems are a system; it requires a specific procedure in order to work. If you take step three away, step four will never happen. It is much like our cars, electricity, learning the alphabet, whatever. Every part is valuable, even if we do not see it or understand it.
If you need a source for a research paper, this is for you. Leisurely read? No.
Content: 4/5 (only because I found it boring.)
Structure: 5/5
Meets Objectives: 4/5 (He wants to share appreciation of the salt marshes. I do not think that I have a greater appreciation for the marshes, I still love them. But riveting tale that I will recommend to others, no.)
Creativity: 3/5 (Kudos for all of the pictures and research.)
June 19, 2019
An Awakening
From this amazing book I have learned so much about the importance of
our salt marshes. There is so much work to be done to see that environmentally sound practices are followed to protect this ecosystem. I will never drive through the beautiful marshes again without feeling both anger and sadness regarding the careless destruction of what has been done and continues to be done. Hopefully the various environmental groups and legislators will champion their efforts to save the salt marshes before it is too late.
From this amazing book I have learned so much about the importance of
our salt marshes. There is so much work to be done to see that environmentally sound practices are followed to protect this ecosystem. I will never drive through the beautiful marshes again without feeling both anger and sadness regarding the careless destruction of what has been done and continues to be done. Hopefully the various environmental groups and legislators will champion their efforts to save the salt marshes before it is too late.
February 23, 2016
The salt marsh is an amazing landscape that is often overlooked or taken for granted. Per square foot, it is one of the most productive areas on our planet and serves many functions: protecting the inland areas from storms, providing recycling and cleansing services to the water, and serving as a nursery for the oceans. And everything must work together. When the balance is lost, the marsh suffers and in the long term we suffer.
I picked up this book in an attempt to learn more about my new home. Although I grew up near the marsh in North Carolina, I never really studied it. Seabrook, a science reporter with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a native of Saint John's Island in South Carolina (one of the historic African-American island communities--the Gullah-Geechee culture--that is found in the islands along the Southeast Coast). In these pages, he does a wonderful job of sharing the history and culture of those who live along the marsh; informing us of the animals that depend on this terrain; explaining the science, geology and hydrology that makes the marsh work, and presenting the problems facing the salt marsh. Seabrook’s area of study is the South Atlantic Blight (the shoreline from Cape Hatteras to Cape Canaveral).
Seabrook explains the complexity of the marsh. Twice a day, tides move in and out, flushing the marsh with water and sea life only to withdraw it six hours later in which marsh gives some of its riches back to the ocean. This cycle helps both marsh and the ocean, but it is more complicated because fresh water is continually introduced from the land. All of this, mixed in with grass and snails, oysters and crabs, fish and animals, works together to efficiently produce biomass and to cleanse out harmful elements that might destroy the marsh or the oceans.
Seabrook shows, through examples, how little changes can cause major problems. The building of a tidal gate in Savannah, designed to help keep the shipping channels deeper, increased the salinity in the Savannah wetlands which had been a fresh water preserve. The aftermath was dead cypress and the end of wonderful stripe bass fishing as neither the tree nor fish could take to the increase salinity. Other developments, such as the Diamond Causeway (which I drive over several times a week), reduced the salinity in the upper marsh and had an adverse impact on oysters and crabs which was one of the reasons for the closing of a packing factory in Pinpoint. Another problem is the development along the estuaries that feed into the marsh. As trees and natural vegetation is replaced with concrete, asphalt, houses, along with the draining that is needed for golf courses and parking lots, the amount of fresh water (often tainted from oils) going into the marsh causes adversity for salt water species, especially the important grass in salt water marshes. Contaminates such as mercury are even more harmful as he shows in an example of a polluter in the Brunswick, Georgia. When the plant was finally shut down, the owners and managers all received prison sentences for their role in flushing large amounts of mercury into the river that has affect the animal life not only around Brunswick but up and down the coastline.
Much of what Seabrook writes about is loss. Turtles that die in nets, shrimping that is having a harder time competing with factory farms in other parts of the world, native cultures (or at least native for the last 400 years) who are being forced out by developments. But he also speaks of hope. There have been odd groups that have come together to protect the marsh and as we learn how valuable the marsh is, more people see the importance of protecting it. I hope people read this book and realize what a valuable asset the marsh is and truly appreciate it as more than just a beautiful place from which to observe the rising or the setting of the sun.
One range of numbers that Seabrook mentions several places and which has me pondering my impact of living in this area is 10-15%. It appears that when hard surfaces covers more than 10-15% of the land feeding the estuaries that feed the marsh, damage occurs to the saline balance (as well as an increase in pollutants). With the increase in development and the sprawl that is occurring all over the country, but especially in the Southeast, in many places we have surpassed the threshold and need to be very careful less the marsh disappears and we become more exposed and lose an important source of food. Another fact that stuck with me is how special this area is, in the center of the Atlantic Blight, with some of the highest tides in the world. Tides here average nearly nine feet which are a lot more than what I was used to where I grew up a couple hundred miles north.
Yes, I recommend this book! However, I will note for my readers who are in the Carolinas or Florida, that Seabrook primarily focuses on the marsh in Georgia and the southern half of the South Carolina coast (south of Charleston). I would have liked to have learned more about the issues going on further north (there is the issue of deepening the Cape Fear River) and in Florida (where development had a head start over the areas concentrated on within this book).
I picked up this book in an attempt to learn more about my new home. Although I grew up near the marsh in North Carolina, I never really studied it. Seabrook, a science reporter with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a native of Saint John's Island in South Carolina (one of the historic African-American island communities--the Gullah-Geechee culture--that is found in the islands along the Southeast Coast). In these pages, he does a wonderful job of sharing the history and culture of those who live along the marsh; informing us of the animals that depend on this terrain; explaining the science, geology and hydrology that makes the marsh work, and presenting the problems facing the salt marsh. Seabrook’s area of study is the South Atlantic Blight (the shoreline from Cape Hatteras to Cape Canaveral).
Seabrook explains the complexity of the marsh. Twice a day, tides move in and out, flushing the marsh with water and sea life only to withdraw it six hours later in which marsh gives some of its riches back to the ocean. This cycle helps both marsh and the ocean, but it is more complicated because fresh water is continually introduced from the land. All of this, mixed in with grass and snails, oysters and crabs, fish and animals, works together to efficiently produce biomass and to cleanse out harmful elements that might destroy the marsh or the oceans.
Seabrook shows, through examples, how little changes can cause major problems. The building of a tidal gate in Savannah, designed to help keep the shipping channels deeper, increased the salinity in the Savannah wetlands which had been a fresh water preserve. The aftermath was dead cypress and the end of wonderful stripe bass fishing as neither the tree nor fish could take to the increase salinity. Other developments, such as the Diamond Causeway (which I drive over several times a week), reduced the salinity in the upper marsh and had an adverse impact on oysters and crabs which was one of the reasons for the closing of a packing factory in Pinpoint. Another problem is the development along the estuaries that feed into the marsh. As trees and natural vegetation is replaced with concrete, asphalt, houses, along with the draining that is needed for golf courses and parking lots, the amount of fresh water (often tainted from oils) going into the marsh causes adversity for salt water species, especially the important grass in salt water marshes. Contaminates such as mercury are even more harmful as he shows in an example of a polluter in the Brunswick, Georgia. When the plant was finally shut down, the owners and managers all received prison sentences for their role in flushing large amounts of mercury into the river that has affect the animal life not only around Brunswick but up and down the coastline.
Much of what Seabrook writes about is loss. Turtles that die in nets, shrimping that is having a harder time competing with factory farms in other parts of the world, native cultures (or at least native for the last 400 years) who are being forced out by developments. But he also speaks of hope. There have been odd groups that have come together to protect the marsh and as we learn how valuable the marsh is, more people see the importance of protecting it. I hope people read this book and realize what a valuable asset the marsh is and truly appreciate it as more than just a beautiful place from which to observe the rising or the setting of the sun.
One range of numbers that Seabrook mentions several places and which has me pondering my impact of living in this area is 10-15%. It appears that when hard surfaces covers more than 10-15% of the land feeding the estuaries that feed the marsh, damage occurs to the saline balance (as well as an increase in pollutants). With the increase in development and the sprawl that is occurring all over the country, but especially in the Southeast, in many places we have surpassed the threshold and need to be very careful less the marsh disappears and we become more exposed and lose an important source of food. Another fact that stuck with me is how special this area is, in the center of the Atlantic Blight, with some of the highest tides in the world. Tides here average nearly nine feet which are a lot more than what I was used to where I grew up a couple hundred miles north.
Yes, I recommend this book! However, I will note for my readers who are in the Carolinas or Florida, that Seabrook primarily focuses on the marsh in Georgia and the southern half of the South Carolina coast (south of Charleston). I would have liked to have learned more about the issues going on further north (there is the issue of deepening the Cape Fear River) and in Florida (where development had a head start over the areas concentrated on within this book).
November 6, 2019
Just excellent
September 9, 2021
Incredibly good flow from topic to topic, engaging. Few books have as much information presented in as evocative a way
September 16, 2015
This is as useful a summary of the changing Southeast Atlantic coast as I know.
Seabrook, former science reporter for the AJC, now retired and contributing a weekly Wild Georgia column on Saturdays, has written a beautiful description of this intersection of ecosystems and cultures, including a call to action.
Seabrook is great at laying out processes and conflicts for a general audience. He enjoys referring to the salt marsh as informing his youth near Charleston, SC. In the penultimate chapter, he paints a glowing picture of the conservation cooperation in SC's Ashepoo-Combahee-Edisto (ACE) Basin, near Edisto. I wonder, too, at the potential for interstate cooperation hinted and hoped for on the Atlantic coast, and wonder if that might be possible, too, in the tri-state water war on the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint basin of the Gulf of Mexico coast. Next book, Mr. Seabrook!
Highly recommended.
Seabrook, former science reporter for the AJC, now retired and contributing a weekly Wild Georgia column on Saturdays, has written a beautiful description of this intersection of ecosystems and cultures, including a call to action.
Seabrook is great at laying out processes and conflicts for a general audience. He enjoys referring to the salt marsh as informing his youth near Charleston, SC. In the penultimate chapter, he paints a glowing picture of the conservation cooperation in SC's Ashepoo-Combahee-Edisto (ACE) Basin, near Edisto. I wonder, too, at the potential for interstate cooperation hinted and hoped for on the Atlantic coast, and wonder if that might be possible, too, in the tri-state water war on the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint basin of the Gulf of Mexico coast. Next book, Mr. Seabrook!
Highly recommended.
May 30, 2012
I was disappointed in the book. I have visited the marshes many times and learned about them at state parks and elsewhere, and I've also studied the Gullah culture. I have to say I didn't really learn anything new, except for what it was like to experience trying to actually wade through the marsh. The book was repetitive,I think because it must be a collection of the author's previously written articles and newspaper columns. If you are new to the salt marshes, it would be a great way to learn about them. It would especially be important if you are considering purchasing a property in one of the new developments "with sweeping views of the tidal marsh" built for the wealthiest Americans. Seabrook describes how these developments are ruining the views for the rest of us, and threatening the marshes' survival.
August 14, 2019
I really enjoyed reading this book and learning about the salt marsh.
July 1, 2013
An insightful and exploratory look into my back yard.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews