Abstract
Sea level rise (SLR) is a powerful driver of coastal habitat shift and loss. Although Miami-Dade County’s (MDC) mangrove forest may be under pressure from SLR, mangroves can accrete surface water sediment, build up their elevation, and potentially outpace inundation. The present study combines local accretion rates and relative SLR (rSLR) scenarios to create a model that predicts potential future extent/loss of mangrove forests within MDC. In addition, hydrological pathways for propagule dispersal were modeled as avenues of forest colonization into neighboring wetlands. For the three SLR scenarios investigated, only the intermediate and high scenarios resulted in loss of habitat, particularly along the coastal fringe. Colonization of habitat was similarly observed in intermediate and high rSLR scenarios, with the low scenario showing little habitat shift. An extension of this model investigating urban mangrove fringe found forests with steeper elevation gradients were more resilient to inundation but had no natural potential for recession due to an absence of wetlands in developed communities. Using feedback from local resource managers, we created an online mapping application based on model output to distribute visualizations of the results. This web application is freely accessible and can inform stakeholders on the potential of mangrove habitat shift throughout the county.