Potential impacts of climate change on the position of the wetland-hydrology boundary were estimated for four sites in the Eastern U.S. Precipitation and temperature predictions were obtained from the Hadley general circulation model (UKMO-HadCM3) because it most closely approximated observed precipitation for the period 1950–2000. The DRAINMOD hydrologic model was used to compute daily water table levels over two time periods: 1983–2012 (current conditions) and 2041–2070 (future conditions). For each site and time period, the model simulated water table depths for a soil pedon (Typic Paleaquult) that previous work demonstrated was on the wetland-hydrology boundary. Results for the Pitt County site in NC showed that by 2070 the wetland-hydrology boundary would have moved “downhill” to a point that was approximately 17 cm lower in elevation than where the boundary was in 2012 due to a 20% increase in evapotranspiration. Similar analyses were done for hypothetical wetland soils in Miami FL, Easton MD, and Portland ME where the wetland hydrology boundaries were estimated to drop in elevation by 5, 10 and 25 cm, respectively. Our results demonstrated that climate change may have significant impact on wetland boundaries.

估计了美国东部四个地点的气候变化对湿地水文学边界位置的潜在影响，并且从Hadley通用环流模型（UKMO-HadCM3）获得了温度预测，因为它最接近该时期的观测降水量。 1950年至2000年。DRAINMOD水文模型用于计算两个时间段的每日地下水位：1983–2012（当前状况）和2041–2070（未来状况）。对于每个站点和每个时间段，该模型模拟的土壤previous（典型的Paleaquult）的地下水位深度（先前的工作证明是在湿地水文学界）。北卡罗来纳州皮特县站点的结果显示，到2070年，由于蒸散量增加了20％，湿地水文学边界将“下坡”到比2012年边界低17 cm的位置。对迈阿密佛罗里达州，伊斯顿MD和波特兰ME的假设湿地土壤进行了类似的分析，这些地区的湿地水文边界估计分别降低了5、10和25厘米。我们的结果表明，气候变化可能会对湿地边界产生重大影响。