MANGROVES IN CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS Saltwater encroachment and prediction of future ecosystem response to the Anthropocene Marine Transgression, Southeast Saline Everglades, Florida John F. Meeder . Randall W. Parkinson . Pablo L. Ruiz . Michael S. Ross Received: 9 November 2016 / Revised: 12 July 2017 / Accepted: 21 July 2017 Ó Springer International Publishing AG 2017 Abstract Separating the effects of anthropogenic changes in freshwater delivery from that of sea level rise on the rate of salt water encroachment in the low relief Southeast Saline Everglades is important for understanding how the Anthropocene Marine Trans- gression might be best managed. We use stratigraphic and paleoecologic methods to calculate rates of salt water encroachment and biogenic sediment accumu- lation in the Southeast Saline Everglades. Our results suggest that sea level rise during the last century was accompanied by salt water encroachment, which is ultimately controlled by the elevation of high tide and varied by a factor of 14.8 in the five watersheds studied. These differences are attributed primarily to differences in freshwater delivery. The delivery of freshwater mitigated salt water encroachment in only one of the five watersheds. This difference is attributed to sufficient freshwater delivery to maintain a plant community with more rapid rate of sediment accu- mulation than other sites. Under conditions of dimin- ishing freshwater availability and increasing rate of sea level rise, our data suggest that little can be done at a scale large enough to prevent loss of the Southeast Saline Everglades within the next 50–200 years. Keywords Sea level rise Á Freshwater Á Biogenic sediment Á Accumulation rate Á Mangrove depositional environments Introduction The Southeast Saline Everglades (SESE) of South Florida, USA, historically consisted of a narrow belt of mangroves along the coast with freshwater marshes extending inland to the outcropping limestone of the Atlantic Coastal Ridge (Fig. 1). The Atlantic Coastal Ridge (Ridge) separates the Everglades from the SESE and gaps in the Ridge allow Everglades surface water delivery to the SESE. Delivery was historically sufficient to maintain freshwater marshes all the way Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10750-017-3359-0) contains supple- mentary material, which is available to authorized users. Guest editors: K. W. Krauss, I. C. Feller, D. A. Friess, R. R. Lewis III / Causes and Consequences of Mangrove Ecosystem Responses to an Ever-Changing Climate J. F. Meeder (&) Á M. S. Ross Southeast Environmental Research Center, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA e-mail: jackmeeder@gmail.com R. W. Parkinson Sea Level Solution Center, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA P. L. Ruiz South Florida Caribbean Network, National Park Service SFCN, Palmetto Bay, FL 33157, USA M. S. Ross Department of Earth and Environment, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA 123 Hydrobiologia DOI 10.1007/s10750-017-3359-0