salt marsh

noun

1. a marshy tract that is wet with salt water or flooded by the sea.

salt marsh

noun

1. an area of marshy ground that is intermittently inundated with salt water or that retains pools or rivulets of salt or brackish water, together with its characteristic halophytic vegetation

salt marsh

1. A marsh in which the water is saline, especially a coastal wetland that has halophyte vegetation and is regularly flooded at high tide. Coastal salt marshes help to preserve the shoreline by accommodating storm tides.

Other Words From

• salt-marsh saltmarsh adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of salt marsh¹

before 1000; Middle English saltmerche, Old English sealtne mersc

Example Sentences

Birds flock here for the blend of the estuary, mud flats, open saltwater and salt marsh.

From Seattle Times

The Refuge contains multitudes — specifically salt marsh, mud flats, freshwater wetlands and streams amid temperate and old-growth forests, grasslands, coastal dunes and beach coastline.

From Seattle Times

A few hundred miles south of San Geronimo, on a stretch of land owned by the University of California, Santa Barbara, the 64-acre spread that once housed the Ocean Meadows Golf Course is now an estuary surrounded by grasslands, salt marsh and islands of coastal sage scrub.

From Seattle Times

Two federally endangered plants, the Ventura marsh milkvetch and salt marsh birds beak, have also been established on the site, part of an effort to move some plants north as their natural habitats grow too warm.

From Seattle Times

"Our results show that blue carbon ecosystems are more effective in mitigating climate change than previously thought. It is now even more important to protect and restore mangrove and salt marsh ecosystems."

From Science Daily