What is the Gulf Coast Prairies and Marshes?

The Gulf Coast Prairies and Marshes region is a nearly level, slowly drained plain less than 150 feet in elevation, dissected by streams and rivers flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.

What is the Gulf Coast Prairies and Marshes known for?

The 600-mile – long region abounds in superlatives: the longest barrier island system on Earth, the most important fish nursery in the Gulf, the largest hypersaline lagoon known to man. well-being of human communities.

Where is the Gulf Coast Prairies and Marshes?

A narrow band about 60 miles wide along the Texas coast from the Louisiana border to Brownsville roughly outlines the Gulf Coast Prairies and Marshes. This area is characterized by long and continual confrontations with the sea, wind and rain.

What animals are in the Gulf Coast Prairies and Marshes?

Other wildlife found in this region includes alligators, fiddler crabs, spoonbills, and sea turtles.

• The alligator is a large, leathery-skinned reptile. Alligators are fascinating animals.
• Crabs burrow into muddy beaches or salty tidal lands.
• Sea turtles live in warm coastal waters.

What is Post Oak Savannah?

The Post Oak Savannah is a transition zone between the Blackland Prairies to the west and the Piney Woods to the east. This ecosystem is part of a historic oak belt, which travels south from Canada toward Central America.

What are some human activities that change the coastal prairies and marshes?

What are some human activities that change the coastal prairies and marshes? Over time, human activities from dam construction to shore-line development have dramatically altered natural landscapes, waterways, and ecological processes.

Why is Gulf Prairies and marshes valuable?

productive ecological systems in existence, offer food and shelter for wildlife, maintain water quality and help protect land and people from tropical storms, which ultimately creates a more resilient Gulf Coast. They also provide critical nurseries and spawning grounds for commercial and recreational fisheries.

Which coast is Houston on?

Texas Gulf Coast
Houston, the most populous city in the Southern United States, is located along the upper Texas Gulf Coast, approximately 50 miles (80 km) northwest of the Gulf of Mexico at Galveston.

What ecoregion is Austin?

Plateau
Plateau. The plateau is an uplifted geological region and the largest of Austin’s ecoregions. As one moves east in this region, the terrain becomes rugged with eroded limestone and granite rock forming what is known as the Texas Hill Country.

What are the Texas ecoregions?

Generally, Texas is divided into 10 natural regions or ecoregions: the Piney Woods, the Gulf Prairies and marshes, the Post Oak Savanah, the Blackland Prairies, the Cross Timbers, the South Texas Plains, the Edwards Plateau, the Rolling Plains, the High Plains, and the Trans-Pecos.

Is Texas A Savannah?

The Texas savanna originally may have been largely mixed prairie grassland, but currently is a high-shrub savanna. It occupies the western end of Gulf Coastal Plain and the southern end of the Great Plains.

How is climate change affecting the Gulf of Mexico?

The coastal zone of the Gulf and Caribbean coasts of Mexico is extremely vulnerable to climate change impacts. These areas are already threatened by habitat degradation, ecosystem fragmentation, increased development and population growth, and a lack of coastal zone legislation to guide management and protection.