Yu-Ping Chin
University of Delaware, DE·Earth & Environmental Science
Saltwater is creeping inland along the Atlantic seaboard as sea level rises, salinizing groundwater and soils that freshwater trees depend on. The visible result is the ghost forest: stands of stressed and dying trees whose loss reshapes both the ecology and the water movement of coastal landscapes.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Ecology & Evolution
Chemistry
- Topics
stemflow
ghost forests
sea level rise
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Measure how stemflow, the rainfall channeled down tree trunks to the soil, changes across a transect running from healthy coastal forest to saltwater-killed ghost forest.
- Use field collection with laboratory analyses to quantify the nutrients, organic matter and moisture that stemflow delivers to near-trunk soils as salinity increases.
- Apply statistical modeling to relate stemflow dynamics to soil salinity, vegetation change and hydrological shifts, clarifying the ecohydrological response of coastal forests to sea level rise.
More about the research
This collaborative project asks how that stress alters a specific and often overlooked pathway, stemflow, the portion of rainfall that a tree's canopy funnels down its trunk to the ground. Stemflow concentrates water at the trunk base, recharging nearby soil moisture, and carries dissolved nutrients and organic matter washed off bark and leaves to the forest floor.
Why it matters
Land managers and coastal communities watching forests convert to marsh need to know how water and dissolved material move through stands already under salt stress. Evidence on stemflow's role could sharpen predictions of where forests will decline next and inform strategies for strengthening ecosystem resilience and guiding adaptation as sea level continues to rise.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Carmella Vizza
Hawaii Pacific University, HI·Earth & Environmental Science
Test whether saltwater introduction lowers methane emissions because sulfate-reducing bacteria outcompete methanogens, comparing freshwater control, saltwater-treated and naturally intertidal ponds in Hawai'i.
Daniella Rempe
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Test whether slow refilling of deep subsurface moisture, rather than lasting tree physiological damage, explains why forest growth and streamflow stay suppressed after drought ends, using a multiyear deep-moisture record spanning before, during, and after a drought.
Nina Wurzburger
University of Georgia, GA·Ecology & Evolution
Quantify how sensitive forest-to-shrubland transitions are to repeated wildfire and Phytophthora ramorum disease, using an 18-year monitoring network in coast redwood and mixed evergreen forests.
The school
University of Delaware: 22 labs on PI Pages, $466M a year on research, 298 research doctorates a year.
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