Flood Resilience, Viability, and Growth Response to Seawater Immersion of Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.)

Abstract

A holistic approach to sustainable coastal zone management assigns the development of nature-based and low-cost strategies for coastal protection during extreme meteorological events. This determines the growing interest in plant species with high salt tolerance, and the study of their flood resilience in order to determine their capacity for flooding and erosion control. Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.), with its vast rhizome system, has the major characteristic features of useful plant stabilisers of coastal sand dunes. This study aims to define the effects of flooding stress caused by storms on viability, survival ability, and growth response of bermudagrass in flooding simulations in order to define its flooding resilience. C. dactylon showed high resilience and tolerance to salt from seawater during flooding simulations. The Critical Decomposition Time of C. dactylon is estimated at 144 h, which is more than the maximum-duration flood recorded for the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. Untreated rhizomes showed less viability than those treated with seawater in flooding simulations. Changes in resistance, viability, biomass, and vegetative allocation were more significant, with the water as an influencing factor. The temperature of seawater and duration of submergence had no significant effect. As a median value species between psammophytes from the Poaceae family and the Cyperaceae family, bermudagrass can be used as a model plant in flooding simulations.