File:Lades Marsh at low tide - geograph.org.uk - 1211831.jpg

English: Lades Marsh at low tide Lades Marsh is a wide area of estuarine saltmarsh between Overton and Sunderland.

Saltmarshes start life as mudflats. In areas of sheltered water, like an estuary, the sediment held in the water settles out and builds up. Plants arrive and grow, their roots binding the mud particles together, trapping even more sediment. Thus the mudflats become more stable. As the mudflats build up, different types of plants colonise the area creating a saltmarsh habitat made up of blocks of flat low growing vegetation with narrow channels between.

Saltmarshes are important areas for small creatures such as worms, shrimps and shellfish, fish, wading birds and wildfowl. They provide nursery areas for fish, food for waders and wildfowl and nesting sites for waders and seabirds. Many of the plants growing on the saltmarsh are unique to this habitat.

Saltmarsh vegetation consists of a limited number of halophytic (salt tolerant) species adapted to regular immersion by the tides. A natural salt marsh system shows a clear zonation according to the frequency of inundation. At the lowest level the pioneer glassworts Salicornia spp can withstand immersion by as many as 600 tides per year, while transitional species of the upper marsh can only withstand occasional inundation.

As Lades Marsh is completely immersed twice a day it can be classed as species-poor low-mid marsh. This in no way detracts from its importance for the bio diversity of the Lune estuary SSSI.