When it comes to the oceanic arena, salt marshes are true five-tool players, providing coastal protection, nitrogen absorption, wildlife habitat, water filtration, and erosion control.

Of all the oceanside eco-centers out there, you have to feel for the salt marsh. Children don’t descend on it with the gleeful abandon that they would if they were hitting the sandy beach. Sea-life don’t majestically leap into the air and splash back down amongst a prism of refracting water and light. And Johnny Utah isn’t cornering escaped bank robbing surfers because they were looking to catch a once-in-a-generation set at the local bog.

Nope, the salt marsh may not be the most exotic habitat you’ll find – but when it comes to actual value to land and sea, there are few milieus that can compete.

“Salt marshes filter and protect,” said Kalle Matso, Coastal Science Program Manager for the Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership of the School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering at the University of New Hampshire. “And they are the home to species that are the foundation of the food web.”

On the filtering side, salt marshes play a critical role in capturing the nutrients and sediments (and potential pollutants) from water runoff, preventing them from being dispersed into tidal waters – where a glut of these elements can put the hurt on the ocean’s integrity.

Then there’s the very real protection that salt marshes provide. Their dense structure supplies a natural buffer to the storms that would batter the coastline. Their stalwart guarding of the shores reduces erosion, mitigates aggressive wave action, and combats against flooding through rainwater absorption.

Finally, you have the nitrogen absorption. Nitrogen run amok will feed nuisance species like seaweed and algae, which can block sunlight and muck up the tidal waters.

When these plants die, the sediment and floating organic flotsam can overwhelm a tidal habitat and strangle longer-lasting plant species like eelgrass, and even decimate the foundational creature populations that support the food web.

Thankfully, salt marshes drink in nitrogen with the verve of a 14-year-old holding a Big Gulp on a hot summer day.

“Salt marshes store a tremendous amount of nitrogen,” Kalle says. “We have thin avenues of salt marsh around the Great Bay estuary, which is much more susceptible to nitrogen.”

Salt marshes are not particularly prevalent in New Hampshire, unfortunately, claiming just over 6,000 acres throughout the Granite State. Which makes SELT-protected lands like Awcomin Marsh in Rye and Franklin-McElheny Preserve (which contains salt marshes on the shores of the brackish waters - part freshwater/part saltwater- of Salmon Falls River) in Rollinsford that much more valuable.

So, while your friendly neighborhood salt marshes may not make it to the cover of an issue of Travel + Leisure anytime soon, what they lack in pomp and pizzazz, they more than make up for it in what counts the most: keeping oceans - our most precious resource – healthy, resilient, and defended.