You are here:
No estuarine intertidal bathymetry? No worries! Estimating intertidal depth contours from readily available GIS data
Citation:
CLINTON, P. J., J. A. Saarinen, H. LEE, II, AND D. REUSSER. No estuarine intertidal bathymetry? No worries! Estimating intertidal depth contours from readily available GIS data. Presented at Coastal GeoTools 2011, Myrtle Beach, SC, March 21 - 24, 2011.
Impact/Purpose:
The importance of littoral elevation to the distribution of intertidal species has long been a cornerstone of estuarine ecology and its historical importance to navigation cannot be understated.
Description:
The importance of littoral elevation to the distribution of intertidal species has long been a cornerstone of estuarine ecology and its historical importance to navigation cannot be understated. However, historically, intertidal elevation measurements have been sparse likely due to the difficulty of collecting data in shallow often broad areas subject to tidal drainage with little vertical control. Modern concerns including the threats of tsunami inundation, the effects of climate change on sea level rise and efforts to integrate terrestrial and bathymetric elevation mapping have spurred new intertidal elevation data collection and compilation. Yet, there remains a lack of bathymetric data in many estuarine systems except for, perhaps, a distinction between subtidal and intertidal areas. Here we present techniques and data sources for estimating intertidal bathymetric depth distributions from readily available data that may be useful in modeling estuarine ecological change under varying sea level rise scenarios. The resulting bathymetric models will vary along a scale of reliability according to the quality of input data.