You are here:
VEGETATIVE DELINEATION OF COASTAL SALT MARSH BOUNDARIES
Citation:
Eilers, H., A. Taylor, AND W. Sanville. VEGETATIVE DELINEATION OF COASTAL SALT MARSH BOUNDARIES. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/D-84/275 (NTIS PB85124659), 1984.
Description:
Legislation mandating the protection of wetlands and current pressures to convert them to other uses emphasize the need to accurately determine a wetland-upland boundary. The authors investigated six methods designed to establish such a boundary based on vegetation. Each method was applied to a common data set obtained from 295 quadrats along 22 transects between marsh and upland in 13 Oregon and Washington intertidal saline wetlands. Close agreement between wetland-upland boundaries determined by the six methods suggests that preclassification of plants and collection of plant cover data may not be necessary to determine a defensible boundary.