Gloucester County Shoreline And Tidal Marsh Inventory

This inventory is intended to serve as a useful planning tool for managers, planners, regulators, and environmentalists with an interest in Gloucester County. This report documents conditions measured in the County of Gloucester using remote sensing techniques. Two separate activities have occurred in tandem to develop this inventory of tidal marsh, and shoreline features. First, a delineation of tidal marshes within the county used high end image processing software along with color infra-red imagery to delineate the boundaries oftidal marshes\u27within 33 georeferenced scenes. The process calculates the amount of tidal marsh measured within each river segment in acres. Second, the report illustrates results from an aerial survey to delineate the types of shoreline structures, and general conditions observed along the shore. Documentation describing the waterway segments has been edited from the earlier Tidal Marsh Inventory Report for Gloucester County. Frequent reference to the Marsh Types, as defined by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and the Wetlands Advisory Program at VIMS, is noteworthy. Appendix 1 defmes these types. The report organizes the county into nine (9) river segments or waterways: the Poropotank River to Purtan Island, Purtan Bay to Sandy Creek, Jones Creek to Carmine Islands, Gloucester Point, Guinea, the Severn River, the Ware River, the North River, and the Piankatank River. Both shoreline features and tidal marshes are illustrated separately as a series of plates which divide the waterway into smaller segments. A composite image of the waterway segment is presented fust, followed by the larger scale plates at 1:24,000. A brief description of each segment precedes the plates, and presents information related to the composition of the marshes, and the general state of the shoreline. Appendix 2 defines some important terms found in these sections