GIS Data: King & Queen County Tidal Marsh Inventory

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science published the first Tidal marsh Inventories using data collected in the early 1970\u27s. Using high resolution color infra-red imagery from 2009 a new Tidal Marsh Inventory has been developed for the York River Watershed in 2010. Marsh boundaries were generated using heads-up digitizing techniques at a scale of 1:1,000. Each marsh polygon was classified by morphologic type: fringe, extensive, embayed, or marsh island. Marshes were ground-truthed in the field where a community type index was assigned to each marsh based on plant community make-up. Each marsh was also coded with a marsh number which corresponds to the original 1970s delineation. In 2019, the marsh boundaries where readjusted to match the digitized upland shoreline based on 2017 VBMP imagery. No field surveys were completed for the current project, but plant community information from the 2010 fieldwork was retained. This provides an opportunity to review areal changes that have occurred in the marshes over time