Wave power, erosion rates, and areal loss of marshes in Chesapeake Bay

This dataset provides estimates of wave power and related erosion along shorelines of marsh units (Ackerman and others, 2022 and Defne and others, 2025) in Chesapeake Bay. The climatological wave power from Aretxabaleta and others (2022) is projected on stretches of marsh shorelines that are determined by intersecting the marsh units with the estuarine and marine deepwater class and the estuarine intertidal unconsolidated shoreline class of the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) dataset. A 30-meter buffer area on the open water side of each marsh shoreline was used to calculate the mean wave power for that shoreline. Normalized wave power and erosion rates are calculated following Sanford and Gao (2018) and converted to areal loss along each shoreline.

References:
Ackerman, K.V., Defne, Z., and Ganju, N.K., 2022, Geospatial characterization of salt marshes in Chesapeake Bay: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P997EJYB.

Defne, Z., Ackerman, K.V., Andrews, B.D., and Ganju, N.K., 2025, Chesapeake Bay marsh migration potential under sea-level rise: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P18BWN2U.

Aretxabaleta, A.L., Defne, Z., Kalra, T.S., Blanton, B.O., and Ganju, N.K., 2022, Climatological wave height, wave period and wave power along coastal areas of the East Coast of the United States and Gulf of Mexico: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9HJ0JIQ.

Sanford, L.P., and Gao, J., 2018, Influences of Wave Climate and Sea Level on Shoreline Erosion Rates in the Maryland Chesapeake Bay. Estuaries and Coasts 41 (Suppl 1), 19–37, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-017-0257-7.