Synchronized high-resolution bed-level change and biophysical data from 10 marsh–mudflat sites in northwestern Europe
<p><span id="page406"/>Tidal flats provide valuable ecosystem services such as flood protection and carbon sequestration. Erosion and accretion processes govern the ecogeomorphic evolution of intertidal ecosystems (marshes and bare flats) and, hence, substantially affect their...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2021-02-01
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| Series: | Earth System Science Data |
| Online Access: | https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/13/405/2021/essd-13-405-2021.pdf |
| Summary: | <p><span id="page406"/>Tidal flats provide valuable ecosystem services such as
flood protection and carbon sequestration. Erosion and accretion processes
govern the ecogeomorphic evolution of intertidal ecosystems (marshes and
bare flats) and, hence, substantially affect their valuable ecosystem
services. To understand the intertidal ecosystem development, high-frequency
bed-level change data are thus needed. However, such datasets are scarce due
to the lack of suitable methods that do not involve excessive labour and/or
costly instruments. By applying newly developed surface elevation dynamics (SED)
sensors, we obtained unique high-resolution daily bed-level
change datasets in the period 2013–2017 from 10 marsh–mudflat sites
situated in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom in contrasting physical and
biological settings. At each site, multiple sensors were deployed for 9–20 months to ensure sufficient spatial and temporal coverage of highly variable
bed-level change processes. The bed-level change data are provided with
synchronized hydrodynamic data, i.e. water level, wave height, tidal
current velocity, medium sediment grain size (<span class="inline-formula"><i>D</i><sub>50</sub></span>), and chlorophyll <span class="inline-formula"><i>a</i></span>
level at four sites. This dataset has revealed diverse spatial
morphodynamics patterns over daily to seasonal scales, which are valuable to
theoretical and model development. On the daily scale, this dataset is
particularly instructive, as it includes a number of storm events, the
response to which can be detected in the bed-level change observations. Such
data are rare but useful to study tidal flat response to highly energetic
conditions.</p>
<p>The dataset is available from 4TU.ResearchData (<a href="https://doi.org/10.4121/12693254.v4">https://doi.org/10.4121/12693254.v4</a>; Hu et al., 2020), which is expected to expand with additional SED sensor data from
ongoing and planned surveys.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1866-3508 1866-3516 |