Spatial Analysis of Shoreline Erosion, Delaware Bay, New Jersey
1986; American Association of Geographers; Volume: 76; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/j.1467-8306.1986.tb00103.x
ISSN1467-8306
Autores Tópico(s)Land Use and Ecosystem Services
ResumoAbstract Controls of process-response relationships in physical geography vary with scale. Two approaches to this problem are identified. The fixed-scale approach studies process-response relationships within particular scale contexts. The spatial-analytic approach seeks first to determine the spatial structure of the pattern of variability of a process (such as shore erosion) to discover the important scale(s) of variation. Controls operating at this scale have the greatest relative importance at the broadest scale considered. This approach is applied to shoreline erosion along the New Jersey shore of Delaware Bay. Geostatistical and fractal analysis indicates that variability of erosion rates is high, the alongshore pattern complex, and the scale of variability local. This indicates that despite significant long-range differences in erosion rates, short-range, local factors are more important in determining differences in erosion rates than are long-range factors such as the shape of the estuary. A number of variables related to shore erosion were examined using hierarchical analysis of variance. Linking these results to analysis of erosion patterns shows two major factors accounting for alongshore differences in erosion rates: a complex pattern of differential resistance related to marsh fringe morphology and a crenulated, irregular shoreline configuration affecting shoreline exposure to wave energy.
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