U.S. Mid-Atlantic Barrier Island Geomorphology

Abstract

Quantitative analysis of 15 geomorphic attributes of the mid-Atlantic barrier coast has revealed that there are systematic variations in the geomorphic arrangement of coastal features. Our analysis of attributes (measured at 1 km intervals along the 800 km study reach from Cape Henlopen, Delaware, to the North Carolina border) has resulted in an atlas of coastal geomorphic types that can be classified at scales ranging from tens of kilometers (regional scale) to several kilometers (local scale). Similar data collection of coastal geomorphic attributes could be made for other coastal areas and could be quantitatively compared to the mid-Atlantic coast through the use of principal components analysis.