Mapping Salt Marsh Margins – a Methodological Comparison

Mapping historical coastal change is vital for understanding the processes driving such change and thus for projecting shoreline changes into the future, therefore helping shape policy decisions along the coastline. Studies in dynamic environments such as are found at the coast are often hindered by methodological problems and challenges associated with data availability, quality and thus difficulty of interpretation, which then affects conclusions drawn from the results. This can include (although is not limited to): problems in defining the shoreline, inaccurate detection of the shoreline, thresholds and non-linear changes associated with processes, and low quality (or lack of) historical data.