Hi,
I'm trying to do some modeling in the Narragansett Bay area and I'm havign trouble finding accretion and erosion parameters. Any idea where I might be able to find this kind of information?
As an alternative, are there any standard values that can be used if no dpecific data is identified?
Carolyn
Regarding Erosion, please see this post: http://warrenpinnacle.com/SLAMMFORUM/index.php?topic=67.0
The short answer is, shoreline change maps may give you the spatially variable information that you need but please note that, within SLAMM, erosion only occurs at the marsh-water interface. Also consider sensitivity analyses if there is lots of uncertainty in this parameter. Occasionally you'll find site-specific studies of erosion rates on Google Scholar...
Regarding Accretion in Rhode Island, here are the resources that I have on-hand...
Bricker-Urso, S and Nixon, SW. 1989. Accretion rates and sediment accumulation in Rhode Island salt marshes. Estuaries 12: 300-317. 2.4 – 6.0 mm/yr
Prudence Island., RI, 2.8-5.8 mm/yr, Urso and Nixon 1984 (can't find the 1984 data, likely the same as the 1989 paper?) from J. C. Stevenson, L.G. Ward, and M. S. Kearney, 1986. Vertical accretion in marshers with varying rates of sea level rise. Pages 241-259 in D. A. Wolfe, editor. Estuarine variability. Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA.
(Of course, historical accretion rates are not necessarily an indication of future accretion rates... Again sensitivity/uncertainty analysis is warranted along with playing with the inundation depth to accretion rate feedback.)
Good luck and please let us know how things go. -- J