Shoreline Evolution: Northumberland County, Virginia Chesapeake Bay, Potomac River, and Great Wicomico River Shorelines

Authors

Donna A. Milligan, Virginia Institute of Marine ScienceFollow
Christine A. Wilcox, Virginia Institute of Marine ScienceFollow
C. Scott Hardaway Jr., Virginia Institute of Marine ScienceFollow

Document Type

Report

Department/Program

Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Publication Date

8-2014

Abstract

Northumberland County is situated at the confluence of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay (Figure 1). Because the County’s shoreline is continually changing, determining where the shoreline was in the past, how far and how fast it is moving, and what factors drive shoreline change will help define where the shoreline will be going in the future. These rates and patterns of shore change along Chesapeake Bay’s estuarine shores will differ through time as winds, waves, tides and currents shape and modify coastlines by eroding, transporting and depositing sediments. The purpose of this report is to document how the shorezone of Northumberland County has evolved since 1937. Aerial imagery was taken for most of the Bay region beginning that year and can be used to assess the geomorphic nature of shore change. Aerial photos show how the coast has changed, how beaches, dunes, bars, and spits have grown or decayed, how barriers have breached, how inlets have changed course, and how one shore type has displaced another or has not changed at all. Shore change is a natural process but, quite often, the impacts of man, through shore hardening or inlet stabilization, come to dominate a given shore reach. In addition to documenting historical shorelines, the change in shore positions along the larger creeks in Northumberland County will be quantified in this report. The shorelines of very irregular coasts, small creeks and around inlets, and other complicated areas will be shown but not quantified.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21220/V5T618

Keywords

Shoreline Evolution, Northumberland County, Chesapeake Bay, Aerial Photography, Human impact, GIS

Funding

This project was funded by the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program through Grant # NA12NOS4190168 of the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, under the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, as amended.

Recommended Citation

Milligan, D. A., Wilcox, C. A., & Hardaway, C. (2014) Shoreline Evolution: Northumberland County, Virginia Chesapeake Bay, Potomac River, and Great Wicomico River Shorelines. Virginia Institute of Marine Science, William & Mary. https://doi.org/10.21220/V5T618