Establishing Local Control for Barren Island Restoration

Site:

Barren Island, Chesapeake Bay, MD

Purpose(s):

(1) Track land changes in this delicate ecosystem and track how the restoration efforts were progressing.

Summary:

Barren Island is in the middle of the upper Chesapeake Bay and was used for hunting, farming, and vacationing. Due to erosion, the island has been losing between five and twenty five feet of shoreline annually over 75 years. In 2000, in order to lessen the damage, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) surrounded the western side of the island with geotubes- sand-filled fabric socks, 100 feet long and 12 feet in diameter. This work continued for many years, and it was coupled with volunteer planting events arranged by the National Aquarium in Baltimore. NGS has set up bench marks, collected GPS data, and determined elevations based on marks from the mainland several times in the 1990s and 2000s to establish a local geodetic network. This accurate poitioning network will help to monitor success of the restoration effort over time.

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