Delaware Bay, Delaware Benthic Grabs 2007

The Coastal Program of Delaware's Division of Soil and Water conservation (DNREC), the University of Delaware, Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection have partnered and are carrying out a bottom and sub-bottom imaging project to identify and map the benthic habitat and sub-bottom sediments of Delaware Bay and River. This project was initiated to better understand the distribution of bottom sediment types, habitat biodiversity, and most importantly, human's impact on the bay bottom and its living resources. The project integrates the use of three types of acoustical systems: Roxann Seabed classification system, chirp sub-bottom profiling, and multi-beam bathymetric mapping. Verification of the acoustic data with bottom and sub-bottom sediments is performed through the collection of bra banc core samples and underwater video images.

Original contact information:

Contact Name: Bartholomew Wilson

Contact Org: DNREC Delaware Coastal Programs

Phone: 302-739-9283

This layer contains all the locations where sediment grab samples were retrieved that contained the tube building polychaete Sabellaria vulgaris.

The bottom sediment data and maps that was collected through the sediment sampling were collected and constructed to aid in the identification of essential fish Habitat (EFH), identify locations of potential borrow sites for beach replenishment, identify important locations for marine protection areas, and aid in the assessment of sediment dynamic of Delaware River and Bay.

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The Delaware Bay benthic grabs were focused on identifying the presence of the tube-building annelid sabellaria vulgaris.

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Public Information. This data should be used for resource mapping and comparison purposes only. While every effort has been made to ensure that these data are accurate and reliable within limits of the state of the art, the State of Delaware and the Delaware Coastal program will not assume any liability for damages caused by any inaccuracies in these data, or failure in their use.

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Only oyster reef and unconsolidated bottom areas were sampled.

Ground truth information was collected at the time of the original surveys. In some cases, several grabs were made in the same general area to confirm the presence of a specific habitat.