Figure 5. Shoreline grid for Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.Click on figure for larger image.

In order to develop a database for a park-wide assessment of coastal change-potential, data for each of the six variables mentioned above were gathered from state and federal agencies (table 2). The database is based on that used by Thieler and Hammar-Klose (1999) and loosely follows an earlier database developed by Gornitz and White (1992). A comparable assessment of the sensitivity of the Canadian coast to sea-level change is presented by Shaw and others (1998).

The database was constructed using a 1:63,360-scale shoreline (USGS) for GBNPP and a coastline based on nautical charts of varying scale (NOAA) (Geiselman, 1997). Data for each of the six variables (geomorphology, shoreline change, coastal slope, relative sea-level change, significant wave height, and tidal range) were added to a shoreline attribute table that was divided into 1-minute (approximately 1.5 km) segments (fig. 5). Next each variable in each shore segment was assigned a change-potential value from 1-5 (1 is very low change-potential, 5 is very high change-potential) based on the possible magnitude of its contribution to physical changes on the coast as sea level changes (table 1).