EMPA 2021 Sediment Grainsize Data

The overall goal of the Estuary Marine Protected Area (EMPA) Monitoring Program is to establish a monitoring framework, including data collection, analysis, synthesis, and reporting to determine the health of estuaries in California and the efficacy of MPA designation in estuaries. As part of the initial phases of the program, we developed standard protocols to assess key estuarine features across different estuaries, coupled with standard data templates and guidance on analysis, synthesis, and reporting, focused on four guiding principles: flexibility, comparability, interpretability, and practicality. We developed 14 SOPs and piloted the framework at 15 estuaries in 2021. For more details on the EMPA program and framework, see https://empa.sccwrp.org. This dataset includes the sediment grainsize data collected in 2021 in the southern California estuaries, as illustrated in SOP 5. At every sampling station within the estuary, one sediment grainsize sample was collected in the marsh plain, intertidal, and subtidal. All samples were analyzed at California State University, Long Beach. For more details, see SOP 5 on https://empa.sccwrp.org. To simplify data usability, fields from both data and metadata tables have been combined to provide the user with a merged dataset. The metadata table is also included in standalone format.