Coastal Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Sustainability (CBESS) the erosion rate of sediment cores from salt marsh sites at Morecambe Bay and Essex

Sediment cores (16 centimetre (cm) diameter, 30 cm height) including above ground vegetation were collected in each 1 x 1 m quadrat. Each core was placed horizontally in the 'waterfall force' of the re-circulation flume for 1.5 hours (0.5 hour at low force, 0.5 hour at medium force, 0.5 at high force). Sediment erosion rate was calculated from the amount of mass lost over half an hour with measurements taken time = 0 minutes (mins), 5 mins, 10mins, 15mins and 30mins. Results were recorded onto field sheets. These data were transferred into an Excel file and calculations carried out. Results were exported as comma separated value files for ingestion into the EIDC. The location of the sample sites was determined by randomly allocated quadrats. Each site consisted of a rectangular area of saltmarsh between 400 x 500 m to 1000 x 1000 m in size, dependent upon saltmarsh length (parallel to shore) and width (perpendicular to shore), including part of the low, mid and high marsh zones. Twenty-two 1 x 1 m quadrats were randomly allocated to each site rectangle using R (R Development Core Team, 2014) to specify four different spatial scales (A = 1 quadrat only, B = 3 quadrats at 1 m to 10 m apart, C = 6 quadrats at 10 m to 100 m apart, D = 12 quadrats at 100 m to 1000 m or site maximum).