Oyster Reef Suitability Layers for the Coast of Virginia

LiDAR-based elevation, water residence time and fetch data layers were used to characterize intertidal lands suitable for oysters in the coastal lagoons on the eastern side of the Delmarva Peninsula in Virginia.
Water residence time and fetch serve as proxies for water mean velocity and wave energy from winds, respectively.
Three layers, elevation, water residence time and fetch distance were rated as "suitable" or "not suitable" for each location based on the range of values from observed oyster reefs. The number of layers identified as suitable for a location were tallied using a scale of 3-6 where 3 indicated no layers were suitable, 4 indicated one layer was suitable, 5 indicated two layers were suitable and 6 indicated that the location was suitable based on all three input layers.
The analysis was conducted using two different elevation ranges for suitability, one based on the elevation of the oyster reef crest and the other the elevation of the tidal flat surrounding oyster reefs. These are provided in layers crest1 and surrounding_el, respectively.