Abstract
As glacio-eustatic sea-level change continues to impact coastal communities, an increased understanding of surface elevation changes within coastal areas is crucial to predicting the fate of coastal infrastructure, ecosystems, and habitats. The purpose of this study is to examine the spatial extent and variability of subsidence using an east-west transect of Continually Operating Reference Station (CORS) receivers across the Mississippi Coast. The main objective of this study was to use mean differences in antenna height to determine subsidence rates along the Coast of Mississippi between 2006-2018. Research questions included: What are the mean rates of vertical displacement for points along the transect; 2) What are the differences in mean rates of displacement and 3) What is the change (Δ) in mean antenna heights between final (tf) and initial (ti) times of observation for each receiver over the span of observations? The hypotheses of the study were: 1) Yearly mean rates of vertical displacement are 2.5 mmy-1 (±0.5mm) and 2) subsidence along the Mississippi Gulf Coast has occurred at a constant rate and is uniformly spatially distributed. The temporal resolution of MSIN & MSEV spatial data spanned from 2012-2018 whereas ALDI spanned 2010-2018. MSGB Spanned 2011-2018 and MSWV spanned 2010-2016. The longest series was MSGA spanning 12 year from 2006-2017 and the Shortest was MSHI spanning 2018-2020. Overall mean rates of subsidence for MSIN and MSEV between 2012-2018 were ~ 1.81 mmy-1 and 1.25 mmy-1 respectively. MSWV’s rate was much lower than MSIN and MSEV at ~ 0.48 mmy-1. Mean rates of vertical displacement for ALDI between 2010-2018 was 2.61 mmy-1 whereas between 2011-2017 for MSGB rates were ~ 1.00 mmy-1 and MSHI fell in at ~ 1.54 mmy-1.
