Sediments and bedforms of the Harle tidal inlet (Wadden Sea, Germany)

Abstract

The paper presents a map of sediment surface distribution and bedforms in the Harle tidal inlet, German Wadden Sea. Data collection, processing, and map editing were realized within the sublittoral mapping program of Lower Saxony national waters carried out by the NLWKN–Coastal Research Station. The map is the result of the combined use of multibeam echosounder, sub-bottom profiler, and ground-truth data. The sediment characterization is achieved by an unsupervised approach using an Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) on a normalized backscatter mosaic, verified by nineteen sediment samples. Morphometrical parameters and sub-bottom data provided important information to identify hard substrates and bedforms.