Shoreline Erosion

We suspect that most of the sediment in the lake is the result of shoreline erosion, at least in the last decade. although several coves have experienced significant sedimention from their head waters due to runoff from agricultural lnds. The current study by DNR (Phase II of the Sediment and Erosion Study - Spring 2012), should provide some insight. Shoreline erosion is a severe problem. In some areas, erosion can remove a foot of shoreline per year. There are many contrary opinions floating around about the causes and possible remedies. This task, or project, aims to assess the problem and suggest solutions.

The Literature

There is a get deal of literature on shoreline erosion and this will take some time to dig through it and extract those elements that are relevant to Deep Creek Lake. Some of it is being collected here.

Specific Studies

An interesting study that was done for a Master's thesis is by comparing the shoreline of images taken over different times. For the southern part of the lake the study was done by Catalin Demian in 2007.

A Photo Tour of Deep Creek Lake

Several of us set out on a beautiful spring day to photograph shoreline sections that demonstrated in our eyes the issues about erosion. Here are the three of us that went on that tour: Morgan France, Ed Neff, and Pete Versteegen.

We spent much of the day touring around the coastline of the lake south of the Glendale Bridge, taking occasional photographs of segments of the shoreline that told an interesting erosion story. A map showing where we went can be found here and the gallery of the images with our comments.