Mark Borrelli

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Senior Research Fellow at University of Massachusetts Boston

Coastal areas have traditionally been difficult locations to collect consistent, high-resolution bathymetric data via vessel-based acoustic surveys. The use of phase-measuring sidescan sonar is becoming more prevalent, particularly in shallow (< 20 m) coastal waters. Instruments used in the field over the last decade by the lead author are discusse...

This paper discusses the utility of using seismic-reflection profiling and sediment cores in addition to bottom grab samples and acoustic data to develop shallow-water benthic habitat maps. Currently, the classification system used herein does not provide for the incorporation of stratigraphic data, but we believe that the utility of these maps wou...

https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2259397

Along the shoreline of a coastal lagoon with fringing salt marsh, we used the basinward edge of marsh vegetation, or marshline, as a shoreline indicator. We quantified uncertainties associated with the delineation of this indicator from aerial photographs. Where both could be delineated, we compared the marshline to the most widely used proxy-based...

Bottom-grab samplers have long been the standard to describe nearshore marine habitats both qualitatively and quantitively. However, sediment samplers are designed to collect specific grain sizes and therefore have biases toward those sediments. Here, we discuss seafloor characterizations based on grain size analysis alone vs. grain size analysis a...

Beach profiles are a simple and affordable approach to monitoring changes in beach morphology. Advancements in technologies, specifically structure-from-motion and machine learning, can be integrated into conventional beach profiling techniques to better capture spatial and temporal changes in slope and sediment grain-sizes. The association between...

Detection, classification, and localization (DCL) techniques are being developed around the use of a phase-measuring sidescan sonar (PMSS) in very shallow waters. The instrument simultaneously collects co-located sidescan imagery and bathymetry in extreme shallow water environments (<1 m water depth). In addition to the bathymetry, an uncalibrated...

The detection, classification, and localization of targets or features on the seafloor in acoustic data are critical to many disciplines. This is most important in cases where human safety is in jeopardy, such as hazards to navigation, mitigation of mine countermeasures, or unexploded ordnance. This study quantifies the absolute localization of tar...

Coastal ecosystems are subject to environmental and human-induced stressors and managing these areas can be challenging. An effective first step in the management of coastal ecosystems is to establish a monitoring regime to document the state of the resource. The benthic habitat maps developed for this project create a reliable baseline to evaluate...

Coastal tourism, recreational use and enjoyment of natural, coastal resources, and the ecosystem services these resources provide are large contributors to the State’s economy. To sustain activities such as these, managers, first-responders, and public works professionals in low-lying coastal communities need information in real-time, and for futur...

Hydraulic dredging for shellfish is known to create some of the highest levels of disturbance, affecting the benthic microfaunal community and the physical characteristics of the substrate. Properly conducted benthic habitat assessments are complex and time consuming, resulting in assessments not being conducted increasing the uncertainty in post i...

Large-scale barriers are a management option for present and increasing coastal storm flooding. The barriers have gates that are open most times except during storms. As an example of the assessment process for a barrier, an integrated assessment of two barrier options for the coastal city of Boston, located in the northeastern USA, is presented. T...

• “Black Mayonnaise”, a common term for black, fine sediment, has an informal definition attached to it: “A dispersion of fine-grained, highly contaminated particles that is devoid of all normal aquatic life, and is composed of human waste floatables, oily slicks, chips of asbestos, arsenic, copper, lead, and mercury and industrial garbage” (United...

Hydraulic dredges used for bivalve harvest are known to create immediate biological and physical changes to the substrate, but the rate of recovery is often site specific and habitat specific. Hydraulic dredging for the Atlantic surfclam Spisula solidissima (Dillwyn, 1817) occurred off Provincetown, MA, from November 2014 through April 2015. Acoust...

A new conceptual model describes the inlet migration and inlet transition phases of development of the Nauset Beach–Pleasant Bay barrier beach system. The model uses historical cartographic resources to inform geomorphological analysis of sedimentary processes, inlet migration, and new inlet formation for the purpose of estimating future system con...

Benthic habitat maps are an important part of ecosystem-based management as they document biotic and abiotic resources. Integrating multiple ecosystem and environmental components is challenging, and the ability to do this is highly dependent on the methodology employed. The US Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS) uses a st...

Pleasant Bay, MA, is a 8741-ha (21,600-acre) coastal lagoon with extensive eelgrass, shellfish, and salt marsh habitats and is subject to predictable variations in inlet formation resulting in shifting tides and access to the ocean. Here we describe methods to link data from independent surveys (benthic habitat assessment and fishery-independent tr...

The Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS) was used to create standardized maps of habitats and biotopes by combining CMECS's four stand-alone components: Geoform, Substrate, Biotic, and Water, based on data collected in a shallow New England salt marsh lagoon. East Harbor on Cape Cod, MA, USA, was artificially isolated from...

Wellfleet Harbor is one of four embayments in which maps of marine benthic habitats were developed as a part of a larger study for the National Park Service (Borrelli et al., 2019). This report documents the methods of data collection, processing and analyses necessary to produce those maps in Wellfleet Harbor and surrounding areas.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Center for Coastal Studies has undertaken, for the Town of Eastham, an analysis of the potential impacts on coastal processes and barrier geomorphology that could be expected to result from the project as described within the 'Nauset Estuary Dredging Feasibility Assessment' prepared by the Woods Hole Group for the Town of Orle...

Oyster reefs, particularly those created by the Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea virginica), are important biogenic structures along the Western Atlantic coast. Oyster reefs are valued not just for their resource as a fishery, but as important habitat providing a myriad of ecosystem services including water filtration and concentration of pseudofeces (u...

Coastal ecosystems are subject to environmental and human-induced stressors and managing these areas can be challenging. Monitoring them and creating benthic habitat maps are important first steps to maintain and manage these ecosystems as well as reliably evaluate the effects of climate change, nutrient pollution, dredging activities and aquacultu...

The northeast storms of January and March 2018 caused extensive flooding from the Atlantic Ocean in the Little Beach area of Chatham. After multiple storms the flood waters did not recede leaving low-lying areas with standing water. The Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) was asked to map the location of storm tide pathways for the Town using a tec...

This report, sponsored by the Boston Green Ribbon Commission with the generous support of the Barr Foundation, looks at the feasibility of a Harbor-wide Barrier to protect the Boston Harbor from storm-surge and sea level rise. Sustainable Solutions Lab, UMass Boston https://www.greenribboncommission.org/document/feasibility-of-harbor-wide-barrier...

Acoustic instruments with the ability to rapidly and accurately map the seafloor have long been in use. With increasing frequencies and other technological advances applications for these instruments have broadened dramatically. Several recent projects conducted by the Center for Coastal Studies have used both towed and mounted sidescan sonar instr...

Analysis of water level data from the Cape Cod Nationals Seashore from May 2016 to June 2017 using HOBO Data Loggers Four Bay estuary systems were observed including Pleasant Bay, Nauset Marsh, Wellfleet Harbor and Provincetown. Six-minute continuous water level data collected in each system for one year for across five primary locations. This incl...

Benthic mapping in shallow, tide dominated coastal areas can be challenging due to the dynamic nature of those environments. Several different acoustic technologies are routinely used in deeper waters to measure the geomorphic structural characteristics of the seafloor such as bottom depth, hardness (induration) and roughness (rugosity). Interferom...

The surficial geologic map of the Wellfleet 7.5-minute Quadrangle incorporates a previously available onshore surficial geologic map (Stone and DiGiacomo-Cohen, 2009) and new data collected offshore out to approximately 20 m below mean sea level (MSL). The offshore surficial data include: sidescan sonar imagery, swath bathymetry and surface grab sa...

This project consisted of two phases, each the product of multiple components. Phase 1 focused on the development of inundation pathway maps and associated GIS data for the town of Truro. Phase 2 combined this data with similar information developed for the town of Provincetown in a previous CZM Resiliency Grant (FY2016) and, in collaboration with...

Pleasant Bay is a 9,000-acre estuary located in the Towns of Orleans, Chatham, Harwich and Brewster, Massachusetts. Due to its unique and extensive environmental values, the Bay and its surrounding shoreline and connected wetlands were designated by the Commonwealth as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). The four towns that share the...

The Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) developed a quantitative, century-scale sediment budget for the Towns of Sandwich and Barnstable along 16.5 miles of shoreline from the Cape Cod Canal to Nobscusset Point in Dennis. Sediment budgets document the direction and volume of sediment movement as well as the sources and sinks of sediment in the nearsho...

The need for coastal managers to be better prepared for low frequency storm-related inundation from such events as Sandy and Katrina, as well as periodic nuisance flooding associated with increasing astronomical tides was the impetus for this project. Recognizing that many coastal municipalities often do not have the resources or expertise to manag...

A ‘proof of concept’ study was undertaken for the Friends of Herring River (FOHR) to determine the efficacy of using a phase-measuring sidescan sonar to map the bottom in very shallow waters ‘up-river’ of the Chequessett Neck Road Dike in the Herring River Estuary, Wellfleet Massachusetts. Vessel-based acoustic mapping in the estuary is difficult d...

Sediment cores taken from the Pleasant Bay and Nauset Marsh back barrier systems in 2014 were shown to be sensitive to anthropogenic activities (Love et al, 2015). Significant increases in volume magnetic susceptibility, correlative across three coring sites, were attributed to the burning of fossil fuels during the Industrial Revolution (ca. 1880...

Traditional sidescan sonars have long been used in intertidal areas, but vessel-based, swath bathymetry data have been sparse due to the low swath width to depth ratios attainable with multi-beam echo-sounders (MBES). Often airborne lidar data are used but those data are less frequently collected and can have temporal and spatial offsets that make...

Estuaries are among the world’s most productive ecosystems and mapping the estuarine seafloor can provide useful information with regards to benthic habitats, ecosystem state, sediment transport and other biological and physical characteristics and processes. Turbid waters in many estuaries prevent optical methods, such as lidar, from being used. I...

Globally some of the most energetic environments are open-ocean beaches and tidal inlets. Bathymetric data in these areas have been difficult and at times, dangerous to collect. Vessel-based acoustic surveys have typically avoided very shallow waters when swath bathymetry was needed. The swath width of the best multi-beam echosounders was usually c...

Analysis of organic rich sediment cores within back barrier marine environments allows for reconstruction of recent environmental conditions, including Holocene sedimentation patterns, anthropogenic forcings, and sea level changes. In the ecologically and economically important areas of Nauset Marsh and Pleasant Bay, adjacent to the outer edge of t...

A series of ambiguous features on the seafloor off the coast of Provincetown, Massachusetts USA has been identified in two bathymetric lidar surveys (2007, 2010) conducted by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Similar features in the area have been described as linear scour depressions by other investigators, but at deeper water depths. These features...

Aquaculture has developed into a global industry, providing an increasing portion of the world's food supply. However, aquaculture can cause environmentally and socially adverse impacts if ecosystem carrying capacity is exceeded or resource-use conflicts occur between multiple stakeholders. The definition of sustainable aquaculture has evolved into...

East Harbor is a tidally restricted estuary north of Truro, MA, on Cape Cod. The Harbor is connected to Cape Cod Bay by a culvert with 2.2 m2 cross-sectional area and 200 m length leading to a poorly flushed marsh area which empties into East Harbor. The natural inlet on the north end of the estuary was closed via construction of a dike in 1869, wh...

The United States National Park Service (NPS) is assessing the storm vulnerability of resources in coastal parks. After the active 2004-2005 hurricane seasons a project was initiated to better understand how storms affect the morphology of these areas. Landforms such as barrier islands and spits, open ocean and bayside beaches as well as backbarrie...

The United States National Park Service has begun conducting storm vulnerability assessments in response to past storm events that have impacted natural and cultural resources in coastal parks and in preparation for potential changes due to climate change. Components will be developed to assess, manage and respond to the vulnerability of park resou...

The Cape Lookout cuspate foreland is one of the most prominent features on the North Carolina coast. Composed of two barrier island limbs joined at right angles, a 16-km long shoal complex and a spit that progrades an average of 37 m/yr, the cuspate foreland sequesters an enormous amount of sediment derived from adjacent barrier islands and possibl...

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [83]-87).

Sediment transport in a coastal embayment was documented on multiple spatial and temporal scales. An inlet formed in Chatham Harbor in 1987 and as a result the primary flood-tidal delta began to migrate. The relationship between the evolution of the tidal inlet and the flood-tidal delta was documented using field studies and spatial analyses of geo...