Plante, C.J. and Cooper, C., 2021. A new dyed-plug method for measuring short-term erosion and deposition in coastal environments. Journal of Coastal Research, 37(6), 1294–1298. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.

A new, easy-to-use method to measure short-term net erosion/deposition and maximum erosion in intertidal and subtidal areas is described. The method uses dyed-sediment plugs inserted vertically into the substratum that are later resampled by a corer and read to determine plug length and depth below the sediment surface. The precision of the method was determined by repeated measurements on an intertidal sandbar, and erosion/deposition over multiple tidal cycles was compared to the erosion-pin method. Precision (95% confidence interval) was about ±2 mm, and net and maximum erosion were indistinguishable from that estimated using erosion pins. With modifications, the method also performed well in subtidal areas and in muddy sediment. The dyed-plug method has advantages over erosion pins, and various other methods used to measure sediment elevation change, for particular uses, such as in high-energy environments, subtidal waters, and sampling designs that require high replication or broad spatial coverage.