Whales Tail Marsh, a restored salt pond in South San Francisco Bay, California, is experiencing rapid shoreline erosion. Determining whether the eroded sediment is exported to the ocean or imported via tidal channels and deposited on the marsh platform is critical to understanding the long-term response of the marsh to wave attack and sea-level rise. Quantifying water-column sediment flux helps to characterize the role of tidal channels in this process, and water discharge is a key component of sediment flux. To that end, discharge was measured repeatedly over diurnal tidal cycles in the tidal channels of the Whales Tail Marsh, within Eden Landing Ecological Refuge, California in the summer of 2021 and during king tides in the winter of 2021-2022. These transect data were collected by using a downward-looking Teledyne RDI RiverPro 1200-kilohertz acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP) from a moving boat.

Topographic data were collected in the Whale's Tail marsh in southern San Francisco Bay between December 2021 and January 2022. The topographic data were acquired using global satellite navigation system receivers mounted on backpacks and hiked over the marsh surface.

Topographic data were collected in the Whale's Tail marsh in southern San Francisco Bay between December 2021 and January 2022. The topographic data were acquired using global satellite navigation system receivers mounted on backpacks and hiked over the marsh surface.

Bathymetric data collected in Whales Tail Marsh tidal creeks, South San Francisco Bay, California, in 2023 with a shallow draft vessel equipped with a single-beam sonar system and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver. The bathymetric data are provided in a comma-separated text file.

Hydrodynamic and sediment transport time-series data, including water depth, velocity, turbidity, conductivity, and temperature, were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in South San Francisco Bay and in the Whale's Tail South marsh in Eden Landing Ecological Reserve in Alameda County, CA in 2021 and 2022. Data files are grouped by data type and season (summer and winter). At Bay sites, instruments were deployed on small quadpods. In the tidal creek, instruments were attached to grates mounted directly on the sediment bed. Marsh sites consisted of one transect of six stations perpendicular to the bay-marsh interface, and a second transect perpendicular to a tidal creek. Note that marsh stations were positioned fairly high in the tidal frame (close to the mean higher-high water elevation), so they were inundated less than 10 percent of the time. Instruments at the Bay stations were inundated most of the time but were subaerial at low tide. Data are only valid when the instruments were submerged. Users are advised to assess data quality carefully, and to check metadata for instrument information, as platform deployment times and data-processing methods varied.

Spatial surveys of water column physical properties were acquired with a conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) profiler for five (5) surveys in summer 2021 and three (3) surveys in winter 2021-2022 during king tides along transects of tidal creeks in the Whales Tail Marsh, South San Francisco Bay, California. The data are provided in netCDF files.

Spatial surveys of water column physical properties were acquired with a conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) profiler for five (5) surveys in summer 2021 and three (3) surveys in winter 2021-2022 during king tides along transects of tidal creeks in the Whales Tail Marsh, South San Francisco Bay, California. The data are provided in netCDF files.

This portion of the data release presents digital surface models (DSM) of the Whale's Tail Marsh region of South San Francisco Bay, CA. The DSMs have resolutions of 5 centimeters per pixel and were derived from structure-from-motion (SfM) processing of repeat aerial imagery collected from fixed-wing aircraft. Unlike a digital elevation model (DEM), a DSM represents the elevation of the highest object within the bounds of a cell. Vegetation, structures, and other objects have not been removed from the data. The raw imagery used to create these elevation models was acquired from an approximate altitude of 427 meters (1,400 feet) above ground level (AGL), using a Hasselblad A6D-100c camera fitted with an HC 80 lens, resulting in a nominal ground-sample-distance (GSD) of 2.5 centimeters per pixel. The acquisition flight lines were designed to provide approximately 50 percent overlap between adjacent flight lines (sidelap), with approximately 70 percent overlap between sequential images along the flight line (forelap). Survey control was established using an onboard camera-synchronized dual-frequency GPS system as well as ground control points (GCPs) distributed throughout the survey area and measured using survey-grade post-processed kinematic (PPK) GPS. Both the data from the onboard GPS and from the GPS used to measure the GCPs were post-processed using a nearby Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) station operated by the National Geodetic Survey (NGS). Structure-from-motion processing of these data was conducted using a "4D" processing workflow in which imagery from each of the different acquisition dates were co-aligned in order to increase relative spatial precision between the final data products. The resulting DSMs have been formatted as cloud optimized GeoTIFFs with internal overviews and masks to facilitate cloud-based queries and display.

Topographic data were collected in the Corte Madera Marsh, San Pablo National Wildlife Refuge Marsh, and at the time-series stations in the shallows adjacent to each marsh in Northern San Francisco Bay between April 2022 and September 2023. The topographic data were acquired using global satellite navigation system receivers that were either mounted on backpacks and hiked over the marsh surface or mounted on a survey rod held shipside against a deployed platform or on the water surface. Sometimes an additional staff was used in conjunction with the shipside survey rod to reach the platform, which we refer to as an integrated collection method.

Topographic data were collected in the Corte Madera Marsh, San Pablo National Wildlife Refuge Marsh, and at the time-series stations in the shallows adjacent to each marsh in Northern San Francisco Bay between April 2022 and September 2023. The topographic data were acquired using global satellite navigation system receivers that were either mounted on backpacks and hiked over the marsh surface or mounted on a survey rod held shipside against a deployed platform or on the water surface. Sometimes an additional staff was used in conjunction with the shipside survey rod to reach the platform, which we refer to as an integrated collection method.