A GIS Model for Identification and Classification of Carolina Bays

Abstract

Although Georgia and South Carolina have created inventories of Carolina bays, North Carolina has no such inventory. This article proposes some primary characteristics for classifying depression wetlands as Carolina bays using cartographic modeling and GIS to inventory the bays of Bladen County, North Carolina. A category classification system is demonstrated to effectively represent differences in the kinds of bays in the study region. Carolina bays were selected manually and ranked on a 6 inch resolution. The model successfully identified 79.5% of the bays. This research offers the first step toward a unified definition of Carolina bays and offers a potential alternative to manual digitization.