Bulkhead line

Bulkhead line is an officially set line along a shoreline, usually beyond the dry land, to demark a territory allowable to be treated as dry land, to separate the jurisdictions of dry land and water authorities, for construction and riparian activities, to establish limits to the allowable obstructions to navigation and other waterfront uses.^[1]

In particular, it may limit the construction of piers in the absence of an official pier line (pierhead line).^[2]

Various jurisdictions may define it in different ways. A formal definition may read as follows: A geographic line along a reach of navigable water that has been adopted by a municipal ordinance and approved by the Department of Natural Resources, and which allows limited filling between this bulkhead line and the original ordinary high water mark, except where such filling is prohibited by the floodway provisions. (Several municipalities in Wisconsin use wording closely approximating this sample.)

Notes

Coastal geography
Landforms	Anchialine pool Archipelago Atoll Avulsion Ayre Barrier island Bay Baymouth bar Bight Bodden Brackish marsh Cape Channel Cliff Coast Coastal plain Coastal waterfall Continental margin Continental shelf Coral reef Cove Dune cliff-top Estuary Firth Fjard Fjord Freshwater marsh Fundus Gat Geo Gulf Gut Headland Inlet Intertidal wetland Island Islet Isthmus Lagoon Machair Marine terrace Mega delta Mouth bar Mudflat Natural arch Peninsula Reef Regressive delta Ria River delta Salt marsh Shoal Shore Skerry Sound Spit Stack Strait Strand plain Submarine canyon Tidal island Tidal marsh Tide pool Tied island Tombolo Windwatt
Beaches	Beach cusps Beach evolution Coastal morphodynamics Beach ridge Beachrock Pocket beach Raised beach Recession Shell beach Shingle beach Storm beach Wash margin
Processes	Blowhole Cliffed coast Coastal biogeomorphology Coastal erosion Concordant coastline Current Cuspate foreland Discordant coastline Emergent coastline Feeder bluff Fetch Flat coast Graded shoreline Headlands and bays Ingression coast Large-scale coastal behaviour Longshore drift Marine regression Marine transgression Raised shoreline Rip current Rocky shore Sea cave Sea foam Shoal Steep coast Submergent coastline Surf break Surf zone Surge channel Swash Undertow Volcanic arc Wave-cut platform Wave shoaling Wind wave Wrack zone
Management	Accretion Coastal management Integrated coastal zone management Submersion
Related	Bulkhead line Grain size boulder clay cobble granule pebble sand shingle silt Intertidal zone Littoral zone Physical oceanography Region of freshwater influence
Category Commons