Bulkhead line is an officially set line along a

shoreline A shore or a shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past a ...

, 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 A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks a ...

activities, to establish limits to the allowable obstructions to

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

and other waterfront uses. In particular, it may limit the construction of piers in the absence of an official

pierhead line A pierhead line is a legal boundary beyond which artificial structures (such as piers) may not be built into navigable waters. As part of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, the United States federal government may fix pierhead and bulkhead line ...

. 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 This article lists subnational environmental agencies in the United States, by state. Agencies with a variety of titles and responsibilities are included, e.g. Department of Environment, Department of Environmental Conservation, Department of E ...

, and which allows limited filling between this bulkhead line and the original

ordinary high water mark A high water mark is a point that represents the maximum rise of a body of water over land. Such a mark is often the result of a flood, but high water marks may reflect an all-time high, an annual high (highest level to which water rose that ...

, except where such filling is prohibited by the floodway provisions.'' (Several municipalities in

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

use wording closely approximating this sample.)

References

Coastal geography {{Hydrology-stub