One percent of Virginia’s coastal land is publicly owned, a report to the Middle Peninsula Chesapeake Bay Public Access Authority said.

During a meeting Friday at the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission office in Saluda, the authority reviewed a report that said “thanks to the generosity of land donors, Virginians are gaining access to the water.”

Harrison Bresee, regional planner for MPPDC, which provides staff for the authority, said the PAA began accepting land donations in 2006. So far, the authority has been given eight parcels in Mathews, four in Gloucester (with three others in the paperwork phases of donation), three in King and Queen, and one each in Essex and Middlesex.

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science has received a National Fish and Wildlife Federation grant to study about a dozen of the authority’s donated sites, Bresee said. The study will determine measures to protect the shorelines of these properties. Bresee said land donors...