Integrated Land Change Monitoring

The Coastal National Elevation Database Applications Project supports scientific research and applications assessing restoration, redevelopment, and protection projects in the Hurricane Sandy impact areas along New Jersey and New York coastal beaches.

Scientific research and applications assessing coastal landscape change and vulnerability are critical for applications such as shoreline mapping, hydrodynamic modeling, coastal vulnerability, and coastal geomorphology studies. However, very little ground truth data are available within the intertidal zone and adjacent beaches.

Defining near-shore water depth (bathymetry) is problematic because ships cannot operate close to the shore while collecting acoustic bathymetric soundings. Alternatively, optical green laser lidar sensors have been used to collect bathymetric points, however, these types of lidar acquisitions are costly for the footprint collected and are subject to bathymetric inaccuracies in turbid water...

This study explores the feasibility of using high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) constructed from airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) surveys to develop an automated procedure to extract levee longitudinal elevation profiles for both federal levees in Atchafalaya Basin and local levees in Lafourche Parish, south Louisiana. This approach can successfully accommodate abrupt...

This image is a topobathymetric elevation model of a part of the Mississippi River in New Orleans, Louisiana, and is an example of inland bathymetry in the northern Gulf of America. This regional topobathymetric elevation model includes airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) point clouds, hydrographic surveys, side-scan sonar surveys, and multibeam surveys obtained from USGS, NOAA, the State...

The northern Gulf of America coast of the United States has been identified as highly vulnerable to sea-level rise (SLR), based on a combination of physical and societal factors. Vulnerability of human populations and infrastructure to projected increases in sea level is a critical area of uncertainty for communities in the extremely low-lying and flat northern gulf coastal zone. A rapidly growing...

Seacliff erosion is a serious hazard with implications for coastal management, infrastructure, and residential dwellings; seacliff erosion is often estimated using successive hand digitized cliff tops or bases to assess cliff retreat. Traditionally the recession of the cliff top or cliff base is obtained from aerial photographs, topographic maps, or in situ surveys. The availability of high...

When Atlantic hurricanes make landfall in south Florida, the coastal marshes and mangrove forests of the Everglades often act as a buffer that protects residents from rising sea levels, high winds and storm surge.

The USGS Land Change Monitoring, Assessment, and Projection initiative aims to identify where the landscape is changing and why.

Hurricane Sandy had significant impacts throughout the Chesapeake Bay, altering the topography and ecosystems of this populous coastal region. In response to the storm, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coastal and Marine Geology Program in collaboration with USGS National Geospatial Program, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration developed three-dimensional (3D) topobathymetric...

Light detection and ranging (lidar) wave-form processing capabilities are being developed to utilize the U.S. Geological Survey Coastal and Marine Geology Program Experimental Advanced Airborne Research (EAARL) sensor. The EAARL lidar point cloud collection consists of highly detailed submerged and shallow bathymetry (water depth) of river channels, which will be merged with land elevation...

The following provides a short synopsis of current and recently completely projects using USGS EROS’ FORE-SCE model, and where applicable, links to download data. Additional project information and data will be made available as our research progresses.