Remote Sensing Coastal Change
Science Center Objects
We use remote-sensing technologies—such as aerial photography, satellite imagery, structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry, and lidar (laser-based surveying)—to measure coastal change along U.S. shorelines.
Quantifying coastal change is essential for calculating trends in erosion, evaluating processes that shape coastal landscapes, and predicting how the coast will respond to future storms and sea-level rise, all critical for U.S. coastal communities.
Rapid developments have occurred in remote-sensing technologies during the 21st century. With our collaborators in and beyond the Department of the Interior, we seek to apply these technologies in innovative ways to advance understanding of coastal systems and their hazards.
Using video imagery to study coastal change
Currently, video cameras are installed at these locations:
- Dream Inn hotel in Santa Cruz, California
- Head of the Meadow Beach, Massachusetts
- Tres Palmas in Rincón, Puerto Rico
USGS researchers analyze the imagery and video collected from these cameras in order to remotely sense a range of processes, which include shoreline position, sandbar migration, rip-channel formation, wave run-up on the beach, alongshore current, and nearshore bathymetry.
USGS plans to install similar systems in other remote locations. The knowledge gained will improve computer-derived simulations of coastal flooding and shoreline change that communities can use to plan for sea-level rise, changing storm patterns, and other threats to beaches.
The Mud Creek landslide on California’s Big Sur coast
On May 20, 2017, the steep slopes at Mud Creek on California’s Big Sur coast, about 140 miles south of San Francisco, suffered a catastrophic collapse. USGS Scientists from the Pacific Coastal and Marine and the Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Centers are monitoring this section of the coastline, in collaboration with the California Department of Transportation.
USGS air photo of the Mud Creek landslide, taken on May 27, 2017.
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Date published: October 8, 2020Status: ActiveUsing Video Imagery to Study Coastal Change: Santa Cruz Beaches
Two video cameras atop the Dream Inn hotel in Santa Cruz, California, overlook the coast in northern Monterey Bay. One camera looks eastward over Santa Cruz Main Beach and boardwalk, while the other looks southward over Cowells Beach.
Contacts: Jonathan Warrick -
Date published: October 8, 2020Status: ActiveUsing Video Imagery to Study Wave Dynamics: Tres Palmas
Four video cameras look westward over the coast and the coral reef at Tres Palmas in Rincón, on the west coast of Puerto Rico. Two cameras look out at the horizon and over the ocean for the mid-field view; one camera offers a zoomed-in, far-field view overlooking the reef and out to the island of Desecheo, a U.S. National Wildlife Refuge; and another camera focuses on the beach.
Contacts: Curt Storlazzi, PhD, Miguel Canals-Silander, Patricia Chardon Maldonado -
Date published: August 25, 2020Status: ActiveSQUID-5 camera system
The SQUID-5 is a Structure-from-Motion Quantitative Underwater Imaging Device with 5 cameras.
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Date published: March 2, 2020Status: CompletedUsing Video Imagery to Study Coastal Change: Sunset State Beach
USGS scientists installed two video cameras overlooking the coast at Sunset State Beach in Watsonville, California, to better understand nearshore processes and how they change seasonally and during storms.
Contacts: Jonathan Warrick -
Date published: November 29, 2019Status: CompletedUsing Video Imagery to Study Coastal Change: Whidbey Island
From May of 2018 through November of 2019, USGS scientists collected imagery from video cameras overlooking the coast along a beach on Whidbey Island, Island County at the northern boundary of Puget Sound in western Washington.
Contacts: Eric Grossman -
Date published: October 17, 2019Status: ActiveUsing Video Imagery to Study Wave Dynamics: Unalakleet
USGS scientists installed two video cameras atop a windmill tower in Unalakleet, Alaska, pointing westward over Norton Sound, to observe and quantify coastal processes such as wave run-up, development of rip channels, bluff erosion, and movement of sandbars and ice floes.
Contacts: Ann Gibbs, Li Erikson -
Date published: July 22, 2019Status: CompletedUsing Video Imagery to Study Wave Dynamics: Isla Verde
USGS scientists installed video cameras atop a building and oceanographic instruments off San Juan, Puerto Rico, to better understand how waves move across coral reefs and cause flooding on tropical shorelines.
Contacts: Curt Storlazzi, PhD -
Date published: April 1, 2019Status: CompletedUsing Video Imagery to Study Coastal Change: Barter Island, Alaska
For a short study period, two video cameras overlooked the coast from atop the coastal bluff of Barter Island in northern Alaska. The purpose was to observe and quantify coastal processes such as wave run-up, development of rip channels, bluff erosion, and movement of sandbars and ice floes.
Contacts: Li Erikson, Ann Gibbs -
Date published: December 7, 2017Status: ActiveThe Mud Creek landslide on California’s Big Sur coast
On May 20, 2017, the steep slopes at Mud Creek on California’s Big Sur coast, about 140 miles south of San Francisco, suffered a catastrophic collapse. USGS Scientists from the Pacific Coastal and Marine and the Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Centers are monitoring this section of the coastline, in collaboration with the California Department of Transportation.
Littoral sediment from rivers: Patterns, rates and processes of river mouth morphodynamics
Rivers provide important sediment inputs to many littoral cells, thereby replenishing sand and gravel of beaches around the world. However, there is limited information about the patterns and processes of littoral-grade sediment transfer from rivers into coastal systems. Here I address these information gaps by examining topographic and...
Warrick, Jonathan
Cliff Feature Delineation Tool and Baseline Builder version 1.0 user guide
Coastal cliffs constitute 80 percent of the world’s coastline, with seacliffs fronting a large proportion of the U.S. West Coast shoreline, particularly in California. Erosion of coastal cliffs can threaten infrastructure and human life, yet the spatial and temporal scope of cliff studies have been limited by cumbersome traditional methods that...
Seymour, Alexander C.; Hapke, Cheryl J.; Warrick, Jonathan Accurate bathymetric maps from underwater digital imagery without ground control
Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry can be used with digital underwater photographs to generate high-resolution bathymetry and orthomosaics with millimeter-to-centimeter scale resolution at relatively low cost. Although these products are useful for assessing species diversity and health, they have additional utility for quantifying benthic...
Hatcher, Gerry; Warrick, Jonathan; Ritchie, Andrew C.; Dailey, Evan; Zawada, David G.; Kranenburg, Christine; Yates, Kimberly K. Optical wave gauging using deep neural networks
We develop a remote wave gauging technique to estimate wave height and period from imagery of waves in the surf zone. In this proof-of-concept study, we apply the same framework to three datasets: the first, a set of close-range monochrome infrared (IR) images of individual nearshore waves at Duck, NC, USA; the second, a set of visible (i.e. RGB)...
Buscombe, Daniel; Carini, Roxanne J; Harrison, Shawn; Chickadel, C Chris; Warrick, Jonathan Commentary: Variability in shelf sedimentation in response to fluvial sediment supply and coastal erosion over the past 1,000 Years in Monterey Bay, CA, United States
A commentary on: Variability in Shelf Sedimentation in Response to Fluvial Sediment Supply and Coastal Erosion Over the Past 1,000 Years in Monterey Bay, CA, United States. by Carlin J., Addison J., Wagner A., Schwartz V., Hayward J., Severin V. (2019) Front. Earth Sci., 7:113. doi: 10.3389/feart.2019.00113
Warrick, Jonathan; East, Amy E.; Storlazzi, Curt D.; Conrad, James E. Characterizing the catastrophic 2017 Mud Creek Landslide, California, using repeat Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry
Along the rugged coast of Big Sur, California, the Mud Creek landslide failed catastrophically on May 20, 2017 and destroyed over 400 m of scenic California State Highway 1. We collected structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry data using airborne platforms that, when combined with existing airborne lidar data, revealed that the area exhibited...
Warrick, Jonathan; Ritchie, Andrew C.; Reid, Mark E.; Schmidt, Kevin M.; Logan, Joshua B.
Decadal-scale analysis of coastal landslides along the Big Sur coast: rates and processes
Hapke, Cheryl J.; Green, Krystal R.
Rates of landsliding and cliff retreat along the Big Sur Coast, California--measuring a crucial baseline
Hapke, Cheryl J.; Green, Krystal R. Map showing coastal cliff retreat rates along the Big Sur coast, Monterey and San Luis Obispo Counties, California
The average coastal cliff retreat rate along the Big Sur coast is 18 ? 6 cm/yr as measured over a 52-year time period. The erosion reference features measured as the cliff edge include the well-defined cliff edges common to marine terraces, slight breaks in the slope defining the upper edge of the active lower slope, and the road grade. Cliff...
Hapke, Cheryl J.; Green, Krystal R. Maps showing estimated sediment yield from coastal landslides and active slope distribution along the Big Sur coast, Monterey and San Luis Obispo Counties, California
The 1982-83 and 1997-98 El Ni?os brought very high precipitation to California?s central coast; this precipitation resulted in raised groundwater levels, coastal flooding, and destabilized slopes throughout the region. Large landslides in the coastal mountains of Big Sur in Monterey and San Luis Obispo Counties blocked sections of California State...
Hapke, Cheryl J.; Green, Krystal R.; Dallas, Kate Beach systems: sediment yield from Big Sur coastal landslides
No abstract available.
Hapke, Cheryl-
Date published: May 4, 2020SQUID-5 structure-from-motion point clouds, bathymetric maps, orthomosaics, and underwater photos of coral reefs in Florida, 2019
The new structure-from-motion (SfM) quantitative underwater imaging device with five cameras (SQUID-5) was tested in July 2019 at Crocker Reef in the Florida Keys. The SQUID-5 was developed to meet the unique challenges of collecting SfM underwater imagery, including multiple cameras with different perspectives, accurate geographic locations of images, accurate and precise scaling of derived...
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Date published: March 18, 2019Topographic point clouds for the Mud Creek landslide, Big Sur, California from structure-from-motion photogrammetry from aerial photographs
This data release contains structure-from-motion (SfM) point-cloud data from aerial surveys conducted over the Mud Creek landslide on Big Sur from 1967-2018. Data sources include scanned aerial photographs, digital images collected from fixed-wing aircraft, and digital images collected from multirotor UAS.
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Date published: August 25, 2020
squid5-software
squid5-software was developed for and is used by the structure-from-motion (SfM) quantitative underwater imaging device with five cameras (SQUID-5) project.
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Date published: August 19, 2020Cliff Feature Delineation Tool and Baseline Builder
The Cliff Feature Delineation Tool scans digital elevation models (DEM) to delineate features on seacliffs like the cliff top, midline, toe, and convexities/concavities on the cliff face, outputting linear features as polylines and point shapefiles.
Eyes on the Coast—Video Cameras Help Forecast Coastal Change
Coastal communities count on beaches for recreation and for protection from large waves, but beaches are vulnerable to threats such as erosion by storms and flooding. Whether beaches grow, shrink, or even disappear depends in part on what happens just offshore. How do features like shifting sandbars affect waves, currents, and the movement of sand from the beach to offshore and back?
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Date published: November 29, 2018Studying flood hazards in San Juan, Puerto Rico
USGS scientists from Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, along with with NOAA, the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, and Arrecifes Pro Ciudad, are using video imagery and wave measurements to study flood hazards in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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Date published: September 12, 2018USGS coastal flood maps assist emergency planning for Hurricane Lane
As Hurricane Lane approached Hawaiʻi, personnel in the Honolulu Emergency Operations Center on Oahu contacted Curt Storlazzi of the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center to ask for information on potential coastal flooding that could help them direct emergency-management services to areas of higher risk.
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Date published: September 7, 2018Hurricane Maria’s impacts on deep-water coral reefs off Puerto Rico
USGS research geologist Curt Storlazzi was quoted in an August 22 Nature news article about Hurricane Maria’s effects on deep-water coral reefs off Puerto Rico.
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Date published: July 18, 2018Time-lapse view of California Highway 1 reconstruction after 2017 landslide
USGS scientists produced an animated GIF in coordination with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) re-opening of State Highway 1 through Big Sur on July 18, 2018.
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Date published: May 30, 2018Video cameras monitor coastal change on Whidbey Island, Washington
Video cameras installed by the USGS Remote Sensing Coastal Change project overlook the coast on Whidbey Island, Washington, about 25 miles north of Seattle.
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Date published: November 15, 2017LA Times story about Big Sur landslide features quotes, imagery from USGS
USGS geologists Jon Warrick (Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center) and Kevin Schmidt (Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center) are quoted in a November 9 Los Angeles Times story titled “Highway 1 was buried under a massive landslide. Months later, engineers battle Mother Nature to fix it...
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Date published: November 6, 2017Video shot from drones yields details about changing landslide on California’s Big Sur coast
On October 12, USGS drones collected video footage of the Mud Creek landslide, which buried California State Highway 1 under a third-of-a-mile-wide mass of rock and dirt on May 20.
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Date published: July 14, 2017USGS maps underwater part of Big Sur landslide at Mud Creek
Scientists from the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center mapped the offshore extent of the Mud Creek landslide on California’s Big Sur coast on July 11, 2017.
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Date published: July 11, 2017
Huge landslide on California’s Big Sur coast continues to change
The Mud Creek landslide on California’s Big Sur coast keeps eroding.
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Date published: June 15, 2017New Land Created by Slide on Big Sur Coast is Eroding
USGS analysis of air photos collected June 13 shows that new land created by a May 20 landslide on California’s Big Sur coast is eroding.
Attribution: Natural Hazards, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center