Coastal Sediment Availability and Flux (CSAF)

Barrier Islands as Connected Systems

With a wealth of knowledge about how shorelines, beaches, and dunes respond to storms and the variability of inner shelf geology, the USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program is poised to extend its morphologic and geologic expertise across the shoreface and back-barrier data gaps. Shoreface geology is particularly important to assess since it may record evidence of processes that we otherwise don’t have the opportunities or capabilities to observe. With these goals in mind, we measure geology and morphology in coastal environments to reconstruct past environmental histories and estimate the magnitude and rate of sediment exchanges (e.g., fluxes) over a range of time scales. Integration of these observations with models allows us to predict past and future behavior of barrier-island systems in a changing climate and provides information to help our partners mitigate coastal hazards and identify coastal restoration priorities. 

Project Objectives: 

• Incorporate shoreface morphology and geology into coastal-change assessments 
• Conduct repeat geophysical surveys to estimate sediment fluxes with better accuracy and temporal resolution 
• Understand how coastal systems respond to storms, variations in sediment supply and rate of sea-level rise over short (1-10s year) and long (100-1000 year) time scales 
• Make predictions of future (long-term) coastal vulnerability and resilience rooted in robust morphologic and geologic observations 

Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details