Coastal Margins

This informational webpage provides an overview to community planners and emergency managers regarding the coastal hazards associated with collision, a regime within the storm impact scale. This page describes the conditions that lead to a collision regime and the risks it poses to local resources. Collision is the second of four storm impact regimes, and the first regime where substantial impacts...

This informational webpage provides an overview to community planners and emergency managers regarding the coastal hazards associated with inundation, a regime within the storm impact scale. This page describes the conditions that lead to the inundation regime and the risks it poses to the beach and adjacent communities. Inundation is the fourth of four storm-impact regimes and is the most severe...

This informational webpage provides an overview to community planners and emergency managers regarding coastal hazards associated with overwash, a regime within the storm impact scale. This page describes the conditions that lead to the overwash regime and the risks it poses to the beach and local community. Overwash is the third of four storm-impact regimes and leads to considerable impacts on...

This informational webpage describes the swash regime, including depictions of the beach complex under its influence (Image 1), the conditions that define it, and any risks to the beach complex. Swash is the first of four storm-impact regimes, with minimal to no impacts expected from it.

This webpage provides a technical description of how water levels are defined and calculated during a coastal storm event (such as a hurricane). It describes how the USGS team calculates the peak water level against which a reference beach complex is modeled in order to determine risks.

This webpage expands on the concept of the beach complex introduced on the storm-impact regime homepage. It clarifies the morphological (beach shape) markers used to assess the impact of elevated water levels and relates them to the swash, collision, overwash, and inundation regimes. It also introduces additional terms used by professionals to describe these same features (such as dune toe and...

This webpage provides technical details regarding how the USGS calculates beach metrics related to morphology features; specifically, the dune crest position and elevation, the dune base/toe position and elevation and beach slope. This is a brief overview of that process with links and references to the full source material.

This webpage explains coastal hazards caused by high water at the coast. These high-water levels, called "total water levels," happen when tides, waves, and storms combine and push the ocean higher than normal. This page provides an overview for community planners, emergency managers, and anyone else who wants to understand these risks.

DUring Nearshore Event eXperiment (DUNEX) is a multi-agency, academic, and non-governmental organization (NGO) collaborative community experiment designed to study nearshore coastal processes during storm events. The experiment began in 2019 and is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2021. USGS participation in DUNEX will contribute new measurements and models that will increase our...

Coastal environments are dynamic systems that provide high ecological, economical, recreational, and cultural value. Managing coastal systems requires a comprehensive understanding of the complex interactions between geological and ecological processes, as well as the ability to predict both the near-term and long-term impacts of storms and sea-level rise. The Coastal Resource Evaluation for...

The goal of the Estuarine and MaRsh Geology (EMRG) Research Project is to study how and where short- and long-term marsh and estuarine coastal processes interact, how they influence coastal accretion or erosion, and how they pre-condition a marsh’s resiliency to storms, sea-level change, and human alterations along the northern Gulf of America (Grand Bay and Point aux Chenes, Mississippi and St...

Fire Island is a 50-km long barrier island along the south shore of Long Island, New York. The island is comprised of seventeen year-round communities; federal, state, and county parks; and supports distinct ecosystems alongside areas of economic and cultural value. In addition to providing resources to its residents, the barrier island also protects the heavily-populated mainland from storm waves...