During the coming decades, coastlines will respond to widely predicted sea-level rise, storm surge, and coastal inundation flooding from disastrous events, such as hurricanes or nor'easters
Physical processes in the coastal environments are controlled by the geomorphology of both "over-the-land" topography and "underwater" bathymetry; therefore, many applications of geospatial data in coastal environments require detailed knowledge of near-shore topography and bathymetry (topobathymetry). High-resolution coastal elevation data is critical to depict regions prone to these climate change impacts, and are essential to planners and managers responsible for mitigating the associated risks and costs to both human communities and ecosystems.
By progressively constructing enhanced integrated topobathymetric elevation models for an evolving set of U.S. coastal regions and ecosystems, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coastal National Elevation Database Applications (CoNED) Project provides important information for a range of applications needed for climate change analysis in sensitive coastal regions, including:
- Flood hazard mapping and inundation
- Sea-level rise
- Sediment transport
- Storm surge
- Coastal redevelopment planning
- Restoration, redevelopment, and protection
- Cliff metric development and analysis
- Coastal geomorphology analysis
