Coastal Change

Eighteen USGS coastal scientists from all four coasts of the conterminous United States are working together to advance the understanding of climate change and sea-level rise impacts to coastal wetlands.

USGS scientists use marine geological archives to investigate how ocean temperature, salinity and circulation patterns changed over the past few centuries to millennia. This is done by analyzing the geochemical and physical clues about past environments that are preserved in fossil coral skeletons, clam shells, foraminifera and marine sediments.

In order to enhance habitat for nesting Brown Pelicans, terns, Black Skimmers, and gulls, the USFWS has contracted with USGS to conduct project monitoring on North Breton Island from FY23 to FY31. Monitoring conducted by USGS will facilitate evaluation of habitat characteristics and determine restoration success or need for adaptive management.

This page is a collection of USGS coastal hazard research in Puerto Rico, including shoreline changes, coral reef assessments, and coastal flooding. A brief description of highlighted projects can be found below. All coastal hazard publications, data releases, and news for Puerto Rico can be accessed on this page. Esta página es una recopilación de investigaciones del USGS sobre los riesgos...

Discover USGS products, tools, and data with the Coastal Science Navigator! The Coastal Science Navigator serves as a gateway to USGS Coastal Change Hazards resources and assists users in finding products and tools that will meet their specific needs.

The goal of the estuarine shoreline change project is to define shoreline positions for historical and modern wetland shorelines and calculate rates of change along the U.S. East and Gulf coasts.

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 potential vulnerability of a particular stretch of coast can be assessed using a conceptual model that scales the impacts of storms on barrier islands.

Natural processes such as waves, tides, and weather, continually change coastal landscapes. The integrity of coastal homes, businesses, and infrastructure can be threatened by hazards associated with event-driven changes, such as extreme storms and their impacts on beach and dune erosion, or longer-term, cumulative changes associated with coastal and marine processes, such as sea-level rise...

Geologic proxies may shed light on long-term environmental trends and stability of the Louisiana coastal marsh. The combined processes of accretion, sea-level rise and subsidence influence wetland elevation and determine marsh stability.

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...