Barrier Islands

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.

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...

Sediments are the foundation of coastal systems, including barrier islands. Their behavior is driven by not only sediment availability, but also sediment exchanges between barrier island environments. We collect geophysical, remote sensing, and sediment data to estimate these parameters, which are integrated with models to improve prediction of coastal response to extreme storms and sea-level rise...

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...

Regional-scale modeling forecasts how atmospheric forcing and oceanographic circulation influence estuarine circulation and water levels, sediment transport, and wetland change.

Assessments include depiction of trends (the past points to the future), updated observations (topography/bathymetry), and predicted sensitivity of barrier island evolution to possible climatologies and restoration plans.

Quantifying changes in morphology and sediment distribution over short time scales will demonstrate how geologic variability influences medium-term barrier island response and near-term barrier island trajectories and help to refine sedimentological boundary conditions for morphologic evolution models.

Numerical models compliment the collection of geophysical data by hindcasting and forecasting sediment transport pathways, natural island trajectories, and berm/island interactions over larger and higher resolution domains and time periods.

Video observations of Sand Key, Florida, are used to monitor a range of coastal processes, for example changes in the shoreline position, both seasonally and due to long-term effects such as sea-level rise, and instances of beach and dune erosion during extreme storm events.

Historical and newly acquired data were used to assess and monitor changes in the aerial and subaqueous extent of islands, habitat types, sediment properties, environmental processes, and vegetation composition.

In response to storms, reduced sediment supply, and sea-level rise, Breton Island is rapidly deteriorating, impacting the available nesting habitat of endangered seabirds. This study provides critical information regarding the physical environment of the island system.