Goals of this task include developing and improving coastal-change assessments and supporting long-term planning and decision making to ensure sustainable coastal economies, infrastructure, and ecosystems.
Chronic erosion is widespread along most open-ocean coastlines of the U.S. and is an increasing threat to growing coastal populations and associated infrastructure. Long-term coastal change can also impact natural coastal processes and affect sensitive coastal ecosystems. Understanding how the coast has changed in the past and what factors have influenced those changes guides our understanding of what may happen in the future.
As part of the National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards project, the USGS conducts studies of coastal change to better understand long-term coastal evolution and its response to factors such as the cumulative impact of storms, sea-level rise, changes in sediment supply, and human alterations over time periods spanning many decades. Goals of this project include developing and improving coastal-change assessments and supporting long-term planning and decision making to ensure sustainable coastal economies, infrastructure, and ecosystems.
Objectives
- Develop methodology to produce and update nationally-consistent long-term coastal-change analyses that integrate historical data from sources such as maps and photographs with modern data sources such as lidar and satellites.
- Produce a publically-available database of historical shoreline positions that is regularly updated as new data become available.
- Identify and understand the processes that affect long-term coastal change including geomorphology, human impacts, the cumulative impact of storms, and sea level rise.
Below are research tasks and science projects associated with this project.
National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards
Integration of Processes over Different Spatial and Temporal Scales
National Assessment of Coastal Vulnerability to Sea Level Rise
Video Remote Sensing of Coastal Processes
- Overview
Goals of this task include developing and improving coastal-change assessments and supporting long-term planning and decision making to ensure sustainable coastal economies, infrastructure, and ecosystems.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.Oblique aerial photograph looking to the southwest along the southern end of Cedar Island, Virginia. This area is experiencing long-term erosion rates greater than -3.0 meters per year. (Public domain.) Chronic erosion is widespread along most open-ocean coastlines of the U.S. and is an increasing threat to growing coastal populations and associated infrastructure. Long-term coastal change can also impact natural coastal processes and affect sensitive coastal ecosystems. Understanding how the coast has changed in the past and what factors have influenced those changes guides our understanding of what may happen in the future.
As part of the National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards project, the USGS conducts studies of coastal change to better understand long-term coastal evolution and its response to factors such as the cumulative impact of storms, sea-level rise, changes in sediment supply, and human alterations over time periods spanning many decades. Goals of this project include developing and improving coastal-change assessments and supporting long-term planning and decision making to ensure sustainable coastal economies, infrastructure, and ecosystems.
Objectives
- Develop methodology to produce and update nationally-consistent long-term coastal-change analyses that integrate historical data from sources such as maps and photographs with modern data sources such as lidar and satellites.
- Produce a publically-available database of historical shoreline positions that is regularly updated as new data become available.
- Identify and understand the processes that affect long-term coastal change including geomorphology, human impacts, the cumulative impact of storms, and sea level rise.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.Long-term shoreline change rates for several of the Virginia Barrier Islands (left) and the historic shoreline position data used to calculate the rates (right) as viewed in the Coastal Change Hazards portal. (Public domain.) - Science
Below are research tasks and science projects associated with this project.
National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards
Research to identify areas that are most vulnerable to coastal change hazards including beach and dune erosion, long-term shoreline change, and sea-level rise.Integration of Processes over Different Spatial and Temporal Scales
This research uses state-of-the-art observations, numerical models, and model-data assimilation techniques to better understand their cumulative effect on coastal change.National Assessment of Coastal Vulnerability to Sea Level Rise
The original national coastal vulnerability index (CVI) assessment was motivated by expected accelerated sea-level rise (SLR) and the uncertainty in the response of the coastline to SLR. This research was conducted between 1999 and 2001, and is currently being updated using new data sources and methodology. This original study was part of the National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards project.Video Remote Sensing of Coastal Processes
Video observations of the coast 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. - Publications