John Haines (Former Employee)

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Geospatial Program's 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) aims to collect new light detection and ranging (lidar) data over the same areas on an 8-year return cycle. Between lidar surveys, there may be significant differences in bare- and non-bare earth heights due to both natural and human-induced geomorphic changes that occur. Therefore, research methods are...

Scientific research and applications assessing coastal landscape change and vulnerability are critical for applications such as shoreline mapping, hydrodynamic modeling, coastal vulnerability, and coastal geomorphology studies. However, very little ground truth data are available within the intertidal zone and adjacent beaches.

Defining near-shore water depth (bathymetry) is problematic because ships cannot operate close to the shore while collecting acoustic bathymetric soundings. Alternatively, optical green laser lidar sensors have been used to collect bathymetric points, however, these types of lidar acquisitions are costly for the footprint collected and are subject to bathymetric inaccuracies in turbid water...

This image is a topobathymetric elevation model of a part of the Mississippi River in New Orleans, Louisiana, and is an example of inland bathymetry in the northern Gulf of America. This regional topobathymetric elevation model includes airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) point clouds, hydrographic surveys, side-scan sonar surveys, and multibeam surveys obtained from USGS, NOAA, the State...

This study explores the feasibility of using high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) constructed from airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) surveys to develop an automated procedure to extract levee longitudinal elevation profiles for both federal levees in Atchafalaya Basin and local levees in Lafourche Parish, south Louisiana. This approach can successfully accommodate abrupt...

The northern Gulf of America coast of the United States has been identified as highly vulnerable to sea-level rise (SLR), based on a combination of physical and societal factors. Vulnerability of human populations and infrastructure to projected increases in sea level is a critical area of uncertainty for communities in the extremely low-lying and flat northern gulf coastal zone. A rapidly growing...