Coastal Changes and Impacts

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...

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 Mexico. 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...

The northern Gulf of Mexico 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...

Seacliff erosion is a serious hazard with implications for coastal management, infrastructure, and residential dwellings; seacliff erosion is often estimated using successive hand digitized cliff tops or bases to assess cliff retreat. Traditionally the recession of the cliff top or cliff base is obtained from aerial photographs, topographic maps, or in situ surveys. The availability of high...

Hurricane Sandy had significant impacts throughout the Chesapeake Bay, altering the topography and ecosystems of this populous coastal region. In response to the storm, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coastal and Marine Geology Program in collaboration with USGS National Geospatial Program, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration developed three-dimensional (3D) topobathymetric...

The primary result of the data processing explained in the Methods section is a polygon feature dataset that locates and describes the areas in the conterminous United States that have experienced significant topographic change during the 20th century.

Image differencing has long been used as an effective change detection technique for coregistered digital remote sensing datasets. One image is simply subtracted from another image on a pixel-by-pixel basis. As applied to gridded DEMs, the result of image differencing is a differential surface, which is a measure of the spatial distribution of mass displacement. In a differential surface, the...

The importance of sea-level rise in shaping coastal landscapes is well recognized within the earth science community, but as with many natural hazards, communicating the risks associated with sea-level rise remains a challenge.

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Elevation Derivatives for National Applications (EDNA) is a seamless, nationwide, multi-layered three-dimensional (3D) hydrologic database derived from a version of the National Elevation Dataset.