Long-term Shoreline Change for Florida and Georgia
Coastal erosion is a long-term, persistent hazard to coastal populations, infrastructure, and natural resources along the coasts of Florida and Georgia.
The shoreline position and change rate are used to quantify historical coastal change at decadal to centennial timescales, and identify factors that may have influenced those changes. Understanding these dynamics also allows forecasting of shoreline location, which can be used to identify and prioritize hazard mitigation strategies regarding private property, public infrastructure and natural resources.
The U.S. Geological Survey’s Coastal Change Hazards program has proven the utility of our well-established methods to develop and maintain national-scale shoreline databases and associated change rates for the region (Himmelstoss and others, 2017, Kratzmann and others, 2017 and Morton and Miller, 2005).
The goal of this project is to map historical shoreline positions prior to and following hurricane Irma along the sandy shorelines of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts of Florida and the coast of Georgia. These shoreline positions will be added to an existing national database of shoreline data extending from the mid-1800s through 1998-2000. New shoreline positions extracted from lidar data collected between 2004-2017 will be used to update the shoreline change rates using the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) software along sandy beaches where existing historical data has already been compiled. During the 17-year time period over which we do not currently have any shoreline position data, a series of hurricanes have impacted this region and updates to the rates with additional shoreline positions from this time period will make the shoreline change analysis more reflective of the current trends and potentially provide sufficient temporal density to relate short-term trends and vulnerability to longer-term hazards. All of the shoreline positions and updated shoreline change rates will be visualized in our Coastal Change Hazards Portal to will provide actionable information to homeowners, coastal communities, and managers of public and private properties to improve resiliency for long-term hazards.
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