Current Projects
NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office Support
The goal of this project is to ensure that the remote sensing needs for the Chesapeake Bay and Mid-Atlantic region are identified, gathered, communicated, and met. The project reviews regional remote-sensing product validation requirements and identifies development opportunities that integrate remote-sensing data with other data sets and decision-support tools in the Chesapeake region. (ongoing)
Regional Coastal Water Quality
Coastal water quality and nonpoint-source pollution are priority watershed issues for coastal communities. Participation from the Center’s regional staff play an important role in many of these efforts. In California, staff provides key support for the development of a statewide water quality education and technical assistance organization, the California Water and Land Use Partnership. Staff in the mid-Atlantic initiated the Chesapeake Bay Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO) program in partnership with the National NEMO Network and Center for Watershed Protection. In the Northeast, an assessment of the existing efforts in the Gulf of Maine watershed is being undertaken to help the organization decide how to focus its efforts more strategically. (2006-2008)
NOAA Regional Collaboration Support
NOAA regional collaboration is an effort to improve NOAA products, services, partnerships, and stakeholder relations. The effort is led by eight newly established regional teams and four national priority area task teams. These teams work together to represent NOAA’s regional and national capabilities. They provide the coordination necessary for NOAA to address regionally distinct priorities and its own national priorities of hazard-resilient communities, integrated ecosystem assessments, integrated water resource services, and outreach and communication. The NOAA Coastal Services Center currently has one or more members on five of the eight regional teams (Gulf of Mexico, North Atlantic, Pacific, Western, and Southeast and Caribbean) and two of four priority area task teams (hazard-resilient coastal communities and outreach and communications). This includes leadership of the Pacific region, the Southeast and Caribbean region, the New England sub-region of the North Atlantic, and the hazard-resilient coastal communities priority area task teams. (ongoing)
Land Cover Mapping
Nothing provides a big picture view of land cover status better than these maps, which are developed using remote sensing technology.
The NOAA Coastal Services Center has baseline land cover data for most of the coastal zone. The goal is to update the imagery every five years
to also provide a means of detecting change or trends. The data is available free of charge from csc.noaa.gov/landcover.
Completed Projects
Beach Nourishment on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the U.S.
This project helps state and local governments along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the U.S. make informed decisions about the nourishment of beaches by consolidating the best scientific and technical information and tools for evaluating and understanding beach nourishment into one source. This resource is a user-friendly Web site that includes relevant information and tools from the fields of coastal geology, engineering, economics, law and policy, and the biological sciences.
Coastal Management Fellowship
A Coastal Management Fellow worked with the Delaware Coastal Management Program to coordinate the development of a decision-making policy that provides a clear outline and guidance for the identification of problems related to dredging operations. In addition, the fellow developed an information management system to facilitate and expedite a comprehensive review of projects.
Coastal Management Fellowship
A Coastal Management Fellow is working with the Delaware Coastal Management Program on a project entitled "Tracking and Monitoring System for Coastal Non-point Pollution Control Program (CNPCP)." The project creates a system for tracking nonpoint pollution control activities, creating a method for analyzing the effectiveness of the CNPCP on water quality control, and beginning the long-term collection of data about program areas requiring improvements.
COMPAS Delaware
Under a grant from the Center, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control developed a geographic information system-based approach for examining environmental impacts from dredging and nonpoint source runoff.
Protected Areas GIS (PAGIS)
The PAGIS project brought compatible geographic information systems (GIS), geographic data management, and Internet capabilities to each of the nation’s 25 Estuarine Research Reserves and 13 Marine Sanctuaries. Through PAGIS, the reserves and sanctuaries also developed advanced data sets, underwent extensive training, and found innovative ways to make the most effective use of their new data and technological capabilities.
Rehoboth Bay, Benthic Data
The Center worked with the Delaware Coastal Management Program to integrate single-beam acoustic sensor data with traditional aerial photogrammetry of Rehoboth Bay. This project developed methods to acoustically identify bottom types in the naturally turbid water, in particular for the management of the nuisance alga Ulva (sea lettuce). The acoustic data provides bathymetric information on the bay, as well as data on the location and extent of algal accumulations. The resulting data set is being used to plan algae harvesting activities to minimize environmental impacts.
