Coastal Services Center

Current Projects

IOOS Applications

The Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) captures and delivers ocean-related data, making more data available to a wider audience. The goal of the IOOS Applications project is to demonstrate and promote the real-world value of IOOS data and the benefits of machine-to-machine data interoperability. Four projects are underway that demonstrate IOOS applications: the Chesapeake Bay Oyster Larvae Tracker (CBOLT), the Oregon Coastal Inundation Tool, the harmful algal bloom bulletin, and the coastal climatology project. This application project will showcase these tools to show how IOOS data are being used to make a difference. (ongoing)

Coastal Management Fellowship

Assistance was provided to these states through the Coastal Management Fellowship program. Postgraduate students selected as fellows receive professional, on-the-job education and training, while the states receive specific technical assistance for their coastal regulatory programs. Fellows spend two years at the host agency working on substantive state-level coastal issues that pertain to federal management policies and regulations. All states with federally approved coastal zone management programs, as well as states developing such programs for approval, are eligible to submit a project proposal to receive a fellow. (2008 update)

Climate Demonstration Project

While climate is an important factor for all coastal communities, coastal officials often don’t know where to access climate information or how to incorporate this information into their decision-making processes. Two pilot websites were developed for the Southeast to address this issue—one for recreation and tourism (www.cormp.org/climate/) and another for recreational and commercial fishing (www.coastalclimate.org). The content and utility of these sites will be reviewed in 2008, as well as the possibility of a pilot project for Pacific shellfish growers (www.nanoos-shellfish.org). (2005-2009)

Digital Coast Inundation Visualization

This Web-based visualization tool shows the degree of coastal inundation that would occur as water levels rise. The tool will help users understand the factors that can affect sea levels and coastal inundation (e.g., climate change, tides, isostatic rebound, and subsidence). Users will be able to zoom in to see street-level impacts to habitat and infrastructure at various water depths. This is a pilot project for eastern North Carolina. (2007-2008)

Collaboration with NOAA Fisheries

The NOAA Coastal Services Center and NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Habitat Conservation (OHC) partner to help coastal managers and communities implement ecosystem-based management practices for coastal habitat conservation and restoration. Technical support and seed funding may be provided to support practitioners and professionals in collaborative habitat restoration and conservation planning. In 2008, the Center and OHC are hosting a workshop on barrier removal to achieve tidal hydrology restoration in the Southeast region. It will provide an opportunity for the restoration community to share lessons learned. From this workshop, technical guidance will be developed to enhance tidal hydrology restoration. (ongoing)

Geospatial Collaboration with the National Weather Service

The NOAA Coastal Services Center partners with the National Weather Service (NWS) to improve the geospatial display and delivery of products and services related to weather, water, and climate. The focus for 2008 includes inland flood severity mapping, geospatial technical support to the National Hurricane Center, technical support to the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service, techniques to serve NWS data in geographic information system (GIS) formats for easier customer access and use, and new tools and education for local emergency management personnel. The flood-severity-inundation map libraries will be implemented and available for 35 Gulf Coast regions and 17 locations in North Carolina, with additional pilot locations being developed. (2008 update)

Topographic and Bathymetric Applications

The NOAA Coastal Services Center provides information about the availability of topographic and bathymetric data sets and assists coastal managers in working with these sets—particularly in relation to storm surge and inundation modeling. The focus for 2008 is to develop a data inventory for Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia and to develop guidance documents describing the coastal management applications of topography and bathymetry. (ongoing)

Climate and Weather Impacts on Society and the Environment 2 (CWISE2)

Organizations involved in this four-year cooperative agreement will study the physical, socioeconomic, and ecosystem impacts of sea-level variability and change. These organizations will also develop decision-support resources to help communities from Texas to Maryland increase resilience to impacts of erosion and inundation in a scenario of sea-level change. (2007)

Climate Demonstration Projects

Two pilot coastal climatology Web sites have been developed: one for recreation and tourism (www.cormp.org/climate) and one for recreational and commercial fishing (www.coastalclimate.org). Efforts will focus on outreach for these sites, including examples explaining how the sites can be used by their respective audiences based on client needs. (2005-2007)

NOAA Regional Collaboration Support

NOAA is furthering its commitment to providing relevant products and services to the nation. The NOAA Coastal Services Center has one or more members on five of the eight regional teams (Gulf of Mexico, North Atlantic, Pacific, Western, and Southeast and Carribean) developed to keep attuned to customer needs and deliver applicable NOAA products and services. The Center also serves on two of NOAA's four priority area task teams (hazard-resilient communities, and outreach and communications). (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

Assessing the Knowledge and Attitudes of Coastal Communities

This project surveys coastal residents and coastal decision-makers to determine their attitudes toward their natural environment and their understanding of the coastal area's basic nature and processes. The goal of the project is to provide an empirical foundation that allows coastal decision makers to assess the degree to which officials, people who influence coastal policy, and the general public share common attitudes and beliefs concerning important coastal issues.

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.

Bogue Sound, Benthic Data

The Center mapped submerged aquatic vegetation using 1992 aerial photography for the Bogue Sound area.

Coastal Management Fellowship

A Coastal Management Fellow worked with the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management on a project entitled “The Development of Coastal Wetland Mitigation Policy and Wetland Management Alternatives.” The project goal was to develop alternatives and recommendations that clarify and improve the division’s wetland mitigation policies. A second goal of the project was to develop wetland policy and management alternatives for the Atlantic White Cedar component of the Buckridge Coastal Reserve site. The fellow contributed to the formulation and adoption of clear wetland mitigation policies that improve the protection of wetland resources and contribute to the development of a final restoration plan in the Buckridge Coastal Reserve.

Coastal Management Fellowship

A Coastal Management Fellow is working with the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources, Division of Coastal Management (DCM), on a project entitled "GIS Based Evaluation of Inlet Process Impacts on Oceanfront Shorelines, Transportation Infrastructure and Other Development Activities." The goal of this project is to delineate new inlet hazard areas of environmental concern (AEC) boundaries, both for existing inlets and potential new inlet areas. This will be accomplished by characterizing the nature, magnitude, location, and timing of inlet processes that represent a hazard to development activities, particularly transportation-related activities. By developing and analyzing GIS shoreline data sets from existing shoreline data, the project will develop alternatives and policy recommendations that will expand and update DCM's existing inlet hazard AEC policies.

Coastal Ocean Habitat Project

The Coastal Ocean Habitat Project generated Center data products that utilized satellite observations of U.S. coastal waters. A CD-ROM of retrospective satellite sea-surface temperature images for the southeastern U.S. was produced in 1996.

Community Vulnerability Assessment Tool

This CD-ROM is an informational aid designed to assist communities in their efforts to reduce hazard vulnerability. Before communities can develop effective hazard mitigation strategies, they must first identify their hazard risks and assess their vulnerability to the impacts of those hazards. This CD-ROM includes a newly developed methodology for conducting a community-wide vulnerability assessment and features New Hanover County, North Carolina, in a case study. The methodology employs geographic information system (GIS) technology as a valuable resource for conducting hazards-related analysis. A major feature of this product is a section focusing on the use of spatial data for hazards planning.

Core Sound, Benthic Data

The National Marine Fisheries Service–Beaufort Laboratory and North Carolina State University tested a variety of methods for submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) detection and mapping using imagery from 1985, 1988, and 1990. Ongoing SAV mapping and change detection projects in Core Sound contribute to restoration and environmental modeling work in the area.

Creating a Land Suitability Analysis Tool for Local Government Land-Use Planning

The goals of this project were to design an interactive ArcView pilot program for conducting land suitability analysis in local government land-use planning, to build capacity of local governments, and to put into action the recommendations of the North Carolina Coastal Area Management Act Land Use Planning Review Team. This project was funded with a special project grant from the Center.

Enhanced Flood Warning System, North Carolina Pilot

The goal of this project is to develop a real-time flood forecast mapping capability in North Carolina. The mapping capability is being developed initially for the Tar River Basin, an area that experienced catastrophic flood damages during Hurricane Floyd. This project is a partnership between the State of North Carolina, National Weather Service, and the Center.

Estuarine Habitat Project

The Estuarine Habitat project investigated remote sensing and modeling approaches for studying oceanic and terrestrial processes. This project focused on building new, useful methodologies and applications to aid coastal managers in assessing estuarine habitat quality.

Lessons Learned Regarding the Use of Spatial Data and GIS during Hurricane Floyd

During and after Hurricane Floyd, the NOAA Coastal Services Center worked with local, state, and federal coastal resource managers and emergency preparedness officials to document spatial data and information needs and uses. The resulting document is a best practices manual filled with information that can be of use to all coastal communities.

Natural Hazards Risk Assessment Tool Development: Storm Surge Model

This goal of this project is to design and develop a prototype risk assessment tool based on the North Carolina State University Coastal Marine Environment Prediction System (CMEPS). CMEPS contains a suite of interactively linked atmospheric and oceanic model components that provide a coastal and inland waterway surge model that not only predicts general surge effects, but also event-related inland flooding. The project also includes a training component to enable private- and public-sector end users to apply the product.

Needs Assessment Training

North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) served as a local host for a workshop entitled “How to Conduct a Training Needs Assessment.” Participants in the two-day training included staff from NERR sites, the state coastal management program, state parks, museums, aquariums, and nonprofit organizations. The goals of the training were to familiarize participants with terminology, tools, and methods, and to help them understand how and when to use needs assessments.

North Carolina Land Cover and Change Data

This project mapped terrestrial land cover in coastal watershed environments and identified changes in these areas that occurred between 1991 and 1997. The project relied on satellite multispectral imagery as the primary information source. These data were used to distinguish major land cover classes, and previous images were studied to locate areas that changed over time. For this project, the data were acquired according to the Center’s Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) methods. < /p>

Ocean Color Applications Project

Through this project, processing and classification techniques were developed to evaluate coastal water quality and biological and geologic variables based on remote sensing data from satellite or aircraft. Data on the bio-optical characteristics of diverse U.S. coastal waters were collected. These data are used to validate satellite measurements used for ocean color data products.

Ocean Planning Information System (OPIS)

OPIS is the first system to provide the coastal management community in the southeastern U.S. with access to regional georeferenced spatial data and legal information. Major features of the OPIS Web site include an interactive mapping application, marine and coastal spatial data, data and metadata download tools, Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)-compliant metadata, and legislative summary pages, all designed to support regional ocean management. In 2001, OPIS received a Hammer A ward, a vice-presidential acknowledgment of projects and people that help government operate more efficiently and effectively.

Pre–Natural Disaster Mitigation Technology Transfer and Deployment

Initial activities under this project include a workshop on the deployment of established and new technologies to lower the impacts and costs of natural hazards, and the development of a regional strategy to coordinate with federal efforts. This project is funded with a special project grant from the NOAA Coastal Services Center to the Southeast Center for Protection Against Natural Disasters (Southeast CPAND).

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.

Shoreline Data Rescue

GIS-compatible shoreline data sets that include high-resolution contemporary and historic shorelines are available from the Center’s Web site. The source of the historic shoreline data is NOAA t-sheet charts dating from the 1800s. This information is most frequently used to measure shoreline change.

Social and Environmental Change in Coastal North Carolina

The focus of this project is to develop a descriptive handbook and CD-ROM illustrating socioeconomic, demographic, and environmental change in North Carolina coastal counties. This project provides a wide audience including Sea Grant Extension Program staff, land-use and urban planners, educators, and local government officials with a means to describe these changes and inform management and policy decisions. This pilot project focuses on North Carolina coastal counties, but has broader applicability to other coastal states. The project is a collaborative effort among the Center, the North Carolina Sea Grant Extension Program, and a group of coastal planners, resource management professionals, and e ducators.

Southeast Coast and Ocean Margin Program (SEACOM)

The Center is leading an effort to enhance understanding of the significant natural resources in the South Atlantic Bight, a region extending from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Cape Canaveral, Florida, out to the edge of the continental margin. The program is investigating significant natural resource areas, compiling this information into a spatial data framework, and working to inform and educate the public about the importance of discovery and management of these resources. The l ong-term goal is to provide an information foundation that allows managers to maintain economic vitality in the region while sustaining natural resources for future generations.

Topographic Change Mapping

High-resolution Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) measurements of coastal beach topography were made during 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000. These measurements can be used for beach change studies and are available to the public. These data include measurements before and after Hurricanes Dennis and Floyd.