Coastal Services Center

Current Projects

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)

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)

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)

Storm and Shoreline Products for Practitioners

Resilience is about building the capacity to “bounce back.” These products enhance community resilience by providing information, resources, and tools relating to coastal storm hazards and shoreline change. Products and services include the following: a storm information Web site; easy access to hurricane evacuation studies; an expanded hurricane preparedness study for Chatham County, GA, including a decision-support tool and model for mapping storm surge zones; an information guide regarding best management practices for shoreline change; and a visualization tool for a portion of the Oregon coast that provides officials with near real-time coastal inundation. (2007-2009)

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

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 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.

CZMA Bibliographies

The Center's library has cataloged NOAA's Coastal Zone Information Center collection, produced by state coastal management programs under the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA). This collection contains documents that span a number of coastal topics and includes brochures, management plans, and legislative information. A bibliography of this information for the State of Georgia will be available beginning in 2003.

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.

Georgia Alternatives for Coastal Growth

The Center is working with Georgia partners to compare potential development scenarios at a coastal Georgia site using a geographic information system, three-dimensional visualization, and other analysis tools. The Center is also developing a Web site visualizing smart growth alternatives for coastal communities and documenting how various analysis tools can help communities analyze, communicate, and make decisions about growth and development along the coast.

Georgia Land Cover and Change Data

This project mapped terrestrial land cover in coastal watershed environments and identified changes in these areas that occurred between 1993 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.

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 Award, a vice-presidential acknowledgment of projects and people that help government operate more efficiently and effectively.

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.

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 long-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 1999. These measurements can be used for beach change studies and are available to the public.