The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Coastal Research Laboratory in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of New Orleans (UNO) and the Center for Coastal Energy and Environmental Resources at Louisiana State University (LSU), is investigating the processes of coastal erosion in Louisiana (Sallenger and others, 1987; Sallenger and Williams 1989; Penland and others, 1992).
Building on the USGS Louisiana Barrier Island Study (Williams and others, 1992), this data layer depicts the shoreline as it stood in 1884.
In order to quantify shoreline changes since January 21, 1988, new vertical aerial mapping photography was acquired on December 9, 1996. The methods and transects used by McBride and others (1992) were used to insure data compatibility of the new measurements and analysis.