Terrestrial-Based Lidar Beach Topography of Fire Island, New York, June 2014

Project Summary

To document and assess the morphological storm response and post-storm beach recovery at Fire Island, New York, and as part of the ongoing beach monitoring within Hurricane Sandy Supplemental Project GS2-2B, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (SPCMSC) and the USGS Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center (LMG WSC) in Montgomery, Alabama, collected terrestrial-based light detection and ranging (T-lidar) elevation data along 35 kilometers of Fire Island beach (fig. 1). The data were collected on June 11, 2014. The resulting high-resolution beach morphology dataset documents the ongoing beach evolution and recovery occurring in 1.5 years since Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012.

For more information, refer to the U.S. Geological Survey Fire Island Coastal Change Web site at: http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/fire-island/research/sandy/.

Figure 1. The June 11, 2014, terrestrial lidar beach survey includes 35 kilometers of the Fire Island National Seashore at Fire Island, New York. [larger version]