EAARL Coastal Topography-Northern Gulf of Mexico, 2007: First Surface U.S. Geological Survey Data Series 399 By Kathryn E.L. Smith(1), Amar Nayegandhi(2), C. Wayne Wright(1), Jamie M. Bonisteel(2), and John C. Brock(1) (1)U.S. Geological Survey, FISC, St. Petersburg, FL., (2)Jacobs Technology, St. Petersburg, FL. TABLE OF CONTENTS Disclaimer System Requirements Project Summary DVD Organization Getting Started Acknowledgments Contacts Selected References DISCLAIMER This DVD publication was prepared by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof nor any employee makes any warranty expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed in this report or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference therein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. Although all data and software published on this DVD have been used by the U.S. Geological Survey, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made by the U.S. Geological Survey as to the accuracy of the data and related materials and (or) the functioning of the software. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by the U.S. Geological Survey in the use of these data, software, or related materials. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS This DVD can be successfully accessed on computer systems utilizing the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX. PROJECT SUMMARY These remotely sensed, geographically referenced elevation measurements of Lidar-derived coastal topography were produced as a collaborative effort between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), FISC, St. Petersburg, FL; National Park Service (NPS), inventory and Monitoring Program, Gulf Coast Network, Lafayette, LA; and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Wallops Flight Facility, VA. One objective of this research is to create techniques to survey areas for the purposes of geomorphic change studies following major storm events. Other applications of high-resolution topography include: habitat mapping, ecological monitoring, change detection, and event assessment. As part of this project, data from an innovative instrument, originally developed at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, the NASA Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar (EAARL), are being used. The EAARL system is a raster-scanning, waveform-resolving, green-wavelength (532-nm) Lidar designed to map near-shore bathymetry, topography, and vegetation structure simultaneously. The EAARL sensor suite includes the raster-scanning, water-penetrating full-waveform adaptive Lidar, a down-looking Red-Green-Blue (RGB) digital camera, a high-resolution multi-spectral color infrared (CIR) camera, two precision dual-frequency kinematic carrier-phase GPS receivers and an integrated miniature digital inertial measurement unit, which provide for sub-meter georeferencing of each laser sample. The nominal EAARL platform is a twin-engine Cessna 310 aircraft, but the instrument may be deployed on a range of light aircraft. A single pilot, a Lidar operator, and a data analyst constitute the crew for most survey operations. This sensor has the potential to make significant contributions in measuring sub-aerial and submarine coastal topography within cross-environmental surveys. DVD ORGANIZATION There are three top-level files and four top-level directories contained on this DVD. The top-level files are: 1. index.html - This file is intended to be the starting point for DVD access. It is written in the Hypertext Markup Language utilized by the World Wide Web (WWW) project and must be opened with a WWW browser. Once opened, the user may browse the DVD's contents as one would browse pages from the WWW. 2. readme.txt - This file. 3. autorun.inf - This file is used by Windows systems to indicate which file to open and how to treat the contents of the DVD. The top-level directories are: 1.) Directory html/ - This directory contains the HTML files and supporting graphics to allow the user access to the DVD via any World Wide Web browser. This directory includes the following subdirectories: tile_htmls/ - contains the HTML page used for each tiles images and links. styles/ - contains style sheets used in the formatting of the HTML pages. images/ - contains images used in the formatting of the HTML pages and contains one subdirectory: jpeg_tiles/ - contains the map tile images used on each tile HTML page. 2.) Directory data_files/ - This directory contains one subdirectory: fs/ This sub directory contains the unprocssed data GeoTIFFS (.tif & .aux), .xyz, and .las files for the first surface data organized into subdirectories listed by their USGS Alpha DOQQ naming convention. This convention has the following structure: AAOOOaoq, where AA is the positive whole number component of the latitude. OOO is the positive whole number component of the longitude (zero-padded to a width of 3). a is an alpha character a-h designating the quad in the degree of latitude, where a is closest to 0 minutes and h is closest to the next full degree. Each represents 1/8 of a degree. o is a numeral 1-8 designating the quad in the degree of longitude, where 1 is closest to 0 minutes and 8 is closest to the next full degree. Each represents 1/8 of a degree. q is an alpha character a-d designating the quarter in the quad, where a is SE, b is NE, c is NW, and d is SW. Each quarter-quad is 1/16 of a degree in latitude and 1/16 of a degree in longitude. 3.) Directory metadata/ - This directory contains relevant metadata files for data files in .xml format and a .txt metadata file for the GeoTIFF data. 4.) Directory extras/ - Contains any extra documents or files that may be useful when processing these data. GETTING STARTED If the HTML file does not open automatically, open the 'index.html' file, located at the top-level directory on this DVD, either by double-clicking on it or by opening it directly from your browser menu. CONTACT John C. Brock U.S. Geological Survey 600 4th Street South St. Petersburg, FL 33701 Ph: (727) 803-8747 x3088 FAX: (727) 803-2032 jbrock@usgs.gov SELECTED REFERENCES Nayegandhi, A., Brock, J.C. , and Wright, C.W., in press, Small-footprint, waveform-resolving Lidar estimation of submerged and sub-canopy topography in coastal environments, Journal of Remote Sensing. Brock, John C., Wright, C.W., Sallenger, A.H., Krabill, W.B., and Swift, R.N., 2002, Basis and methods of NASA airborne topographic mapper Lidar surveys for coastal studies: Journal of Coastal Research, v. 18, no. 1, p. 1–13. Sallenger, A.H., Wright, C.W., and Lillycrop, J., 2005, Coastal impacts of the 2004 hurricanes measured with airborne Lidar; initial results: Shore and Beach, v.73 nos. 2-3, p. 10-14. Crane, Michael, Clayton, Tonya, Raabe, Ellen, Stoker, Jason, Handley, Larry, Bawden, Gerald, Morgan, Karen, and Queija, Vivian, 2004, Report of the U.S. Geological Survey Lidar workshop sponsored by the land remote sensing program and held in St. Petersburg, FL, November 2002: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2004-1456, 72 p.