Digital Coast

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Coastal Lidar

NOAA Coastal Services Center and partners

Details

  • Data are received in various formats, datums, and projections and are processed to a common format, datum, and projection for data storage and provisioning purposes. Errors are reviewed and, when possible, removed. Some data are further processed to generate bare-earth products, but the level of processing varies with each data set.
  • Distribution system generates a variety of elevation products from the mass point data including contours, points (of varying return number and classification), intensity images, and full DEMs. These products can be requested for unique, user-defined areas, projections, datums, units, and formats.

Notes and Limitations:Coverage varies from location to location—some areas feature multiple years of data and other coastal areas feature no coverage. Users should not use this data for critical applications without a full awareness of the limitations. The data is provided nearly as received. The Center does review the data but makes no guarantees on reported vertical or horizontal accuracies.

Early data were flown at lower resolutions (0.25 pts/meter) and are typically not available with bare earth classification. More recent data can exceed 8 pts/meter and have bare earth surface classifications. Accuracies (95 percent confidence) range from 10 to 40 cm in open terrain; the specifics of each data set are provided via metadata and fact sheets.

Data Contributors
Federal
  • NOAA National Geodetic Survey
  • U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
  • U.S. Geological Survey
  • NASA/NOAA/USGS Airborne Lidar Assessment of Coastal Erosion (ALACE) partnership
Regional
  • Northwest Florida Water Management District
  • Southwest Florida Water Management District
  • St Johns River Water Management District
County
  • Erie County, NY
  • Niagara County, NY
  • St Johns County, FL
  • Volusia County, FL
  • Cayuga County, NY
State
  • Maryland Department of Natural Resources
  • Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Resources
  • Texas Natural Resources Information System
  • Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality
  • Scripps Institute of Oceanography
  • University of Texas
  • Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control
  • South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
  • Florida Division of Emergency Management
  • Minnesota Department of Natural Resources