Grant Project Summary:
Gulf Coast Geospatial Center
Proposal for the Establishment of the Louisiana/Mississippi Digital Coast
Initiative
September 2003 to August 2008
Project Summary
NOAA awarded a grant to the University of New Orleans (UNO) Pontchatrain Institute for Environmental Sciences to develop a repository of
digital information for the Pearl River Basin area of coastal Louisiana and Mississippi in an effort to support and manage the rapid growth and
environmental protection of these areas. The project established a Web accessible digital repository of coastal information consisting of various
data products (i.e., shapefiles, maps, remote sensed images, tabulated text, etc.). The final products were made available to various governmental
agencies, and both the private and general public venues to support a wide-range of coastal analysis activities (i.e., coastal restoration and
management, beach erosion, land usage, population changes, agricultural density, urbanization studies, etc.).
NOAA Coastal Services Center's Role
The NOAA Coastal Services Center was responsible for the national digital coast initiative and provided oversight and guidance to the
Louisiana/Mississippi digital coast initiative. The Center provided the project teams with remotely sensed coastal data.
Grantee Overview
The University
of Southern Mississippi’s (USM) College of Marine Sciences,
located in Ocean Springs, is using a grant from the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) to create the Gulf
Coast Geospatial Center, (the Center). The Center, employing geospatial
technologies such as Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information
Systems (GIS), will support marine research and analyses of resources
(primarily biological) of the Mississippi gulf coastal area, with the
possibility in the future to expand its range to the entire gulf coast
region. The Center will capture, store and make available for dynamic
retrieval (including the use of “data mining” capabilities)
not only new information but years of data that is currently stored
in other forms. Further data will be obtained from other sources including
local, state and federal agencies.
The Center will support faculty of the College of Marine Sciences and
other units of USM, which have research needs and interests amenable
to geospatial application and interpretation, but are unaware or at
least inexperienced in the relevant technologies. The Center is providing
advice to focus their thinking and assist them in development of applications
and understanding of how geospatial technologies can support their research
needs. The Center is providing local and remote access to its hardware
and software for approved applications and users. The Center will offer
certified training in a variety of geospatial tools and techniques.
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