A high-accuracy, seamless elevation model is essential to understanding where water will flow during events such as sea level rise, hurricane flooding, tsunami inundation, and inland flooding. A topobathy digital elevation model combines land elevation with seafloor data to make one continuous surface.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration developed "A Roadmap to a Seamless Topobathy Surface," an on-line resource for constructing digital elevation models. The website provides on-line maps of existing data, documents to assist in data manipulation, and soon, application examples.
Resources within the website include the following.
Data Inventory
The first data inventory available on the website is topography and bathymetry for the Gulf of Mexico. The location, collection date, owner, and other information about each data set are provided through maps, resulting in a data "snapshot" as of November 15, 2007. New inventories will be added as they become available, with the next data coming from the southeastern region of the U.S. (Florida to Maryland).
Process Considerations
This portion of the site strives to improve and streamline the process of creating digital elevation models by providing an overview of datum conversion and integration techniques. The section stresses the importance of establishing a uniform reference for multiple data sets and describes techniques for manipulating and joining these sets.
Topobathy Applications
The third part of the website is nearing completion. This section will highlight coastal applications that can benefit from the use of digital elevation models.
To view "A Roadmap to a Seamless Topobathy Surface," point your browser to www.csc.noaa.gov/topobathy/.
