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Below is a false color image of the southern end of Waites Island, where the colors on the image represent the data values — in this case, elevation. The term "false color" simply means that the image is not a photograph, and that you should use the colorbar on the image to interpret what the colors mean. Unlike many of the other islands along the South Carolina coast, Waites Island is undeveloped. The red clusters most likely represent vegetation. The light blue feature in the center of the inlet is a sand bar. You can make a similar image using the BeachMapper software application provided on the second volume of this CD-ROM set. For more information about the BeachMapper application, click here.
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Portable Document Format (PDF) maps have been created to show LIDAR data for South Carolina's beaches and islands. PDF maps will allow you to zoom in on the data and print the maps at better resolution. However, because of the intense density of the data, the PDF files will not draw properly from your browser. If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader® software installed on your computer, you can view the maps by navigating to the pdf/islands directory on this CD-ROM and double click on a file. A directory of maps is available in the readme.txt file. Adobe Acrobat Reader software has been provided on this CD-ROM.
To learn more about PDF documents and installing the software need to view them, click here.
The northernmost segment of the South Carolina coast consists of an arcuate strand or beach referred to as the Grand Strand. With the exception of Waites Island, the Grand Strand is nearly 50 miles of continuous beach broken by only a few inlets. This region is bounded to the north by Cape Fear, North Carolina and to the south by Cape Romaine, South Carolina. The crescent shaped shoreline is one of three major arcuate strands found along the Atlantic coast. The Grand Strand is not an island; rather, the beach is an extension of the mainland. The tidal range is less than 6 feet, so this section is classified as a microtidal coast. Microtidal shoreline characteristics are primarily determined by wind-driven waves. Wave direction follows a seasonal pattern; thus, the resulting longshore current drives sediment downcoast during the winter and upcoast during the summer. Alternating current direction gives rise to the arc shape of the shoreline.
The northernmost section of the South Carolina coast, Waites Island is an undeveloped 3-mile-long barrier island located between Hog Inlet to the southwest and Little River Inlet to the northeast. Little River Inlet was stabilized with the construction of a jetty system between 1981 and 1983. The southwest end of Waites Island is classified as an unstabilized inlet zone; the central portion is a standard zone; and the northeast section is a stabilized inlet zone. The Hog Inlet shoreline is extremely erosional, losing almost 100 feet per year in recent years. Evidence of beach erosion can be seen in the form of beach scarps and fallen trees along the shore.
Beach profile surveys are conducted in the spring and fall at approximately 400 monitoring stations throughout the State of South Carolina. Various agencies participate in the beach profile collection, including The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM), Coastal Carolina University, and the College of Charleston. The results of the surveys provide a snapshot of the beach face. Over time, these surveys can be compiled to determine if and how the profile of the beach is changing. Below is a map of the stations and a sample of the profiles that can be extracted from the data. The beach profile data compiled by OCRM is provided on the second volume of this CD-ROM set.
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| *South Carolina Department of
Health and Environmental Control Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management |
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For more information about South Carolina beach profiles see: South
Carolina's Annual State of the Beaches Report, April 1998,
SCDHEC OCRM, 1362 McMillian Ave. Suite 400, Charleston, SC 29405.
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