Coastal Erosion Hazard Monitoring on the South Shore of Long Island,

The Atlantic Coast of New York Erosion Monitoring Program (ACNYMP), initiated in 1995, collects information and data on beach changes and coastal processes along the 210-kilometer ocean shoreline of Long Island, New York. To date, the program has collected over 3,400 beach profile surveys at 426 locations and semi-annual aerial photo surveys of the entire shoreline. Data and information such as historical shorelines, topography, locations of structures, flood zone delineations, etc. from other coastal projects have also been compiled and digitized as part of this effort. The goal of the ACNYMP is to provide coastal managers, regulators, government officials and the public with information that will allow them to make better decisions regarding coastal erosion hazard management. To encourage use of these data, the project sponsors have developed a quasi GIS viewing software application, known as CoastalView. The software, distributed on CD-ROMs with the program data, allows the user to retrieve, view, and perform simple analyses of all the data on a personal computer. An integrated photo viewer module displays digitized orthogonal aerial photographs, allowing the user to simultaneously view multiple sequential aerial photographs both spatially and temporally. Similarly, multiple profiles can be displayed and manipulated using a special profile-viewing tool. In a separate but related effort, beach profiles were analyzed and characterized using up to 44 parameters per profile. These data are stored in a relational database that allows access and analysis by geographical reach or station(s). Presently, ACNYMP partners are working with NOAA’s Coastal Service Center to develop a GIS-based web site to disseminate this information more efficiently to a wider audience