GIS5100 Module 3: Coastal Flooding

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Ah, summer. How I wish to be at the beach! It's been raining on and off with this high-temperature weather. Sadly, no vacation until the end of the month, so I'm holding out and trying to get these modules done as early as I can.

Instead, I get the chance to learn about the coast rather than be at the coast. Module 3 is on Coastal Flooding. This time around, we're talking about New Jersey and Florida, with Part A & B covering Hurricane Sandy and storm surges across New Jersey while Part C brings us back to Florida.

This lab required a lot of LiDAR and DEM work, so I had to make sure I followed instructions way more than last week. Out of the gate, I was saddened because it required us to have access to the Data Interoperability Extension, which my laptop lacks. It drove me up the wall having to go back into the virtual desktop, but thankfully, Part A was the only part that required this and the SpatialETL Tool. It allowed us to convert LAZ to LAS. From there, we generated DEMs from TINs and determined the elevation difference pre- and post-Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey. You can see how much of a difference there is on the map below.

Shores & Hurricane Sandy: A New Jersey Coastal Elevation Analysis. Red values indicate destruction versus blue for accumulation, with a spotlight on Mantoloking.

Then, Part B was a briefer second part for New Jersey, where we viewed the impacts of a 2-meter storm surge in Cape May County. No map was required here, but the processing of reclassifying the DEM set us up for success in the next behemoth of a map.

Collier 1-Meter Storm Surge Building Impacts. A 25ft LiDAR versus a 100ft USGS DEM resolution of a 1-meter storm surge in Collier County, Florida, showing what buildings are likely to become flooded.

Here is the culmination of all the previous parts. We took two DEMs from LiDAR and USGS and calculated what a 1-meter storm surge would look like in Collier County, Florida. LiDAR had a higher resolution therefore was more accurate, and so you can see how many buildings were erroneously flagged that the USGS DEM caught. The errors of commission surprised me.

Overall, had a fun time working on these maps and wrapping my head around working in 3D and elevation data. Next time in the future, I just need to watch out and not take ArcPro's layer properties to face value -- some rasters were noted in ArcPro to be in a certain unit but the values (especially mins and maxes) showed otherwise. When in doubt, check it out! Good old Google to check the heights of a state or county is just a click away. Or, if you're feeling adventurous, downloading other DEMs on the USGS LiDAR Explorer is another way of checking.

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