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Research Projects -
North Carolina
One of the goals of the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program is a national assessment of coastal change hazards. One such hazard is extreme storms and hurricanes as they provide a powerful force that generates dangerous waves and currents capable of moving large amounts of sand, destroying buildings and infrastructure, and reshaping our nation's coastline. Our research focuses on understanding the magnitude and variability of the impacts of hurricanes and extreme storms on the sandy beaches of the United States. The overall objective is to improve the capability to predict coastal change that results from severe storms. Such a capability will facilitate locating buildings, infrastructure, and evacuation routes away from severe coastal change hazards. The National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards is a multi-year undertaking to identify and quantify the vulnerability of U.S. shorelines to coastal change hazards such as the effects of severe storms, sea-level rise, and shoreline erosion and retreat. It will continue to improve our understanding of processes that control these hazards, and will allow researchers to determine the probability of coastal change locally, regionally, and nationally. The National Assessment will deliver these data and assessment findings about coastal vulnerability to coastal managers, other researchers, and the general public. Beach erosion is a chronic problem along most open-ocean shores of the United States. As coastal populations continue to grow, and community infrastructures are threatened by erosion, there is increased demand for accurate information regarding past and present shoreline changes. There is also need for a comprehensive analysis of shoreline movement that is regionally consistent. To meet these national needs, the Coastal and Marine Geology Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is conducting an analysis of historical shoreline changes along open-ocean sandy shores of the conterminous United States and parts of Alaska and Hawaii. A primary goal of this work is to develop standardized methods for mapping and analyzing shoreline movement so that internally consistent updates can periodically be made to record shoreline erosion and accretion. In order to help several of our coastal National Parks prepare for a possible hurricane landfall, the USGS, at the request of the National Park Service (NPS), has prepared an analysis of the vulnerability of several NPS barrier island beaches to inundation during a direct landfall. The results can be used to assess what areas of a park are most susceptible to extreme coastal change during a hurricane. The findings can also be inter-compared between NPS coastal parks to determine, in a relative sense, which parks are most at risk to inundation during strong tropical storms.
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U. S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
Coastal Change Hazards: Hurricanes and Extreme Storms
National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards
National Assessment of Shoreline Change
Vulnerability of National Park Service Beaches to Inundation During a Direct Hurricane Landfall