Data Release

Post-Hurricane Florence Aerial Imagery: Cape Fear to Duck, North Carolina, October 6–8, 2018

By Christine J. Kranenburg,¹ Andrew C. Ritchie,² Jenna A. Brown,³ Jin-Si R. Over,⁴ Daniel Buscombe,⁵ Christopher R. Sherwood,⁴ Jonathan A. Warrick,² and Phillipe A. Wernette²

¹USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, St. Petersburg, Florida
²USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, California
³USGS MD-DE-DC Water Science Center, Dover, Delaware
⁴USGS Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
⁵Marda Science, LLC, Flagstaff, Arizona, contracted to USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, California

Summary

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Remote Sensing Coastal Change (RSCC) project collects aerial imagery along coastal swaths, in response to storm events, with optimized endlap/sidelap and precise position information to create high-resolution orthomosaics, three-dimensional (3D) point clouds, and digital elevation/surface models (DEMs/DSMs) using Structure-from-Motion (SfM) photogrammetry methods. These products are valuable for measuring topographic change, and for understanding coastal vulnerability and response to disturbance events.

A nadir (vertical) aerial imagery survey was conducted from Cape Fear to Duck, North Carolina on October 6–8, 2018, in response to Hurricane Florence. The observations along the coastline cover an area approximately 275 kilometers long and 300 to 700 meters (m) wide and encompass both highly developed towns as well as natural undeveloped areas, including the federal lands of Cape Lookout National Seashore and Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Low-altitude (300 m above ground level) digital aerial imagery was acquired from a manned, fixed-wing aircraft using a Sony A7R 36 Megapixel digital camera, along with precise aircraft navigation Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data. Data were collected in shore-parallel lines, flying at approximately 50 meters per second and capturing true color imagery at 1 Hertz, resulting in image footprints with approximately 75–80% endlap, 60–70% sidelap, and 5.3-centimeter ground sample distance (GSD). The precise time of each image capture (flash event) was recorded, and the corresponding aircraft position was computed in post-processing from the aircraft navigation GNSS data; precise image positions can then be determined by accounting for the lever arm offsets between the aircraft GNSS antenna and the camera lens. Position data, provided as latitude/longitude/ellipsoid height, is referenced to the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83(2011)).

Data

Suggested Citation

Kranenburg, C.J., Ritchie, A.C., Brown, J.A., Over, J.R., Buscombe, D., Sherwood, C.R., Warrick, J.A., and Wernette, P.A., 2020, Post-Hurricane Florence aerial imagery: Cape Fear to Duck, North Carolina, October 6–8, 2018: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P91KB9SF.