Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center
The primary objective of this project is to increase our understanding of the physical processes that cause coastal change, and ulitimately improve our capability to predict the processes and their impacts. This will be approached by using geophysical surveys, oceanographic studies, and predictive models to investigate the interactions of shoreline, nearshore, and offshore sediment transport processes driving coastal change.
Geophysical surveys provide bathymetric and shallow subsurface data to characterize the seafloor and describe the evolution of the physical system.
Oceanographic studies provide data that describe movement of ocean currents, waves, salinity, temperature, and sediment transport in the coastal ocean.
Numerical modeling uses deterministic models to describe the evolution of the coastal ocean and seafloor.
The COAWST forecasting system is a tool that links relevant methods of geophysical surveys, oceanographic studies, and numerical modeling, to drive a predictive response of the physical system.
The acquisition of new swath bathymetric data on the inner continental shelf offshore of Fire Island was completed in mid-March, 2014. The investigation was funded in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the data will be used to assess potential inner-shelf bathymetric changes and sediment redistribution patterns related to Hurricane Sandy.
Coastal Change Processes Project Data Report for Observations Near Fire Island, New York, January to April 2012: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2014-1159
Hurricane Sandy Impacts Did Not Contribute to Subsequent Storm Flooding. Study looks at Great South Bay and Barnegat Bay, Geophysical Research Letters
Geologic evidence for onshore sediment transport from the inner-continental shelf—Fire Island, New York, Journal of Coastal Research