# Presentation: 049590

## COASTAL Briefing

**Galen A. Scott**

***COASTAL Briefing***
***NGS Convocation***
**October 27, 2005**

## What is NGS COASTAL?

- CO-OPS:
- Non-navigational applications of tides, water levels and tidal datums
-  NGS:
- Land side elevations to give local context for water levels

**A new NGS Team to formalize a relationship with CO-OPS that has been project based for many years.**

*Mechanism for:*
-  Partnerships
-  Technology Transfer
-  Education and Outreach
-  Developing New Products and Services

*Issues addressed:*
- Tidal salt marsh restoration
- Storm surge warnings
- Sea level rise modeling

**Notes:**
In CO-OPS, COASTAL has been a mechanism for partnerships, tech transfer, education & outreach, and developing new products & services.
It focuses on non-navigational applications of tides, water levels and tidal datums.
It currently has about 20 partners and 30 projects.

## Slide 3

## COASTAL - Partners

**Partners - External**
-  National Aquarium in Baltimore (NAIB)
-  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)
-  U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)
-  U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
-  Maryland Port Administration (MPA)
-  Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA)
-  St. Charles Parish Government (SCP)
-  Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (DWF)
-  University of Southern Mississippi (USM)
-  California Department of Water Resources (DWR)
-  San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI)

**Partners - NOAA**
-  Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS)
-  Office of Response and Restoration (ORR)
-  Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM)
-    National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS)
-  National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS)
-  Office of Coast Survey/Coast Survey Development Lab (CSDL)
-  Coastal Services Center (CSC)
-  Chesapeake Bay Office (NCBO)
-  National Marine Fisheries Service/Restoration Center (RC)
-  National Weather Service (NWS)

**Notes:**
List of NOAA and external partners.

## COASTAL - Projects

- _Maine_
-  Wells Reserve
-  Addison Wetland Restoration
- _Chesapeake Bay and Delmarva Peninsula_
-  Fort McHenry Wetland Restoration
-  Barren Island Wetland Restoration
-  Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) Wetland Restoration
-  Eastern Neck NWR Wetland Restoration
-  Chalk Point Restoration/Mitigation
-  Lewes, DE Shoreline-Bathy/Topo Inundation Mapping
-  Ocean City/Snow Hill, MD Shoreline-Bathy/Topo Inundation Mapping
-  Chesapeake Bay Shoreline-Bathy/Topo Inundation Mapping
-  Bishops Head Point/MEMA
-  NWS Chesapeake Bay Requirements

- _Southeast_
-  North Carolina Sea Level Project – Bathy/Topo Inundation Map (linkage to CCSP Sea Level Rise Deliverable (Climate))
-  Coastal Storms Program
- _Gulf of Mexico_
-  Mississippi/Alabama OCRM Partnership
-  Grand Bay Reserve
-  Weeks Bay Reserve
-  Ocean Springs, MS & Larger MS Effort w/ USM
-  USACE Mobile District
-  Gulf Coast Approach w/ OCRM & CSC
-  St. Charles Parish Water Level Monitoring System
-  Calcasieu Pass
-  Atchafalaya Delta Project – NMFS & DWF - IOOS
- _California_
-  Suisun Marsh Restoration
-  South San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds
-  Elkhorn Slough
-  Coastal Storms Program
- _Pacific Northwest_
-  Coos Bay, South Slough Reserve, OR

**Notes:**
List of projects by region.

## NGS Height Modernization

***NGS Height Modernization***
***Long-Term Station in Ocean Springs, MS***

***“******The partnership between the University of Southern Mississippi and NOAA is a great example of a proactive measure in monitoring storm surges in the Gulf of Mexico.  Storm surge monitoring is a critical safety issue for the residents of South Mississippi.”  ***
**- Trent Lott**

**Notes:**
The OCRM partnership led to the establishment of a long-term station in Ocean Springs, MS.  The station will support subsidence measurements as well as storm surge and other applications.  NGS and USM are willing to take on the O&M costs as well as assist in the field.  USM is also willing to help us maintain other stations in MS and the Gulf (i.e. Dauphin Island).  We are currently working on an umbrella Agreement.  They will also be running a level line from LA to FL along I90 and are willing to level to/and GPS to our tidal bench marks.

For subsidence and 

Great partnership NGS – COOPS – USM
Tech transfer

Looking at putting in hardened station
Pilings and the equipment survived, but the building where the electronics housed is gone 

## NGS COASTAL Plan

- Develop and test custom GIS application to combine digital elevation models with water level data to predict ranges of marsh plant species.
- Carry out research on the best combination of elevation data collection techniques for marsh restoration
- Laser leveling, GPS, 3D laser scanning
- Write guidelines for collecting elevation data and monitoring it as criteria for success in restoration projects
- Bring private sector, universities, NGOs together to provide training while collecting real data.

## MAPTITE 1.0 - What is it?

- A script run from  ArcToolbox to automate the process of connecting tidal datums and land elevations to produce planting zones.

## MAPTITE - Output

**Automated GIS Tool to Estimate Marsh Grass Planting Zones**

**Notes:**
SPO is assisting us and NGS generate this tool.  It will be presented at the ESRI conference in San Diego this July.  There will be several phases – at first it will generate marsh planting zones, and eventually, it could be used for coastal land-use planning.  

An automated GIS tool is being created to generate grass planting zones.
Planting Zones for each community
 individual layers and overlapping zones
 Aerial statistics for planting zones
Tidal Zone isolines
 Aerial statistics for tidal zones
ArcGIS project file 

## VADM Lautenbacher Visits the Fort McHenry Restoration Site - TWICE

**Re-engineering of the Wetlands - 2004**

**April 2005**

**VADM Lautenbacher Visits the Fort McHenry Restoration Site - *****TWICE***

***“******The wetlands have never been healthier.”***
**Glen Page**
**Director of Conservation, NAIB**
** ****April 2005**

**April 2004**

**Notes:**
We received a lot of recognition through our efforts at Ft. McHenry.  The VADM saw our tide station and witnessed first hand how it/we assisted with the restoration efforts – two years in a row.  During the prebrief, he commented this year that we shouldn’t have to replant since we constructed and planted everything at the proper elevations with the proper tidal flushing last year.  And indeed that was the case as Glen Page announced during this year’s NOAA event that the wetlands have never been healthier (and they were created in 1982).  I learned from folks up at headquarters that the Admiral was so impressed with this effort that he used it as an example in several of his talks such as a few town hall meetings as well as other meetings.

## Stewardship of the Coastal &Ocean Environments

**Stewardship of the Coastal &****Ocean Environments**

- Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.)
- Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans & Atmosphere
- NOAA Administrator
- April 22, 2005

**Notes:**
The Admiral also used some direct COASTAL examples/slides in his recent Earth Day talk.  

## Coastal Ocean Observation System(COOS)

**Coastal Ocean Observation System****(COOS)**

- Coastal Observations
- National Water Level Observing Network
- Wave Buoys/Current Meters
- Aerial Survey/LiDAR Mapping
- Digital Elevation Models from Global Positioning System and LiDAR

**Marsh Restoration, **
**Barren Island MD**

**Notes:**
He put the efforts and products that we are helping to create in support of restoration in the context of coastal ocean observing systems.

## Conserve and RestoreCoastal Habitat

- Administration’s Wetlands Initiative
- Through the combined efforts of NOAA and partner Federal agencies will create, improve, and protect at least 3 million wetland acres over the next 5 years
- Fostering Local Restoration Projects
- Locally led coastal habitat restoration projects are flourishing all across the country.  The Administration encourages successful community-based approaches and management techniques to protect coastal habitat

**Conserve and Restore****Coastal Habitat**

**Notes:**
And discussed the Administration’s Wetlands Initiative which is to restore 3 million acres over the next 5 years.

## COASTAL Program

**Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge Marsh Restoration**

**COASTAL Program**

## Four NOAA Tide Gauges:

- Four USGS Water Level Gages:

- Over 60 SETs “Mud Tide Gages”
- throughout the Refuge

- Cambridge

- Bishop’s Head

- McCready’s Creek

- Beaver Dam

- Parson’s Creek

- Goose Dam

- Footbridge

- Edgar’s Farm

- (Control installed for future gage)

- _Blackwater NWR Height Mod Survey_

## Slide 16

**Notes:**
The Chalk Point Oil Spill mitigation project is the first direct partnership with NMFS/RC (in the past, it was accidental that NOAA worked together – usually the Aquarium would partner w/ us and RC and we’d show up at the same site. . . .).  A successful partnership w/ RC and progress being made through HMIT should help our overall presence in Ecosystems.  Additionally, this project will provide a lot of political recognition to those involved.  
Congressman Steny Hoyer (D)-MD is a close friend and adjoining neighbor. He is the second ranking democrat behind Nancy Pelosi of CA. Former State Senator (and founder of the Chesapeake Bay clean-up/restoration movement) Bernie Fowler is also a neighbor. The bio below of the landowner is from the Oyster Recovery Partnership webpage. Dr. Virts is a board member of that organization also. Dr. Henry ‘Bud’ Virts Bud, a St. Mary’s County farmer and veterinarian, began his career in state government 14 years ago when he was named assistant state veterinarian at the Maryland Department of Agriculture. He went on to become state veterinarian and served as deputy secretary of Agriculture from 1994-1998. He retired in 2001 as Secretary of Agriculture from 1998-2001. Bud did his undergraduate work at the University of Maryland and received his doctor of veterinarian medicine degree from the University of Georgia in 1956. Bud is an active member of his community, and is now busy running his Trent Hall bed and breakfast with his wife Nancy. 
We have submitted a joint proposal w/ NMFS and RC for this project that is scalable.  But because of the politics, there is a chance that we could get some extra funding to demonstrate some “flashy” products.  NCBO will collect shallow-water bathymetry and we will be able to generate a bathy/topo DEM.

## Where does COASTAL fit at  NGS?

- Spearhead development of new tools for combining water level data and land elevations – i.e.. MAPTITE

- Build capacity for accurate positioning among coastal managers through trainings on connecting tidal and geodetic datums.

- Engage students through NOAA’s B-WET program and foster interest in emerging high-growth fields of geospatial technologies

## Where does COASTAL fit at  NGS?

## Questions or Comments?

***Questions or Comments?***
***Contact:***
***Galen Scott***
***NGS COASTAL Team Leader***
***galen.scott@noaa.gov***
**(301) 713-3198 x 131**