The Sugarloaf Island Restoration Project has successfully placed Wave Attenuation Devices (WADs) on the western shores and is now moving east. Below are images from our Spring 2024 drone mapping campaign. We’re excited to have undergraduate student Delanie Ipock join us in the field for the first time. Welcome to the lab, Delanie!

Sirianni, H., Montz, B., Pettyjohn, S. Bluff retreat in North Carolina: harnessing resident and land use professional surveys alongside LiDAR remote sensing and GIS analysis for coastal management insights. Anthropocene Coasts,  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44218-024-00043-z (Journal Article: IF 2.4).

The article is available online here https://doi.org/10.1007/s44218-024-00043-z 

or as a PDF here https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s44218-024-00043-z.pdf 

Sirianni, H., Richter, J., Sirianni, M., Pettyjohn, S. (2024) Shoreline classification maps and ground truth data for the Neuse River Estuary, North Carolina. Scientific Data, 11(103). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-02954-5

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-024-02954-5

Congrats to Sarah for her outstanding presentation at the 2023 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA! Her research, titled “Quantifying Storm-Induced Bluff Erosion Using Aerial Imagery and Lidar: A Case Study of the Neuse River Estuary, North Carolina, USA,” not only drew attention but also sparked thought-provoking discussions among her peers.

What’s truly remarkable is that this isn’t even part of her master’s thesis; Sarah conducted this work as part of her research assistantship in the Coastal Geography & Terrain Analysis Lab. Way to go, Sarah!

This photo captures part of our academic family tree! Sarah Pettyjohn (L), Hannah Sirianni (M), Caiyun Zhang (R). Taken while at the AAG 2023 annual meeting in Denver, Colorado.

NOAA’s National Sea Grant College Program and the U.S. Coastal Research Program (USCRP) are backing our project “Co-developing a community and data-driven framework for coastal protection decision-making.” This work is in collaboration with Rachel Gittman (PI) and co-pIs Hannah Sirianni, Nadine Heck, Siddharth Narayan, Scott Leahy, Frank Lopez, Sarah Spiegler.

To learn more, check out the news release here: https://ncseagrant.ncsu.edu/news/2023/01/north-carolina-sea-grant-advances-shoreline-protection-and-coastal-resilience/

The Neuse River Estuary (NRE) located in eastern North Carolina is experiencing shoreline bluff retreat and corresponding nearshore bathymetric change due to increasing storm events such as hurricanes. Monitoring changes in nearshore bathymetry can aid in understanding sediment flux for management and restoration purposes. New remote sensing devices such as small Unoccupied Surface Vehicles (sUSV) allow for on-demand repeat bathymetric surveys of shallow nearshore environments where larger vessels cannot reach. This study uses a sUSV equipped with a single beam echosounder to investigate nearshore morphological changes in the NRE. Two Real-time Kinematic Global Navigation Satellite Systems (RTK-GNSS) and sUSV surveys were carried out in February and April 2022. For each of the two surveys, three Bathymetric Elevation Models (BEMs) were generated using Empirical Bayesian Kriging (EBK), Global Polynomial Interpolation (GPI), and Spline. EBK achieved the best result for both surveys based on conditions observed in the field as well as a vertical Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 0.21 m for February and 0.16 m for April. Wave and weather sensors were installed for this study to help determine potential causes of morphological changes. While both months had similar average wind speeds (average 5-10 m/s), their directions were different (Northeast and South directions for February and Southwest direction for April). As can be expected in a wave dominated estuary with these observed wind speeds, wave depth minimum and maximum ranges were small, which ranged 0.02 cm for February and 0.03 cm for April. Short term changes in the nearshore bathymetry were negative resulting in erosion with no estimated deposition. Bathymetry loss ranged from 0.3 to 0.69 m between February and April, and the observed wind and wave data indicate these changes were likely due to another contributing factor such as currents. To assist future work using sUSVs in shallow nearshore estuarine environments, a workflow of best practices when conducting sUSV surveys was also developed in this study. It is anticipated that the results will provide useful information for researchers conducting sUSV surveys as well as understanding the causes of nearshore morphological change in shallow estuarine environments.

Date: June 27, 2022
Time: 10:00 am
Place: https://ecu.webex.com/ecu/j.php?MTID=m200716ca1baf2fd63e9723450e18d482
Meeting number: 2620 113 6592
Password: qKutbBTA273 (75882282 from phones)
Join by phone: +1-415-655-0003 US Toll; Access code: 2620 113 6592

Advisor: Dr. Hannah Sirianni
Committee: Drs. Scott Lecce and Thad Wasklewicz

Watch Jessica Richter present her research at the NC Space/Sea Grant as a lightening talk.