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!
The Department of Coastal Studies and the Department of Geography, Planning & Environment held their first joint symposium at the ECU Outer Banks Campus on Friday, March 31, 2023. Enjoy scrolling through the pictures below starting with Shannon and moving on to Zoe and the other students that presented their research.
A link to the prgram can be found here: https://sites.google.com/view/dcs-dgpesymposium/home
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/
Sirianni, H., Sirianni, M.J., Mallinson, D.J., Lindquist, N.L., Valdes-Weaver, L.M., **Moody, M., Henry, B., Coli, C., Rubino, B., Peñalver, M.M., Henne, C. (2022) Quantifying recent storm-induced change on a small fetch-limited barrier island along North Carolina’s Crystal Coast using aerial imagery and LiDAR. Coasts, 2, 302-322. https://doi.org/10.3390/coasts2040015 (Journal Article).
Barrier islands within sheltered environments are an important natural defense from severe storm impacts for coastal communities worldwide. Despite their importance, these fetch-limited barrier islands remain understudied and their ability to withstand and recover from storms is not well-understood. Here, we present a case study of Sugarloaf Island in North Carolina that demonstrates the operational use of openly accessible LiDAR and aerial imagery data to quantify synoptic habitat, shoreline, and volumetric change between 2014 and 2020, a period that encompasses four hurricanes and a winter storm event. During this time period, our results show: (1) an 11–13% decrease in marsh and shrub habitat, (2) an average landward shoreline migration of 2.9 m yr−1 and up to 5.2 m yr−1 in extreme areas, and (3) a net volume loss of approximately 9800 m3. The results of this study highlight the importance of storms as a driver of morphologic change on Sugarloaf Island and have implications for better understanding the resiliency of fetch-limited barrier islands to storms. This work helps to enhance prerestoration data availability and supports knowledge-based decision-making regarding habitat change, erosional issues, and the efficacy of nature-based solutions to increase the resiliency of a coastal community in North Carolina.
Figure 4. (A) 2014 DEM relative to Mean Higher High Water (MHHW); (B) 2020 DEM relative to MHHW, (C) difference of DEMs (DoD’s) where the 2014 DEM was subtracted from the 2020 DEM and spatially uniform DEM error removed (+/−0.11 m) to reveal morphological change as erosion (red negative values) and deposition (blue positive values), and (D) corresponding bar graph showing elevation change distributions. Colored arrows in (A,B) depict features described in the text.
Lab alumnus Michelle Schlup has accepted a Physical Scientist position with the Army Geospatial Center, US Army Corps of Engineers. Michelle will lend her geospatial expertise to develop innovative solutions to help support one of the largest federal environmental missions: restoring degraded ecosystems; regulating waterways; managing natural resources; and cleaning up contaminated sites from past military activities.
Congratulations, Michelle! We are very proud of you.
East Carolina University
Master’s Thesis Defense
Abstract:
Quantifying nearshore bathymetric change using an Unoccupied Surface Vehicle equipped with RTK-GNSS and echosounder: A case study in the Neuse River Estuary, NC
by
Ryann Knowles
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.
