Coastal Flooding

The primary focus of the lab was using LiDAR or USGS DEM data to predict areas that would be impacted by an incoming storm surge. This week's lab was a bit more of a challenge for me than I typically experience.  I had some troubles getting the tools to run properly, or they had extremely long run times.  Ultimately, I did produce the final products though.

Our first task was to use LiDAR data from before Hurricane Sandy hit and after.  This comparison shows where the buildings were destroyed or where debris piled up based off of the change in height between the two layers.  You can do additional analysis by data in current data with the existing buildings to see where structures have been rebuilt or replaced.

The height changes that can be seen with LiDAR shows that worst of the destruction was right along the coast.

For the second map we had to create we used data for Collier County in Florida.  We compared the USGS DEM to the LiDAR DEM and then saw which buildings would be impacted by a one meter high storm surge.  The LiDAR data is considered to be more accurate based off of the high accuracy of LiDAR itself.  When the two are compared against one another it is even more obvious that it is very challenging to accurately predict exactly where a storm will hit the hardest.

The USGS DEM differs somewhat from the LiDAR layer.  There are even more factors than a storm surge area alone can completely account for.