Airborne Laser Swath Mapping: Quantifying changes in sandy beaches over time scales of weeks to years

The University of Florida (UF) and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) are collaborating on a program to improve the quantitative monitoring of Florida's beaches, which are subject to erosion and catastrophic damage from seasonal storms. Each year, a segment of the Florida coastline will be mapped using Airborne Laser Swath Mapping (ALSM) technology (also referred to as LIDAR). The ALSM surveys, conducted by UF staff and students, nominally extend from a few hundred feet offshore to about 1500 ft inland. GPS observations are manually collected by FDEP personnel and used to generate profiles across the beach for comparison with profiles generated from the ALSM observations. Results from the first survey segment completed under the program, covering approximately 35 miles of beaches in northeast Florida, are presented. Additional results that demonstrate the ability to precisely quantify changes in beach topography and volume using ALSM data are also presented.