Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

EAARL Coastal Topography--Alligator Point, Louisiana, 2010

Metadata Updated: July 6, 2024

A digital elevation model (DEM) of a portion of Alligator Point, Louisiana, was produced from remotely sensed, geographically referenced elevation measurements by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Elevation measurements were collected over the area using the Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar (EAARL), a pulsed laser ranging system mounted onboard an aircraft to measure ground elevation, vegetation canopy, and coastal topography. The system uses high-frequency laser beams directed at the Earth's surface through an opening in the bottom of the aircraft's fuselage. The laser system records the time difference between emission of the laser beam and the reception of the reflected laser signal in the aircraft. The plane travels over the target area at approximately 50 meters per second at an elevation of approximately 300 meters, resulting in a laser swath of approximately 240 meters with an average point spacing of 2-3 meters. The EAARL, developed originally by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, measures ground elevation with a vertical resolution of +/-15 centimeters. A sampling rate of 3 kilohertz or higher results in an extremely dense spatial elevation dataset. Over 100 kilometers of coastline can be surveyed easily within a 3- to 4-hour mission. When resultant elevation maps for an area are analyzed, they provide a useful tool to make management decisions regarding land development. The Alligator Point data provided represent the last return pulses and were processed and filtered for bare-earth topography. However, in low-lying and emerging vegetation environments, bare-earth topography is not necessarily discernible from the last-return pulses. The difference in water levels between data collections on March 5 and 6 resulted in elevation variations in the merged data.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/d24d2d6b338ff179140883717f534723
Identifier USGS:6f720de4-0b02-48de-8b5a-2b743f8f4196
Data Last Modified 20201013
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id aee646cd-3205-4e95-96fa-881489aab459
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -89.84439692,30.01639018,-89.63364531,30.14688807
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 454b73f66fec2cb4b3c6e95cefa0ec6d3e068b438f29a9b944456fd04f6e693a
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -89.84439692, 30.01639018, -89.84439692, 30.14688807, -89.63364531, 30.14688807, -89.63364531, 30.01639018, -89.84439692, 30.01639018}

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.