1999 Post-Hurricane Floyd Coastal LiDAR Survey for the US East Coast

Airborne LiDAR elevation data collected on September 18, 1999, following Hurricane Floyd's landfall in North Carolina. The data covers the coastline from South Carolina into Virginia, measuring ground elevation from the low water line to the base of sand dunes. The dataset was produced by the NOAA Office for Coastal Management as part of the ALACE project.

Use Cases

• Modeling coastal erosion rates based on post-storm topographic measurements
• Assessing hurricane impact on beach and dune morphology based on elevation data
• Calibrating or validating coastal inundation models based on terrain elevation
• Analyzing changes in coastal topography referenced in the description

Strengths

• Data collected on a specific date (September 18, 1999) following a major hurricane
• Covers a defined geographic area from South Carolina into Virginia
• Describes a specific data collection method using airborne laser ranging at 60 meters per second

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Data is from a single time point, limiting change analysis without prior baseline data

Provenance

Source

NOAA Office for Coastal Management, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Airborne LiDAR mapping using a pulsed laser ranging system mounted on an aircraft.

Time Range

September 18, 1999

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:19:42.998066; freshness should be verified

Geography

US East Coast from South Carolina into Virginia