Hurricane Irene LIDAR Topography of North Carolina Coast, 2011

North Carolina's Dare and Carteret counties were surveyed by NOAA's National Geodetic Survey on August 28-29, 2011, following Hurricane Irene's landfall. The data consists of classified LIDAR point clouds in LAS 1.2 format, including topographic data, intensity values, and encoded RGB image values. It was collected using a Riegl Q680i-D system and classified according to ASPRS standards.

Use Cases

• Modeling coastal erosion and terrain changes based on post-hurricane topographic LIDAR data.
• Classifying ground, water, and other features based on ASPRS classification standards mentioned in the description.
• Analyzing LIDAR intensity values for surface material characterization.
• Integrating encoded RGB image values with point cloud data for enhanced visualization and analysis.

Strengths

• Data was collected on specific dates (August 28-29, 2011) for a defined emergency response event.
• Point clouds are classified to ASPRS standards (unclassified, ground, water).
• Includes multiple data types: topography, intensity values, and encoded RGB values.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and total data size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is from a single, short time period immediately post-hurricane, limiting temporal analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service (NOS), National Geodetic Survey (NGS), Remote Sensing Division

Collection Method

Collected via aerial LIDAR using a Riegl Q680i-D system.

Time Range

August 28-29, 2011

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 21:48:36.838840; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Dare and Carteret counties, North Carolina, USA