2016 Coastal Lidar Survey of Tarpon Springs, Florida

1,224 500 m x 500 m lidar tiles covering approximately 85 square miles along the shores of Tarpon Springs, Florida. The data was collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration using a Riegl VQ880G sensor from February 11, 2016 through February 14, 2016. It includes topobathy data in LAS 1.2 format with classifications for ground, water surface, bathymetric bottom, and noise.

Use Cases

• Model coastal erosion and sediment transport based on classified ground and bathymetric bottom points.
• Analyze nearshore bathymetry for navigation and habitat mapping based on water column and bathymetric bottom classifications.
• Create digital elevation models (DEMs) for flood risk assessment based on ground and water surface point data.
• Calibrate and validate hydrodynamic models using the classified water surface and bathymetric data.

Strengths

• Data covers a defined area of approximately 85 square miles, providing focused coastal coverage.
• Includes 1,224 individual tiles for granular spatial analysis.
• Points are classified into specific categories (e.g., ground, water surface, bathymetric bottom) aiding in feature extraction.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is from a specific 4-day period in 2016, which may limit temporal analysis.
• Row count per tile is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale processing.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Collected via airborne Riegl VQ880G lidar sensor.

Time Range

2016-02-11 to 2016-02-14

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 20:42:46.591157; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Coastal area of Tarpon Springs, Florida, USA