NOAA Finger Lakes Topobathymetric Lidar with 1m DEMs, 2019

301,150 acres of topobathymetric lidar data covering the Finger Lakes region of New York, collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) between September and November 2019. The dataset includes classified point clouds in LAS format with categories for ground, water surface, bathymetric bottom, and submerged aquatic vegetation, as well as derived 1-meter resolution digital elevation models (DEMs). Data were collected over 23 missions using a Riegl VQ-880-G sensor system and are tiled in 500m x 500m units.

Use Cases

• Modeling coastal erosion and flood risk based on integrated land and underwater topography.
• Mapping submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) habitats based on the dedicated classification category.
• Analyzing lakebed morphology and water column structure based on bathymetric and water column point classifications.
• Creating high-resolution terrain models for watershed analysis based on the 1-meter DEMs derived from the point cloud.

Strengths

• Covers a large, contiguous area of 301,150 acres (~1,219 sqKm).
• Includes detailed point classifications for ground, water surface, bathymetry, and submerged features per ASPRS standards.
• Provides derived 1-meter resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) in GeoTIFF format.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale processing.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Airborne lidar acquisition using a Riegl VQ-880-G sensor system.

Time Range

2019-09 2019-11

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 21:33:35.777694; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Finger Lakes region, New York, USA