Post-Storm LiDAR Digital Terrain Models of Northern Ireland's North Coast

Northern Ireland's north coast is covered by topographic LiDAR surveys from March and September 2022. The data captures soft sediment areas from Curran Strand to Magilligan, including Portrush East Strand and Portstewart Strand, with a 0.5m resolution from the intertidal zone to 10m inland. The surveys were commissioned to assess damage from storms Dudley, Eunice, and Franklin and to measure subsequent coastal recovery.

Use Cases

• Quantifying volumetric change in beach sediment based on comparison between March and September 2022 surveys.
• Assessing storm damage and recovery rates along soft sediment coastlines using the high-resolution (0.5m) Digital Terrain Models.
• Monitoring coastal erosion by comparing this data to a baseline survey acquired in 2021.
• Informing coastal management and defense strategies based on topographic changes in specific areas like Downhill Beach.

Strengths

• Provides temporally specific data for assessing storm impacts (post-Storm Dudley/Eunice/Franklin in March 2022) and recovery (September 2022).
• Offers high-resolution (0.5m) topographic data focused on the intertidal zone and 10m inland, suitable for detailed geomorphic analysis.
• Data format is consistent with a prior Northern Ireland 3-Dimensional Coastal Survey, enabling direct change detection.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as column names, row counts, and file sizes are listed as 'unknown' or 'None' across all platform entries.
• The survey had restrictive flight conditions (2 hours either side of low water, clear conditions below 6000ft, daylight), which may limit spatial or temporal completeness.
• The listed last update dates (2026-07-08) are in the future relative to the survey dates, suggesting potential metadata inaccuracies.

Provenance

Source

Fugro, commissioned for the survey. Data hosted/published by OpenDataNI.

Collection Method

Airborne topographic LiDAR survey.

Time Range

March 2022 and September 2022

Freshness

2026-07-08 13:32:00.867155 (Note: This future date is inconsistent with the 2022 survey content)

Geography

Soft sedimentary areas along the north coast of Northern Ireland, from White Rocks to Magilligan, covering Curran Strand, Portrush East Strand, Portstewart Strand, and Downhill Beach.