Subaerial Beach Topography at NASA-KSC Florida Between 2009 and 2014

Approximately monthly observations of beach topography for nearly five years along the subaerial beach fronting NASA-Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The dataset was created by Richard A. MacKenzie of the University of Florida and includes data collected via ATV-mounted and backpack-mounted real-time kinematic GPS systems between 2009 and 2014. Data are provided as Matlab .mat files containing X, Y, Z location/elevation data referenced to UTM Zone 17 and NAVD88 vertical datum, with gridded point coordinates at 1m x 1m resolution.

Use Cases

• Modeling coastal erosion and accretion patterns based on repeated topographic surveys.
• Analyzing sediment budget changes based on high-resolution elevation data.
• Calibrating remote sensing models of beach morphology based on ground-truthed GPS measurements.
• Studying the impact of specific storm events on beach profile evolution based on the multi-year time series.

Strengths

• Nearly five years of approximately monthly observations provides a dense time series.
• High-resolution data includes gridded point coordinates at 1m x 1m resolution.
• Data is referenced to standard geospatial datums (UTM Zone 17, NAVD88).

Limitations

• Row count and total file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is provided in a proprietary Matlab .mat format, requiring specific software for access.

Provenance

Source

University of Florida

Collection Method

Collected via ATV-mounted and backpack-mounted real-time kinematic (RTK) GPS surveys.

Time Range

2009 to 2014

Geography

Subaerial beach fronting NASA-Kennedy Space Center, Florida, U.S.A.