As part of its mission to document coastal change, the USGS has been taking aerial photographs of the coast before and after each major storm for the past 18 years to assess damages to the natural landscape and the built environment. A typical mission consists of approximately 10,000 photographs. The digital photo-archive maintained by the USGS is a valuable environmental record containing approximately 100,000 photographs taken before and after 23 extreme storms along the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts. At the same time, the USGS has been developing mathematical models that predict the likely interactions between storm surge and coastal features, such as beaches and dunes, during extreme storms, with the aim of predicting areas that are vulnerable to storm damage. Currently the photographs are not used to inform the mathematical models. The models are based primarily on pre-storm dune height and predicted wave behavior. If scientists could "ground truth" coastal damage by comparing before and after photographs of the coast, the predictive models might be improved. It is not physically or economically possible for USGS scientists to examine all aerial photographs related to each storm, however, and automation of this process is also problematic. Image analysis software is not yet sophisticated enough to automatically identify damages to the natural landscape and the built environment that are depicted in these photographs; human perception and local knowledge are required. 'iCoast-Did the Coast Change?' (hereafter referred to as 'iCoast') is a USGS research project to construct a web-based application that will allow citizen volunteers to compare these before and after photographs of the coast and identify changes that result from extreme storms through a process known as 'crowdsourcing' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing). In concept, this application will be similar to those of other citizen science image comparison and classification projects such as the Citizen Science Alliance's Cyclone Center project, (see www.cyclonecenter.org), which asks people to classify types of cyclones by comparing satellite images. There are two distinct purposes to 'iCoast': (1) to allow USGS scientists to 'ground truth' or validate their predictive storm surge models. These mathematical models, which are widely used in the emergency management community for locating areas of potential vulnerability to incoming storms, are currently based solely on pre-storm beach morphology as determined by high-resolution elevation data, and predicted wave behavior derived from parameters of the approaching storm. The on-the-ground post-storm observations provided by citizens using 'iCoast' will allow scientists to determine the accuracy of the models for future applications, and (2) to serve as a repository of images that enables citizens to become more aware of their vulnerability to coastal change and to participate in the advancement of coastal science.
The U.S. Geological Survey conducts sustained investigations of coastal hazards associated with major hurricanes that make landfall in the U.S. These investigations have resulted in computer models of inundation that allow agencies and communities to understand, prepare for, and respond to extreme storms. The USGS has collected before-and-after photographs of major storms on the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts taken 1994 to the present. These photographs could enhance the computer models of storm inundation, however, computers cannot yet automatically analyze these photographs, human intelligence is needed. USGS does not have the personnel or capacity to undertake these analyses. Citizen scientists will identify coastal landforms, determine the storm impacts to landforms and the built infrastructure. USGS scientists will use the crowd sourced data from iCoast to ground truth and fine-tune their models of coastal erosion.
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Form Form 1 Instrument screen shots
2014-18148 iCoast 30-day FRN Final.pdf
1028-New iCoast SS-A 2014-07-25.docx
Instrument screen shots