Beach and Tidal Habitat Inventories
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This series of reports, databases, and data layers generated using Google Earth imagery provides an inventory of sandy beach and tidal inlet habitats from Maine to North Carolina, as well as modifications to sandy beaches and tidal inlets prior to, immediately after, and three years after Hurricane Sandy. This project inventoried modifications to both tidal inlet and sandy, oceanfront beach habitats along the Atlantic coast from Maine through North Carolina. Three distinct time periods were assessed: before Hurricane Sandy (early 2012), immediately after Hurricane Sandy (November 2012), and three years after Hurricane Sandy (2015) to document modifications to sandy beaches and tidal inlet habitat in response to the stormy. The inventories and series of reports were generated using Google Earth imagery. Completed January 2017 Expected Outcomes: The inventories, analyses, databases, and reports from this project will provide partners with an assessment of changes to the baseline of tidal inlet and sandy beach habitats before, immediately following, and three years after Hurricane Sandy. This assessment of impacts to beaches, piping plovers and other beach-dependent species can guide future beach and inlet management actions and policy and result in the development of best management practices for future storms. ~$50,000 in funding provided under the DOI Hurricane Sandy Science projects, Science Applications project 67 "Increasing Resiliency of Beach Habitats and Species".
These habitat inventories span the entire U.S. Atlantic Coast breeding range of the Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) from Maine to North Carolina.
A series of reports on habitat modifications of the Atlantic coast from Maine to North Carolina prior to and after Hurricane Sandy have been produced by Tracy Monegan Rice of Terwilliger Consulting, Inc., and are available on the webpages for each phase of the project. The majority of the source material was from Google Earth imagery for multiple dates and the information is summarized by community in the databases, allowing for a roll-up by various geographic units of interest. The Google Earth data layers created as part of this project have been converted to standard shapefiles and are included in the Inventory of Habitat Modifications to Tidal Inlet and Sandy Beach Habitat gallery on Data Basin, and on the North Atlantic LCC's Conservation Planning Atlas under the coastal and marine galleries. To access all of the products from this project, visit the Beach and Tidal Habitat Inventories Overview page. Additional guidance:
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