Development of Integrated Bathymetric-Topographic Digital Elevation Models for Remote Alaskan Coastal Communities

Abstract:

The development of new digital elevation models (DEMs) for Alaskan coastal communities is an on-going effort as part of the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program. These DEMs are critical for modeling tsunami inundation and have potential for use in tsunami evacuation planning, shoreline erosion monitoring, and other research with a coastal focus. Historically, Alaskan coastal regions have been poorly mapped, and in many instances the only available data are sparse with few to no constraints on vertical datums. We merge newly collected GPS data with the best available bathymetric and topographic data from spatial data repositories maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) and the State of Alaska; filling gaps between individual sources and creating a new seamless product. We present an example of our workflow for creating bathymetric-topographic DEMs, focusing on the challenges faced and highlight some of the uses, current and future for this resource.