º£½ÇÂÛ̳

ACEP interns contribute to mapping Alaska’s coastline with high-quality data

August 24, 2023

This article is part of a series highlighting ACEP’s 2023 cohort of eighteen undergraduate interns. To read about other projects and learn more about the program, please visit the .

Karsten Sierra and Mary Ella Rinzler worked under Erin Trochim and Noelle Helder this summer on the Coastal Mapping project. Originally from Juneau, Sierra is a junior at the º£½ÇÂÛ̳, studying mechanical engineering. Rinzler is a junior at the University of Colorado Boulder, studying physical geography with a passion for raising awareness about the impact of climate change in the Arctic. During a sailing expedition in northern Norway, she observed the inaccuracies present in several navigational charts, stemming from the rapidly changing terrain in the region. This experience led to her interest in pursuing geographic information system (GIS) work.

The Coastal Mapping project is a multidisciplinary research project that aims to map Alaska’s coastline with high-quality detailed data. Despite rapid changes in the coastal zones due to the increasingly warming climate, as of 2023, 66% of the Alaskan coastline is unmapped, and much of the existing mapping requires updating. Accurate geospatial data is vital because Alaska’s diverse marine landscapes are home to Indigenous peoples and coastal communities where they subsist. Topobathy data enables the mitigation of navigability, coastline erosion, flooding and tsunami or mass movement events, and is essential for safe near-coastal navigation. Topobathy data can also be used to determine safe areas for marine infrastructure development, such as the possibility of offshore energy. Working closely with the and (NCMP/JALBTCX) and , the project supports effective and efficient mapping of the ever changing Alaskan coastline.

Sierra’s main task this summer was learning to clean and process topobathy lidar data. Topobathy lidar is the combination of surface and subsurface lidar scanning, ideal