This project takes advantage of an existing helicopter platform on St. Lawrence that will be used to collect ShoreZone imagery of the island. This project is leveraging contributions by the Oil Spill Recovery Institute, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, and NOAA Fisheries to collect imagery in the summer of 2013. The ABSI LCC will provided $10K to map the highest priority section of the St. Lawrence Island coastline.
The ShoreZone mapping system has been in use since the early 1980s and has been applied to more than 40,000 km of shoreline in Washington and British Columbia. Through partnerships with other agencies and organizations, portions of southeastern and central Alaska have been imaged and mapped. This standardized system catalogs both geomorphic and biological resources at mapping scales of better than 1:10,000. The high resolution, attribute rich dataset is a useful tool for extrapolation of site data over broad spatial ranges and creating a variety of habitat models.
Imagery collection was conducted July 21-27, 2013. All told, the team was able to image approximately 930 of the estimated 1,100 km of coastline on St. Lawrence Island. Mapping of this imagery is currently underway.
