For several years, the PIs have been developing a data system which can represent the soils "substrates, sediments" of the coastal fringe. They have been devising solutions to these problems over the last several years by: (a) extending a large marine soils database to onshore landscapes in the Australian outback, (b) researching the geologic/ecologic changes in the Mississippi delta region, (c) innovating in making numerical and linguistic data co-mappable (the heterogenous data problem). The coastal zone is heavily populated and invested in worldwide. This project will open the way to a better depiction and understanding of the geomaterial and environmental patterns over large expanses of the zone. In particular, better availability of data will improve planning and numerical model performance based on improved inputs and extended opportunities for validations. In regard to the Deepwater Horizon disaster this project will immediately provide better information focussed on and supporting the cleanup and remediation efforts. The project will strengthen the cleanup decision support systems and numerical models, and will provide a new source of data to work with the associated research-side scientific mapping and experimental work.
The stranding of oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill along the shorelines of Louisiana created a lot of public concern. The Shoreline - the strandline - is very important to people for recreation and livelihood. How the oil would behave after stranding, especially with storms (hurricanes), the biology (including bacteria), oxidation depends strongly on what the shoreline is made of: sand, vegetation debris, muds, oyster beds. Unfortunately, even though scientists have been mapping the shore/wetlands/seabed/land areas, they have used very different techniques for the mappings. This means that it is very hard to create one map so we can predict what the oil will do as it moves from sea to shore to swamp to dry land. This project tackles that problem. We used computing techniques to put the different parts of the data onto a single map. In terms of positions for the data that was relatively easy. But the strandline is very narrow zone and we had to invent a special math method so that data would not be overcome by bigger zones. The maps all have separate legends, for example offshore may be "cS M Sh" coarse sand, mud and shell; the beach may be "medium sand with Spinifex", and the wetlands may be "Spartina swamp". We invented new methods to harmonize the meanings of these terms and others, so we can "crosswalk" from one map to the other. The legends work proved more difficult than we thought: actually it has defied people for decades. However, using modern techniques like those of Google, we have been able to solve the greater part of the problem. And we are advancing now on the final issue of crosswalks. We will post the final map coveraing all the zones - seabed/shoreline/wetlands/land at a site where Gulf communities, engineers and scientists can get the full result.
