Automatic Delineation of Seacliff Limits using Lidar-derived High-resolution DEMs in Southern California

ABSTRACT Palaseanu-Lovejoy, M.; Danielson, J.; Thatcher, C.; Foxgrover, A.; Barnard, P.; Brock, J., and Young, A., 2016. Automatic delineation of seacliff limits using lidar-derived high-resolution DEMs in Southern California. In: Brock, J.C.; Gesch, D.B.; Parrish, C.E.; Rogers, J.N., and Wright, C.W. (eds.), Advances in Topobathymetric Mapping, Models, and Applications. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, No. 76, pp. 162–173. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Seacliff erosion is a serious hazard with implications for coastal management and is often estimated using successive hand-digitized cliff tops or bases (toe) to assess cliff retreat. Even if efforts are made to standardize manual digitizing and eliminate subjectivity, the delineation of cliffs is time-consuming and depends on the analyst's interpretation. An automatic procedure is proposed to extract cliff edges from high-resolution lidar-derived bare-earth digital elevation models, generalized coastal shoreline vectors, and approxim...