Web-Based Presentation of Beach and Offshore Sand Characteristics forDiscovering Offshore Sand Resources

摘要

Sand sources for beach renourishment projects in Florida are becomingrnincreasingly more scarce and costly to identify. The Reconnaissance Level RegionalrnSand Search of the Florida Panhandle is a cooperative effort between the FloridarnDepartment of Environmental Protection Bureau of Beaches and Wetland Resources,rnURS Corporation, and Florida State University. It has yielded a database that willrnsignificantly aid in locating offshore sand bodies.rnThe product or data are organized in an Oracle online relational Corporate database.rnThe database is easily searchable using a variety of parameters or combinations ofrnparameters. The sediment-related parameters include texture, mineralogy, color, organicrncontent, and sample location. The geophysical parameters include trackline maps andrnonline seismic imagery. These data are available to the coastal community andrngovernment engineers, as well as general users through a Website (http://sandpan.urstally.rnCom) (username = bbwr, password = dirt). This current prototype study, focuses onrnthe west Florida Panhandle and shelf.rnThe objective of this project has been to identify and characterize useful offshorernsand deposits along the Florida panhandle coast. This information is to be used to makerninformed decisions within the context of the overall Florida coastal management plan.rnData gathered for this project originated from a large variety of sources and inrnmany different formats. Dealing with this myriad of formats led to the creation of a datarnmanagement plan using a comprehensive data storage. For example, the grainsizernanalyses conducted as part of many different coastal engineering and research projectsrnused a variety of measuring and reporting methods. Granulametric data were reported inrnvarious sequences of phi or millimeter size increments. Our database was designed tornstore all data in its original form and also to have fields where these data are converted torna common format. Under this approach the database developed for the Sandpan projectrnis large and versatile.rnTwo basic types of data are used. Tabular data are used to store information aboutrnthe sediment properties. And because the environment is geographic in nature, the spatialrnaspects of the data are fundamental and are preserved in a geographic information systemrn(GIS). These spatial features are housed in the Oracle database as SDE (Spatial DatabasernEngine) layers along with their attributes. This affords the ability take advantage of rapidrnand robust corporate database management systems to manage very large amounts of datarnand relate it to a geographic position on the earth. The data that have been integrated intornthe system include over 3100 sand samples, 424 sediment cores, high-resolutionrnbathymetry, and over 3000 km of geophysical survey lines. This data spans over 40rnyears, with the earliest data set from 1959, and includes dozens of different projects andrnstudies.