Seafloor Elevation Change From 2016 to 2017 at Looe Key, Florida Keys-Impacts From Hurricane Irma (version 2.0)

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center conducted research to quantify bathymetric changes at Looe Key near Big Pine Key, Florida (FL), within a 19.7 square-kilometer area following Hurricane Irma's landfall in September 2017. USGS staff used light detection and ranging (lidar)-derived data acquired by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) between July 21 and November 21, 2016 and USGS multibeam data collected December 12-17, 2017 (Fredericks and others, 2019) to assess changes in seafloor elevation and structure that occurred after the passage of Hurricane Irma. An elevation change analysis between the 2016 NOAA lidar data and the 2017 USGS multibeam data was performed to quantify and map impacts to seafloor elevation and determine elevation and volume change statistics for ten habitat types found at Looe Key. Data were collected under Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary permit FKNMS-2016-068.