2008 US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) National Coastal Mapping Program Topobathy Lidar: Lake Michigan

These files contain topographic and bathymetric lidar data collected by the Compact Hydrographic Airborne Rapid Total Survey (CHARTS) system along the west coast of Michigan from Berrien County to Leelanau County, along the Lake Michigan coastline from 28 July - 16 Sept 2008. Lidar intensity data was also collected. CHARTS integrates topographic and bathymetric lidar sensors, a digital camera and a hyperspectral scanner on a single remote sensing platform for use in coastal mapping and charting activities. Data coverage generally extends along the coastline from the waterline inland 500 meters (topography) and offshore 1,000 meters or to laser extinction (bathymetry). The topographic lidar sensor has a pulse repetition rate of 9 kHz at 1064 nm (near-infrared wavelength). The bathymetric lidar sensor has a pulse repetition rate of 1 kHz at 532 nm (green wavelength). Native lidar data is not generally in a format accessible to most Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Specialized in-house and commercial software packages are used to process the native lidar data into 3-dimensional positions that can be imported into GIS software for visualization and further analysis. Horizontal positions, provided in decimal degrees of latitude and longitude, are referenced to the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83). Vertical positions are referenced to the NAD83 ellipsoid and provided in meters.