COASTAL STABILITY ON THE EASTERN AND SOUTHERN COASTLINES OF STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK

Staten Island is New York City's second smallest borough and has experienced rapid urbanization after the construction of the Verrazano Bridge in the 1960’s. The vulnerability of Staten Island's coastal zone was made abundantly clear during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, resulting in the deaths of 23 residents. The purpose of this study was to analyze the stability of the Eastern and Southern Coastlines on Staten Island to understand the amount of coastal growth and retreat between 1990 to 2016. Utilizing Google Earth Engine Landsat data was obtained between 1990 and 2016, and the coastlines were classified and extracted for each year in ArcGIS. Utilizing the USGS Digital Shoreline Analysis System Extension, the Net Shoreline Movements and Linear Regression Rates were determined for the Eastern and Southern Coastlines on Staten Island along equally spaced transects. The Eastern Coastline is experiencing a higher rate of coastal retreat -0.54 m/yr determined by the linear regression, and the Southern Coastline is also experiencing coastal retreat of -0.16 m/yr determined by the linear regression. Future work is being geared towards minimizing the errors in this analysis with higher resolution spatial data, determining the net shoreline movement every two years to observe how it responds to powerful coastal storms, and project the future positions of the Eastern and Southern Coastlines toward the end of the 21^st century.