Case Studies

We at Cornerstone GIS believe that top quality work speaks for itself. Our case studies present overviews of company projects either completed or on-going.

Carteret County Shore Protection Office: Virtual Mapping Initiative

An on-going company project for the Shore Protection Office/Beach Commission of Carteret County, North Carolina

Carteret County, North Carolina has one of the most comprehensive and progressive series of beach monitoring programs in the state of North Carolina and perhaps along the Atlantic seaboard. As a result, they have grown an immensely rich dataset centered heavily on beach profiling, shoreline migration and sea turtle nesting grounds. However, much of the data and final documentation is “trapped” in hard copy reports or electronically large .pdf (Adobe) files, where the data for non-professional users (the public) are difficult to extrapolate. With the advent of geographic information systems and technology (GIS&T) and recent improvements to internet-based computer programs, it has become possible to create interactive mapping websites allowing users to activate or disable various layers of data, magnify and isolate geographical areas of concern, and download information pertinent to individual interests.

The internet-based mapping project proposed by Carteret County’s Shore Protection Office/Beach Commission follows this theme, and thus has two major objectives: (1) to serve as a central repository for all coastal data in Carteret County, and perhaps more importantly, (2) to make these data “interactive” by creating a website where visitors can zoom, pan and select overlapping layers of data including historic shorelines, sand borrow sites, public beach access points, navigation projects, bathymetric (sea-floor) surveys, turtle nesting sites, etc. While this is a complex undertaking, a great deal of energy will be focused on creating a mapping website that will be particularly user-friendly, thereby enabling the public (i.e., taxpayers) to access the data the Beach Commission and others have sponsored to collect. This will be the first coastal mapping website of its kind in North Carolina. Cornerstone GIS is being sub-contracted by Geodynamics, a marine survey company out of Pine Knoll Shores, North Carolina, to design and implement the interactive mapping website.