Quantifying Recent Storm-Induced Change on a Small Fetch-Limited Barrier Island along North Carolina’s Crystal Coast Using Aerial Imagery and LiDAR

Barrier islands within sheltered environments are an important natural defense from severe storm impacts for coastal communities worldwide. Despite their importance, these fetch-limited barrier islands remain understudied and their ability to withstand and recover from storms is not well-understood. Here, we present a case study of Sugarloaf Island in North Carolina that demonstrates the operational use of openly accessible LiDAR and aerial imagery data to quantify synoptic habitat, shoreline, and volumetric change between 2014 and 2020, a period that encompasses four hurricanes and a winter storm event. During this time period, our results show: (1) an 11–13% decrease in marsh and shrub habitat, (2) an average landward shoreline migration of 2.9 m yr−1 and up to 5.2 m yr−1 in extreme areas, and (3) a net volume loss of approximately 9800 m3. The results of this study highlight the importance of storms as a driver of morphologic change on Sugarloaf Island and have implications for better understanding the resiliency of fetch-limited barrier islands to storms. This work helps to enhance prerestoration data availability and supports knowledge-based decision-making regarding habitat change, erosional issues, and the efficacy of nature-based solutions to increase the resiliency of a coastal community in North Carolina.