Cooperating organizations : U.S. Department of the Interior with other Federal and State agencies, and universities.

Unenhanced imagery recorded by the multispectral scanner (MSS) of the NASA Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS-1) was analyzed to determine how satellite imagery may be applied to specific coastal engineering problems. The study area is a segment of the North Carolina coast comprising Wrightsville Beach, Masonboro Inlet, Masonboro Beach, Carolina Beach Inlet, and Carolina Beach, which are areas of ongoing research by CERC. Analysis was supplemented by underflight imagery supplied by NASA and ground-truth data. Several significant coastal features are visible in the ERTS-1 imagery. Among those are plumes of suspended sediment emerging from inlets, changes in water coloration possibly due to effects of temperature change, inlet bars, and cape bars. In addition, morphological changes in selected coastal land features were determined by comparing ERTS-1 films obtained about 1 year apart.