Monitoring Living Shoreline in Piscataway Park

Site:

Fort Washington, MD

Purpose(s):

(1) Monitor the restoration and long term health of this important shoreline
(2) Establish local geodetic control as a basis for LiDAR scans and RTK surveys

Summary:

Piscataway Park is a section of shoreline adjacent to Fort Washington, MD which is within the viewing shed of Mount Vernon and is kept as a National Park. The site itself is maintained by a local non-profit, the Alice Ferguson Foundation. At the start of this project, the shore at Piscataway was eroding away and the shore was several feet farther inland than it had historically been. To combat this erosion, a design team was hired to rebuild the area and make Piscataway into a living shoreline project. Living shorelines represent a novel approach to protecting fragile shorelines from wave erosion, while providing habitat for coastal flora and fauna. However, questions exist regarding the stability and sustainability of these structures over time. NGS ECO team was brought in to establish geodetic control networks and conducted terrestrial Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) scans and Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) surveys. Providing the geospatial infrastructure for this area allows very accurate measurements over time. Groups in charge of this area can use these measurements to determine how the shoreline is changing and to stop erosion from occurring again.

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