Commander Grady H. Tuell
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Ocean Service, National Geodetic Survey

As part of an effort to evaluate the potential of several new mapping technologies, the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) is attempting to conduct precision mapping of the Mean High Water (MHW) and Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW) shorelines using high resolution airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). In October 1997, NGS acquired dual antenna, 1-meter, X-band, HH-polarized SAR imagery in a remote area of the Alaska shoreline aboard a contracted research aircraft. To support the analysis of the navigation and image formation procedures, NGS field personnel conducted an extensive GPS survey to place radar reflectors in the project area. Research personnel are presently engaged in processing the raw phase history and navigation data into images and interferometrically-derived digital elevation models (DEM). Preliminary results indicate that the quality of the data is excellent and that high resolution SAR has the potential to meet the demanding application of precise shoreline mensuration. This paper presents an overview of this project and shows selected results to date.