Resilience and Adaptation to the Effects of Permafrost Degradation-Induced Coastal Erosion – Orthomosaic Images and Digital Surface Models for Point Lay, Alaska, United States 2023-2025

This project is part of Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) which addresses converging scientific challenges in the rapidly changing Arctic. Specifically, the goal of this project is to better understand ice-rich permafrost at local, regional, and circumpolar scales.
Orthomosaic images and digital surface models (DSM) were processed from unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV) data for an area of study of the community of Point Lay and its southern coastline in northwestern Alaska, USA. This dataset provides a record of coastal change due to permafrost thaw and degradation as well as spatial data useful for validation of land surface deformation models. The first initial survey in 2023 was flown using a DJI Phantom 4 RTK (P4RTK) and a DJI D-RTK 2 Mobile Base Station for real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning. For the 2024 and 2025 survey, we used a DJI Matrice M300 RTK (M300RTK) drone equipped with a DJI Zenmuse P1 camera and a 35mm (millimeter) lens (45MP (megapixels)). An Emlid RS3 GNSS base station was used for RTK positioning. All images were processed using Agisoft Metashape (v.2.2.0) following a standard three-dimensional mapping processing workflow utilizing ground control points measured in the field for horizontal and vertical corrections and reliable reproduction from year to year. All DSM and orthomosaic files are projected using NAD83 State Plane 4 and ellipsoidal heights in meters.
The community of Point Lay (Kali) is located on the coastal plain of the North Slope along the Chukchi Sea in Alaska, USA. It is separated from the open ocean by a barrier island and Kasugaluk Lagoon. Landcover units include dwarf shrubs, graminoid-moss tundra, and moss tundra (wet and moist non-acidic). The land surface is characterized by lake systems, polygonal tundra, and relatively flat topography.