Color Shaded-Relief GeoTIFF Image Showing the Combined 4-m Multibeam and LIDAR Bathymetry Generated from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Surveys H11442 and H11225 Offshore of Niantic, CT (NIANTIC_MBLIDAR_GEO.TIF, Geographic, WGS84)

Nearshore areas within Long Island Sound are of great interest to the Connecticut and New York research and management communities because of their ecological, recreational, and commercial importance. However, although advances in multibeam echosounder technology permit the construction of detailed digital terrain models of seafloor topography within deeper waters, limitations inherent with collecting multibeam data make using this technology in shallower waters (<10-m deep) more difficult and expensive. These limitations have often resulted in gaps of no data between multibeam bathymetric datasets and the adjacent shoreline. To address this problem, complete-coverage multibeam bathymetry acquired offshore of New London and Niantic Bay, Connecticut, has been integrated with hydrographic LIDAR acquired along the nearshore. The result is a more continuous seafloor perspective and a much smaller gap between the digital bathymetric data and the shoreline. These datasets are provided as ESRI grid and GeoTIFF formats in order to facilitate access, compatibility, and utility.长岛湾（Long Island Sound）的近岸区域因其生态、休闲与商业价值，受到康涅狄格州与纽约州的科研及管理界的高度关注。尽管多波束测深仪（multibeam echosounder）技术的进步已可支持在深水区构建高精度海底地形数字模型，但采集多波束数据的固有局限使得在水深小于10米的浅水区应用该技术的难度与成本均显著提升。这类局限往往导致多波束水深地形数据集与相邻岸线之间出现数据空白区域。为解决这一问题，研究团队将康涅狄格州新伦敦及尼安蒂克湾近海获取的全覆盖多波束水深地形数据，与沿近岸采集的水文激光雷达（hydrographic LIDAR）数据进行了融合。最终得到了连续性更强的海底地貌视图，且数字水深数据与岸线之间的空白大幅缩小。为便于数据访问、兼容性适配与实际应用，本数据集以ESRI grid与GeoTIFF格式提供。