PRA and Privacy statement

Privacy and Paperwork Statements – iCoast – Did the Coast Change?

Paperwork Reduction Act Statement

This information collection is authorized by The National Climate Program Act of 1978 and the The Coastal Zone Management Act of 1976. Your response is voluntarily. We estimate it will take approximately 2.5 minutes per classification of a matched pair of photographs to submit a response. We ask you for some basic organizational and contact information to help us interpret the results.

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 USC 3501), an agency may not conduct or sponsor and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid Office of Management and Budget control number. OMB has reviewed and approved this information collection and assigned OMB Control Number 1028-0109. You may submit comments on any aspect of this information collection, including the accuracy of the estimated burden hours and suggestions to reduce this burden. Send your comments to: Information Collections Clearance Officer, US Geological Survey, gs-info_collections@usgs.gov.

Privacy Act Statement

Authority: The National Climate Program Act of 1978 and The Coastal Zone Management Act of 1976.

System of Records: DOI Social Networks (Interior/USGS-8) published at 76 FR 44033, 7/22/2011].

Principal purpose: The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducts investigations of coastal hazards associated with major hurricane landfall. These efforts document the nature, magnitude, and variability of coastal changes such as beach erosion, overwash deposition, island breaching, and destruction of infrastructure. The assessments and observations provide information needed to understand, prepare for, and respond to coastal disasters. In support of this research, the USGS has been taking oblique aerial photographs of the coast before and after major storms since 1996 and has amassed a database of over 190,000 photographs of the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts. Computers cannot yet automatically analyze these data. Human intelligence is needed, and USGS does not have the personnel or the capacity for this. Volunteer Citizen Scientists serve as our “eyes on the coast” to assist with the analysis of this photographic data base. The iCoast—Did the Coast Change? website posts a suite of pre- and post-storm photographs from a major storm, allowing citizen scientists to compare photographs and classify the changes they see with predefined tags.

Routine use: Citizen scientists identify coastal landforms, determine the storm impacts to coastal infrastructure and landforms, and indicate other changes, including response and recovery efforts. These collected data will be used by USGS scientists to ground truth and fine-tune their models of coastal change. These mathematical models predict the likely interaction between coastal features such as beaches and dunes and storm surge. A body of citizen observations will allow for more accurate predictions of vulnerability. These model predictions are typically shared with Federal, State, and local authorities both before and after storms.

Disclosure is voluntary: All information, except email address (used as a user account identifier), is voluntary. Individuals have the option to not provide any additional information.

Data Sharing: Contact information will NOT be shared with third parties and users have the option both at the time of registration and subsequently in the "Profile" page to opt out of all iCoast related communications.