The USGS has awarded ARRA grant funding to 6 northeastern states, including large portions of eastern Massachusetts, for new detailed elevation data acquired using LiDAR.  The USGS is also conducting the procurement.  Additional funds provided by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Executive Office of Administration and Finance and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation are being used to extend the coverage area and to increase the density of the elevation points collected.  The average ground spacing (“posting density”) of the elevation points acquired in Massachusetts will be one meter.  More details concerning this project can be found in a presentation from the USGS contractor provided through the New England Chapter of URISA; the presentation can be found at http://www.neurisa.org/NE_LiDAR_Project - See the project map for more information. Note that this project map is more current than the one available in the presentation on the NEURISA web site, and MassGIS does not necessarily have all of these existing datasets. We are working to acquire, process and inventory all available LiDAR for Massachusetts and will post an availabilty update here once all data are ready for distribution on DVD or user supplied hard drive. These data will be useful for a wide variety of applications including identifying structures and assessing the vulnerability of transportation and other infrastructure by modeling coastal and inland flooding during storm events; the data will also support analysis related to long-term sea level rise and its impact on coastal areas.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has very recently contributed additional funds to extend the area of data acquisition so almost a third of the state will be covered.  The project area includes portions or all of the following counties:  Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Bristol, Plymouth, Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket.  MassGIS will be distributing data from this latest project once all deliverables have been received and processed in the spring of 2012.