2024 WebCOOS Technical Workshop

The WebCOOS Technical Workshop brought together the WebCOOS science team and contractors, representatives from multiple IOOS Regional Associations, federal partners, and local community partners on October 9th – 11th, 2024, in Charleston, South Carolina.

The WebCOOS technical workshop brought together the WebCOOS science team and contractors, representatives from multiple IOOS Regional Associations, federal partners, and local community partners. Participants learned about webcam installations, products, and standards, along with how to support future installations and streamline data ingestion.

The meeting included traveling to local WebCOOS camera locations, hearing from a panel of community partners, participating in breakout sessions with WebCOOS science team members, and learning from technical sessions and demonstrations.

This workshop was primarily funded by a NOAA IOOS Ocean Technology Transition grant. Thank you also to SwimSmart Technology, LLC for being a workshop sponsor, and to Cambria Hotel Charleston Riverview for hosting us.

Next, participants traveled to Downtown Charleston to view the Charleston Harbor camera. Partners from NOAA CO-OPS, Greg Dusek & Bob Heitsenrether, discussed the installation process and benefits of this camera, which is co-located with a NOAA NWLON tidal station that measures water levels.

Finally, the group visited the Rosemont Community to see a camera that documents community flooding. Participants learned about the history of community research there from WebCOOS team members Dwayne Porter and Jeremy Cothran of University of South Carolina, and CCRAB Community Research Director Najeema Washington.

Day 2: Partners, Products, Science, and Technical Sessions

The second day of the workshop included a project overview by the WebCOOS team, along with a discussion of future plans to scale the project from a regional to a national webcam coastal observation system. 

After the project overview, federal partners from NOAA CO-OPS (Greg Dusek & Bob Heitsenrether), USACE ERDC (Brittany Bruder & Tanner Jernigan), and USGS (Jenna Brown) shared examples of camera hardware, use cases, and connections to WebCOOS, and took questions from the audience. 

Next, a panel of local community members and WebCOOS end users shared their insights on making web camera data useful and sustainable for communities they represent. Panelists included the following:

• Herbert Maybank (Rosemont Community & CCRAB)
• Jonathan Lamb (NOAA National Weather Service’s Charleston Weather Forecasting Office)
• Najeema Washington (CCRAB)
• Nicole Elko (American Shore & Beach Preservation Association and Elko Coastal Consulting)
• Shawn Smetana (Charleston County Government)
• Skip Mikell (CCRAB)

The table discussions were led by the following: 

• Joe Long (UNC Wilmington) on shoreline change
• Alex Pang (University of California Santa Cruz) & Greg Dusek (NOAA) on rip currents
• Dwayne Porter (USC) & Bob Heitsenrether (NOAA) on flooding
• Jeremy Cothran (USC) on situational awareness & object detection 

The breakout session was followed by a technical session led by Dennis Murphy (Surfline\Wavetrak, Inc.) on camera installations and needs in an installation site, such as power, connectivity, and infrastructure. 

Debra Hernandez (SECOORA) & Greg Dusek (NOAA) closed out the main sessions with a group review of a decision tree flowchart. This flowchart was previously drafted to better codify and document the process of deciding if a camera or location should be added to the WebCOOS network.

The day ended with an evening social networking event and presentation from Jacob Soter of SwimSmart Technology, LLC.

Day 3: Technical Sessions

The final day of the workshop concluded with technical sessions and demonstrations. 

The technical sessions featured the following: 

• Theo Jass (SECOORA) and the WebCOOS team led a case study of camera considerations at a potential site in Oregon.
• Dennis Murphy (Surfline) shared hardware considerations to look for in setting up a camera.
• Josh Rhoades (Axiom Data Science) led a session on data management in WebCOOS.

After the technical sessions, the demonstration session featured the following:

• An introduction to Surfzone AI from Paul Ganev (Surfline)
• A demonstration of live camera feeds and an example camera from Dennis Murphy (Surfline)
• A hands-on “show and tell” style presentation by Jeremy Cothran (USC), who brought examples of the camera and data processing hardware he uses in his work with WebCOOS. 

Looking Ahead

To close the workshop, Debra Hernandez and Greg Dusek led a final session on programmatic considerations and next steps in executing the grant. 

Next year, WebCOOS will lead another workshop focused on potential new applications, products, and uses of the data. Date and location are TBD.

Workshop Agenda

Click here to view the full, detailed agenda. To learn more about our speakers, view their biographies and headshots here.

Presentations

Field Trip

Thursday Opening

• Introduction
• Overview

Federal Partners

• NOAA
• USACE
• USGS

Community Panel

Product Discussion

Science Showcase

Technical and Programmatic Introductions

• Technical
• Programmatic

Thursday Closing

Friday Introduction

Technical Sessions

• Session 1: Hardware
• Session 2: Data
• Session 3: Demo

Decision Tree