California Coastal Records Project

The California Coastal Records Project, founded in 2002,[1] documents the California coastline with aerial photos taken from a helicopter flying parallel to the shore. Their webpage provides access to these images. One photo was taken every 500 feet.[2][3] Each photo showed a few hundred yards of the coastline, with frames overlapping.[4] The entire California coast is included, except sections of Vandenberg Air Force Base[5] (although some historical photos are included from an earlier survey in 1989). Most of the coast has been photographed several times, and the website has an interface for comparing photos taken during different years.

A typical image from the project, which gave rise to the "Streisand effect"

The project was an expansion of a 1997 effort to document the environmental degradation at San Simeon Point, California.[6]

Kenneth and Gabrielle Adelman were recipients of the 2004 Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography from the Sierra Club for their work on the project.[7][8] The photographs were exhibited in 2003 at the Center for Land Use Interpretation, in a nearly ten-hour-long simulation of what they saw as they flew the length of the coast.[4]

Streisand effect

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Kenneth Adelman, the creator of the project, was sued in 2003 by Barbra Streisand, who claimed that he had infringed upon her privacy by displaying a photograph of her Malibu home. The project countersued under the SLAPP provisions of California law and prevailed in court.[9][10][11][note 1] The lawsuit drew additional public attention to Streisand's home, giving name to the Streisand effect: the phenomenon in which attempting to hide or censor information instead draws greater attention to the information.

Uses

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Photos from this project have been used in scientific research, by news media, and by government agencies,[12] as well as by individuals for their own enjoyment.[6]

  • 150 photos included in The California Coast from the Air (2014) by Gary Griggs and Deepika Shrestha Ross.[12]
  • Photos of Fort Funston near San Francisco were used by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to test a method of calculating the amount of coastal erosion.[13][14]

Notes

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  1. ^ The case was Streisand v. Adelman et al., in California Superior Court; Case SC077257

References

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  1. ^ Wasserman, Jim (November 4, 2002). "California's Coast Has New Watchdog". The Day. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
  2. ^ Cho, George (2005-05-02). Geographic Information Science: Mastering The Legal Issues. John Wiley & Sons. p. 46. ISBN 9780470850107. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
  3. ^ Vlahides, John A.; Hershey, Alex (2007-04-01). Coastal California. Lonely Planet. p. 39. ISBN 9781741044713. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
  4. ^ a b "The California Coastal Records Project". The Center for Land Use Interpretation. Spring 2003. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
  5. ^ California coast & ocean. State Coastal Conservancy in association with the Romberg Tiburon Centers, San Francisco State University. 2007. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
  6. ^ a b "California Coastal Records Project". Atlas Obscura. 7 March 2013. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
  7. ^ "Coastal guardians receive Sierra Club national awards". Ventana Chapter of the Sierra Club. November 2004. Archived from the original on August 12, 2013. Retrieved May 20, 2013.
  8. ^ "Sierra Club 2004 National Awards". Archived from the original on November 29, 2008. Retrieved May 20, 2013.
  9. ^ Statsky, William P. (2010-08-26). Torts: Personal Injury Litigation. Cengage Learning. p. 519. ISBN 9781401879624. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
  10. ^ Streisand’s Lawsuit to Silence Coastal Website Dismissed
  11. ^ Tugendhat, Michael; Christie, Iain (2006-04-13). The Law of Privacy and the Media: Main Work and Second Cumulative Supplement. Oxford University Press. p. 28. ISBN 9780199283446. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
  12. ^ a b Network, Susan Jordan for the California Coastal Protection (2013-10-08). "Landmark California Coastal Records Project Posts 17,600 New Aerial Photos | Homes & Lifestyle". Noozhawk. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
  13. ^ "New Maps from Old Photos: Measuring Coastal Erosion in California". U.S. Geological Survey. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
  14. ^ Warrick, Jonathan A.; Ritchie, Andrew C.; Adelman, Gabrielle; Adelman, Kenneth; Limber, Patrick W. (January 2017). "New Techniques to Measure Cliff Change from Historical Oblique Aerial Photographs and Structure-from-Motion Photogrammetry". Journal of Coastal Research. 33 (1): 39–55. doi:10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-16-00095.1. ISSN 0749-0208.
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