NASA Imagery--Humboldt Bay, CA

This research guide lists major guides and collections of aerial photography and satellite imagery for Northwestern California

Northwestern California

• Guides
  • List of Available Photographs by Data, Appendix A in Humboldt Bay, California, Entrance Channel. Report 1: Data Review (Costa and Glatzel) 2002 (print copy available in TC 225 H8 C67 2002 Hum Co Coll). Lists by date (with the earliest imagery being 1931) aerial photography that includes Humboldt Bay. Metadata is included for each flight along with location of availability. The overall report provides an inventory and review of historical and recent data describing Humboldt Bay and the adjacent littoral cell. The review was prepared for the US Army Corps of Engineers Coastal Inlets Research Program (CIRP) study of the Humboldt Bay entrance.
  • Northern California Coastal Photography, Beach Profile and Bathymetry Index (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) 1987 (print copy available in Ref GB 458.8 N67 1987) Inventory of central and northern California coastal aerial photography, bathymetric surveys, beach profiles, and shoreline changes available from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, San Francisco District; and other federal and state agencies. Appendix A reproduces "An Index to Historical Hydrographic and Topographic Charts of the California Coast Located in the Files of the State Lands Commission. Photographs and beach profiles from the corps were compiled to document dimensions and beach characteristics, historic shoreline changes, effects of storms and structures on the beach, and significant beach and inlet changes.

• Collections
• Aerial Photography (Cal Poly Humboldt Library). Northwestern California aerial photography is located in the Humboldt Room. Photography is available for the following dates with accompanying flight line indexes showing extent of coverage for each date:
  • 1941 Humboldt County--scattered coverage
  • 1954 Humboldt County--scattered coverage
  • 1958 Humboldt County--scattered coverage
  • 1962 Humboldt County--scattered coverage
  • 1970 Humboldt County--partial coverage
  • 1974 Humboldt County--partial coverage
  • 1980 Six Rivers National Forest--complete coverage
  • 1983 Humboldt and Del Norte Counties--complete coverage; Siskiyou and Trinity Counties--partial coverage
  • 1997 Freshwater Creek Watershed aerial photographs
• Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (NASA) Search results page lists images of northwestern California shot by astronauts since 1961.
• Humboldt County GIS Portal: Interactive Online Mapping Application (County of Humboldt) Interactive mapper includes NAIP aerial photography for 2005, 2009 and 2010 and color aerial photography of Eureka.

• Orthophotoquad Maps (U.S. Geological Survey) These are USGS 1:24,000 orthophoto "maps". The Cal Poly Humboldt Library has coverage for northwestern California dating between 1976 and 1990 available in the Humboldt Room. Orthophotoquad maps are also available on the Internet.
• Shuster Aerial Photograph Collection (Cal Poly Humboldt Library) Collection of historical oblique aerial photography shot by Merle Shuster from just after WWII until the mid 1950s, with a few images from the 1960s. The 2300 images cover Humboldt County and Del Norte County. The searchable database allows for searching by keyword and one of 22 geographic areas.
• Western Air Photograph Collection (Cal Poly Humboldt Library) Collection of 58 scanned oblique photographs of various locations in Humboldt County taken from the late 1940's to the mid 1950's.

Last Updated November 29, 2011, by Robert Sathrum

Links checked and updated January 13, 2021, by Carly Marino. Here is an archived version of the site, which includes dead links.