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Intersects for coastal region of Nantucket, Massachusetts, generated to calculate shoreline change rates using the Digital Shoreline Analysis System version 5.1

Metadata Updated: November 21, 2025

The Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management launched the Shoreline Change Project in 1989 to identify erosion-prone areas of the coast and support local land-use decisions. Trends of shoreline position over long and short-term timescales provide information to landowners, managers, and potential buyers about possible future impacts to coastal resources and infrastructure. In 2001, a 1994 shoreline was added to calculate both long- and short-term shoreline change rates along ocean-facing sections of the Massachusetts coast. In 2013 two oceanfront shorelines for Massachusetts were added using 2008-2009 color aerial orthoimagery and 2007 topographic lidar datasets obtained from NOAA's Ocean Service, Coastal Services Center. In 2018, two new mean high water (MHW) shorelines for the Massachusetts coast extracted from lidar data between 2010-2014 were added to the dataset. This 2021 data release includes rates that incorporate one new shoreline from lidar data extracted in 2018 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Joint Airborne Lidar Bathymetry Technical Center of Expertise (JALBTCX), added to the existing database of all historical shorelines (1844-2014), for the North Shore, South Shore, Cape Cod Bay, Outer Cape, Buzzard’s Bay, South Cape, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard. 2018 lidar data did not cover the Boston or Elizabeth Islands regions. Included in this data release is a proxy-datum bias reference line that accounts for the positional difference in a proxy shoreline (the high water Line shoreline) and a datum shoreline (the mean high water shoreline. This issue is explained further in Ruggiero and List (2009) and in the process steps of the metadata associated with the rates. This release includes both long-term (~150+ years) and short term (~30 years) rates. Files associated with the long-term rates have “LT” in their names, files associated with short-term rates have "ST” in their names.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 21, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 21, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-6108308dd34ef8d70565bd53
Data Last Modified 2024-03-19T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 38327cc8-d329-4ce1-a146-edc8b3d45d0c
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 18ed90816ec0d3b186eacd2e78bbb40a8e14215d7395d7becd4bf8df9a79b8ed
Source Schema Version 1.1

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