Digital Shoreline Analysis System version 4.3 shoreline intersection points used to calculate long-term shoreline change statistics excluding the 1970-1979 and 1994 shorelines within the Boston coastal region from Carson Beach in South Boston to Weymouth River, including the Boston Harbor Islands (Boston_intersects_LTwo.shp)

Due to continued coastal population growth and increased threats of erosion, current data on trends and rates of shoreline movement are required to inform shoreline and floodplain management. The Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management launched the Shoreline Change Project in 1989 to identify erosion-prone areas of the coast. In 2001, a 1994 shoreline was added to calculate both long- and short-term shoreline change rates at 40-meter intervals along ocean-facing sections of the Massachusetts coast. The Coastal and Marine Geology Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management, has compiled reliable historical shoreline data along open-facing sections of the Massachusetts coast under the Massachusetts Shoreline Change Mapping and Analysis Project 2013 Update. Two oceanfront shorelines for Massachusetts (approximately 1,800 km in total length) were (1) delineated using 2008/09 color aerial orthoimagery, and (2) extracted from topographic LIDAR datasets (2007) obtained from NOAA's Ocean Service, Coastal Services Center. The new shorelines were integrated with existing Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management and USGS historical shoreline data in order to compute long- and short-term rates using the latest version of the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS).

Data and Resources

Field Value
accessLevel public
bureauCode {010:12}
catalog_@context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
catalog_conformsTo https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
catalog_describedBy https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
identifier USGS:cd8ebec7-3a59-4f91-a309-4b2b97ac093b
metadata_type geospatial
modified 20211116
old-spatial -71.052233, 42.247549, -70.893912, 42.335061
publisher U.S. Geological Survey
publisher_hierarchy Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 9d5293d5e7186d6590396d6a2a0e96b112c76b4f
source_schema_version 1.1
spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[-71.052233, 42.247549], [-71.052233, 42.335061], [ -70.893912, 42.335061], [ -70.893912, 42.247549], [-71.052233, 42.247549]]]}
theme {geospatial}
Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • accretion
  • amerigeo
  • amerigeoss
  • atlantic-coast
  • baseline
  • boston
  • ckan
  • cmgp
  • coastal-and-marine-geology-program
  • coastal-processes
  • digital-shoreline-analysis-system
  • dsas
  • erosion
  • esri-point-shapefile
  • geo
  • geospatial-datasets
  • geoss
  • historic-shoreline
  • intersects
  • long-term
  • massachusetts
  • massachusetts-office-of-coastal-zone-management
  • measurement-locations
  • national
  • new-england
  • north-america
  • oceans
  • shoreline
  • shoreline-change-rate
  • transect
  • u-s-geological-survey
  • united-states
  • usgs
  • usgs-cd8ebec7-3a59-4f91-a309-4b2b97ac093b
  • whcmsc
  • woods-hole-coastal-and-marine-science-center
isopen False
license_id notspecified
license_title License not specified
maintainer Theresa Smith
maintainer_email theresasmith@usgs.gov
metadata_created 2025-11-22T22:25:29.970437
metadata_modified 2025-11-22T22:25:29.970442
notes Due to continued coastal population growth and increased threats of erosion, current data on trends and rates of shoreline movement are required to inform shoreline and floodplain management. The Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management launched the Shoreline Change Project in 1989 to identify erosion-prone areas of the coast. In 2001, a 1994 shoreline was added to calculate both long- and short-term shoreline change rates at 40-meter intervals along ocean-facing sections of the Massachusetts coast. The Coastal and Marine Geology Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management, has compiled reliable historical shoreline data along open-facing sections of the Massachusetts coast under the Massachusetts Shoreline Change Mapping and Analysis Project 2013 Update. Two oceanfront shorelines for Massachusetts (approximately 1,800 km in total length) were (1) delineated using 2008/09 color aerial orthoimagery, and (2) extracted from topographic LIDAR datasets (2007) obtained from NOAA's Ocean Service, Coastal Services Center. The new shorelines were integrated with existing Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management and USGS historical shoreline data in order to compute long- and short-term rates using the latest version of the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS).
num_resources 2
num_tags 36
title Digital Shoreline Analysis System version 4.3 shoreline intersection points used to calculate long-term shoreline change statistics excluding the 1970-1979 and 1994 shorelines within the Boston coastal region from Carson Beach in South Boston to Weymouth River, including the Boston Harbor Islands (Boston_intersects_LTwo.shp)