Historical Shorelines for Puerto Rico from 1901 to 1987

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maintains shoreline positions for the United States coasts from both older sources, such as aerial photos or topographic surveys, as well as contemporary sources like lidar point clouds and digital elevation models (DEMs). These shorelines are compiled and analyzed in the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) software to compute rates of change. It is useful to keep a record of historical shoreline positions as a method of monitoring change over time to identify areas most susceptible to erosion or accretion. These data can help coastal managers understand which areas of the coast are vulnerable. This data release and other associated products represent an expansion of the USGS national-scale shoreline database to include Puerto Rico and its islands, Vieques and Culebra. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Coastal Research and Planning Institute of Puerto Rico (CoRePI, part of the Graduate School of Planning at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus) has derived and compiled a database of historical shoreline positions using a variety of methods. These shorelines are used to measure the rate of shoreline change over time.

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:60cb7627d34e86b938a3a1b0
metadata_type geospatial
modified 20211117
old-spatial -67.2714, 17.9131, -65.4403, 18.5161
publisher U.S. Geological Survey
publisher_hierarchy Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 02528c2c1635cb74dcfe1c274f0a3b07eaa9b2f6
source_schema_version 1.1
spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[-67.2714, 17.9131], [-67.2714, 18.5161], [ -65.4403, 18.5161], [ -65.4403, 17.9131], [-67.2714, 17.9131]]]}
theme {geospatial}
Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • aerial-photos
  • amerigeo
  • amerigeoss
  • atlantic-coast
  • caribbean
  • ckan
  • coastal-and-marine-geology-program
  • coastal-processes
  • digital-shoreline-analysis-system
  • dsas
  • environment
  • geo
  • geoscientificinformation
  • geospatial-datasets
  • geoss
  • high-water-line
  • historical-shorelines
  • hwl
  • national
  • north-america
  • oceans
  • puerto-rico
  • shoreline
  • shoreline-change
  • t-sheets
  • u-s-geological-survey
  • united-states
  • usgs
  • usgs-60cb7627d34e86b938a3a1b0
  • wdl
  • wet-dry-line
  • whcmsc
  • woods-hole-coastal-and-marine-science-center
isopen False
license_id notspecified
license_title License not specified
maintainer Julia L. Heslin
maintainer_email jheslin@usgs.gov
metadata_created 2025-11-20T07:31:43.549845
metadata_modified 2025-11-20T07:31:43.549850
notes The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maintains shoreline positions for the United States coasts from both older sources, such as aerial photos or topographic surveys, as well as contemporary sources like lidar point clouds and digital elevation models (DEMs). These shorelines are compiled and analyzed in the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) software to compute rates of change. It is useful to keep a record of historical shoreline positions as a method of monitoring change over time to identify areas most susceptible to erosion or accretion. These data can help coastal managers understand which areas of the coast are vulnerable. This data release and other associated products represent an expansion of the USGS national-scale shoreline database to include Puerto Rico and its islands, Vieques and Culebra. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the Coastal Research and Planning Institute of Puerto Rico (CoRePI, part of the Graduate School of Planning at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus) has derived and compiled a database of historical shoreline positions using a variety of methods. These shorelines are used to measure the rate of shoreline change over time.
num_resources 2
num_tags 33
title Historical Shorelines for Puerto Rico from 1901 to 1987