Western Coastal and Marine Geology

U.S. Geological Survey
Open-File Report 2006-1251
Version 1.1

The National Assessment of Shoreline Change:

A GIS Compilation of Vector Shorelines and Associated Shoreline Change Data for the Sandy Shorelines of the California Coast

By Cheryl Hapke1 and David Reid2

2006

1U.S. Geological Survey, Patuxent Wildlife Science Center, Coastal Field Station, Department of Geosciences, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881
2U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Science Center, 400 Natural Bridges Drive, Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Introduction

The Coastal and Marine Geology Program of the U.S. Geological Survey has generated a comprehensive data clearinghouse of digital vector shorelines and shoreline change rates for the sandy shoreline along the California open coast. These data, which are presented herein, were compiled as part of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Assessment of Shoreline Change Project.

Beach erosion is a chronic problem along many open-ocean shores of the United States. As coastal populations continue to grow and community infrastructures are threatened by erosion, there is increased demand for accurate information including rates and trends of shoreline migration. There is also a critical need for shoreline change data that is consistent from one coastal region to another. One purpose of this work is to develop standard, repeatable methods for mapping and analyzing shoreline movement so that periodic, systematic, and internally consistent updates of shorelines and shoreline change rates can be made at a National Scale.

This data compilation for open-ocean, sandy shorelines of the California coast is one in a series that already includes the Gulf of Mexico and the Southeast Atlantic Coast (Morton et al., 2004; Morton et al., 2005) and will eventually cover Washington, Oregon, and parts of Hawaii and Alaska. Short- and long-term shoreline change evaluations are determined by comparing the positions of three historical shorelines digitized from maps, with a modern shoreline derived from LIDAR (light detection and ranging) topographic surveys. Historical shorelines generally represent the following time-periods: 1850s-1880s, 1920s-1930s, and late 1940s-1970s. The most recent shoreline is from data collected between 1997 and 2002. Long-term rates of change are calculated by linear regression using all four shorelines. Short-term rates of change are end-point rate calculations using the two most recent shorelines. Please refer to our full report on shoreline change of the California coastline at http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1219/ for additional information regarding methods and results (Hapke et al., 2006).

Data in this report are organized into downloadable layers by region (Northern, Central and Southern California) and are provided as vector datasets with metadata. Vector shorelines may represent a compilation of data from one or more sources and these sources are included in the dataset metadata. This project employs the Environmental Systems Research Institute's (ESRI) ArcGIS as it's GIS mapping tool and contains several data layers (shapefiles) that are used to create a geographic view of the California Coast. These vector data form a basemap comprised of polygon and line themes that include a U.S. coastline (1:80,000), U.S. cities, and state boundaries.

GIS Data Layers

Data in this publication are intended to be integrated into a GIS. A GIS is defined as a system of hardware and software to support the display, manipulation, and analysis of spatial data for mapping and complex data analysis. This integrated package provides researchers the ability to analyze and map the various datasets to help with research, economic and social policy-making decisions regarding the environment.

All of the files necessary to run shoreline change analysis are provided. This includes ten GIS data layers (shapefiles) for each region along the sandy shoreline of California. These include: three historical and one modern vector shorelines, an offshore baseline used for generating shore-normal transects, shore-normal transects for long- and short- term shoreline change rates, transect/shoreline intersection positions for long- and short-term shoreline change rates as a point shapefile, and a vector shapefile containing bias values for the MHW - HWL shoreline proxy offsets. The GIS data layers from this publication are cataloged below by region for easy access. Please refer to http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/project-pages/dsas/ for information about the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) used for the analysis of this data.

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Data Files

Region Layer Name and Description Metadata Files
Southern

index map

SoCal1852_1889 - Vector shoreline derived from 1852-1889 source data HTML, FAQ, text, xml SCal.zip
SoCal1920_1934 - Vector shoreline derived from 1920-1934 source data HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Socal1971_1976 - Vector shoreline derived from 1971-1976 source data HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Socal1998 - Vector shoreline derived from 1998 source data HTML, FAQ, text, xml
SoCal_baseline - Offshore baseline for generating shore-normal transects HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Socal_biasvalues - Shoreline MHW - HWL Bias offset Values HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Socal_transects_lt - Shore-normal transects with associated long-term rates of shoreline change HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Socal_transects_st - Shore-normal transects with associated short-term rates of shoreline change HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Socal_intersects_lt - Transect/Shoreline intersection positions associated with long-term rates HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Socal_intersects_st - Transect/Shoreline intersection positions associated with short-term rates HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Central

index map

Cencal1853_1910 - Vector shoreline derived from 1853-1910 source data HTML, FAQ, text, xml CCal.zip
CenCal1929_1942 - Vector shoreline derived from 1929-1942 source data HTML, FAQ, text, xml
CenCal1945_1976 - Vector shoreline derived from 1945-1976 source data HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Cencal1998_2002 - Vector shoreline derived from 1998-2002 source data HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Cencal_baseline - Offshore baseline for generating shore-normal transects HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Cencal_biasvalues - Shoreline MHW - HWL Bias offset Values HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Cencal_transects_lt - Shore-normal transects with associated long-term rates of shoreline change HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Cencal_transects_st - Shore-normal transects with associated short-term rates of shoreline change HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Cencal_intersects_lt - Transect/Shoreline intersection positions associated with long-term rates HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Cencal_intersects_st - Transect/Shoreline intersection positions associated with short-term rates HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Northern

index map

NorCal1854_1880 - Vector shoreline derived from 1854-1880 source data HTML, FAQ, text, xml NCal.zip
Norcal1928_1936 - Vector shoreline derived from 1928-1936 source data HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Norcal1952_1971 - Vector shoreline derived from 1952-1971 source data HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Norcal2002 - Vector shoreline derived from 2002 source data HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Norcal_Baseline - Offshore baseline for generating shore-normal transects HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Norcal_BiasValues - Shoreline MHW -- HWL Bias offset Values HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Norcal_transects_lt - Shore-normal transects with associated long-term rates of shoreline change HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Norcal_transects_st - Shore-normal transects with associated short-term rates of shoreline change HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Norcal_intersects_lt - Transect/Shoreline intersection positions associated with long-term rates HTML, FAQ, text, xml
Norcal_intersects_st - Transect/Shoreline intersection positions associated with short-term rates HTML, FAQ, text, xml

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Base Layers

Layer Name and Description Metadata Files
NOS80k - Medium resolution digital vector U.S. shoreline. Type: feature - polygon. HTML, FAQ, text, xml nos80k.zip
state_bounds - Internal U.S. state boundaries HTML, FAQ, text, xml state_bounds.zip
cities - Cities and towns of the United States HTML, FAQ, text, xml cities.zip

 

About the Data Collecting - Field Activities

Information about the field activities involved in the collecting of data in this report can be found on the Coastal and Marine Geology InfoBank web site (http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/infobank/):

References

Morton, R.A., Miller, T.L. and Moore, L.J., 2004, National Assessment of shoreline Change: Part 1: Historical shoreline change and associated land loss along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico: U.S. Geological Survey Open-file Report 2004-1043 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2004/1043)

Morton, R.A., Miller, T.L., 2005, National Assessment of shoreline Change: Part 2: Historical shoreline change and associated land loss along the U.S. South East Atlantic Coast: U.S. Geological Survey Open-file Report 2005-1401 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1401)

Hapke, C.J., Reid, D., Richmond, B.M., Ruggiero, P., and List, J., 2006, National Assessment of Shoreline Change: Part 3: Historical Shoreline Change and Associated Coastal Land Loss Along Sandy Shorelines of the California Coast: U.S. Geological Survey Open-file Report 2006-1219 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1219)

Contacts

Cheryl Hapke
(401) 874-5532
chapke@usgs.gov
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
University of Rhode Island
317 Woodward Hall, Dept. of Geosciences
Kingston, RI 02881

David Reid
(831) 427-4759
dreid@usgs.gov
U.S. Geological Survey
Pacific Science Center
400 Natural Bridges Drive
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

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