Satellite-derived shorelines for the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington for the period 1984-2023, obtained using CoastSat

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Frequently anticipated questions:

What does this data set describe?

Title:
Satellite-derived shorelines for the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington for the period 1984-2023, obtained using CoastSat
Abstract:
This dataset contains shoreline positions derived from available Landsat satellite imagery for two states (Oregon, and Washington) along the U.S. Pacific coast for the time period 1984 to 2023. An open-source toolbox, CoastSat (Vos and others, 2019a and 2019b), was used to classify coastal Landsat imagery and detect shorelines at the sub-pixel scale. Resulting shorelines are presented in CSV format. Significant uncertainty is associated with the locations of shorelines in extremely dynamic regions, including at the locations of river mouths, tidal inlets, capes, and ends of spits. These data are readily viewable in a text or spreadsheet editor. For technical users and researchers, data can be ingested into Global Mapper or QGIS or similar for more detailed analysis. Similar shoreline positions for North Carolina and South Carolina are available from Barnard and others, 2023 at https://doi.org/10.5066/P9W91314. Similar shoreline positions for Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida are available from Buscombe and others, 2024 at https://doi.org/10.5066/P1WFZXDM.
Supplemental_Information:
This data release was funded by the USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
  1. How might this data set be cited?
    Buscombe, Daniel, Doherty, Yarran, Splinter, Kristen D., and Vitousek, Sean F., 20250405, Satellite-derived shorelines for the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington for the period 1984-2023, obtained using CoastSat: data release DOI:10.5066/P1E2JDPF, U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, California.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Suggested Citation: Buscombe, D., Doherty, Y., Splinter, K.D., and Vitousek, S.F., 2025, Satellite-derived shorelines for the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington for the period 1984-2023, obtained using CoastSat, U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P1E2JDPF.
  2. What geographic area does the data set cover?
    West_Bounding_Coordinate: -124.74322
    East_Bounding_Coordinate: -122.22177
    North_Bounding_Coordinate: 48.51283
    South_Bounding_Coordinate: 41.997135
  3. What does it look like?
    SatelliteDerivedShorelines_US_PNWcoast.png (png)
    Image map showing study area for satellite derived shorelines along the Pacific Northwest coast.
  4. Does the data set describe conditions during a particular time period?
    Beginning_Date: 1984
    Ending_Date: 2023
    Currentness_Reference:
    collection years of satellite imagery used to determine shoreline positions
  5. What is the general form of this data set?
    Geospatial_Data_Presentation_Form: Shoreline positions in comma separated value formats
  6. How does the data set represent geographic features?
    1. How are geographic features stored in the data set?
      This is a point data set. It contains the following vector data types (SDTS terminology):
      • point (8239778)
    2. What coordinate system is used to represent geographic features?
      Horizontal positions are specified in geographic coordinates, that is, latitude and longitude. Latitudes are given to the nearest 0.000001. Longitudes are given to the nearest 0.000001. Latitude and longitude values are specified in Decimal Degrees. The horizontal datum used is North American Datum 1983.
      The ellipsoid used is Geodetic Reference System 80.
      The semi-major axis of the ellipsoid used is 6378137.000000.
      The flattening of the ellipsoid used is 1/298.257222.
      Vertical_Coordinate_System_Definition:
      Depth_System_Definition:
      Depth_Datum_Name: NAVD88 (EGM2008 geoid)
      Depth_Resolution: 0.1
      Depth_Distance_Units: meters
      Depth_Encoding_Method: Implicit coordinate
  7. How does the data set describe geographic features?
    Shoreline positions for historical period (1984-2022) for the Pacific Northwest coast, derived from satellite imagery
    csv file consists of shoreline positions derived from imagery of the U.S. Pacific Northwest coast. (Source: Producer Defined)
    date
    date of projected data (UTC) in yyyy-mm-dd format (where yyyy is 4 digit year, mm is 2-digit month, and dd is 2-digit day). (Source: Producer defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:1984-01-01
    Maximum:2023-12-31
    Units:days
    Resolution:1
    time
    time of projected data (UTC) in hh:MM format (where hh is 2-digit hour in 24-hour format and MM is 2-digit minutes). (Source: Producer defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:00:00
    Maximum:23:59
    Units:minutes
    Resolution:1
    ID
    Transect along which shoreline position is derived from satellite imagery for date and time indicated. (Source: Producer Defined) Sequential unique whole numbers that are automatically generated. For example, usa_WA_0038_0001, where usa stands for the United States, WA stands for the State of Washington, 0038 is the first transect identifier, and 0001 is the last number is 1.
    transectStart_X
    Starting position (longitude) of transect. (Source: Producer Defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:-124.733370
    Maximum:-122.224945
    Units:decimal degrees
    Resolution:0.000001
    transectStart_Y
    Starting position (latitude) of transect. (Source: Producer Defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:41.999010
    Maximum:48.510143
    Units:decimal degrees
    Resolution:0.000001
    transectEnd_X
    Ending position (longitude) of transect. (Source: Producer Defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:-124.743220
    Maximum:-122.221770
    Units:decimal degrees
    Resolution:0.000001
    transectEnd_Y
    Ending position (latitude) of transect. (Source: Producer Defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:41.997130
    Maximum:48.512830
    Units:decimal degrees
    Resolution:0.000001
    distance
    distance of derived shoreline position along transect. (Source: Producer Defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:-492.02408
    Maximum:1224.27390
    Units:meters
    Resolution:0.00001
    slope
    slope used for tidal correction of derived shoreline position (Source: Producer Defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:0.010
    Maximum:0.195
    Units:none
    Resolution:0.001
    tide
    tide height correction (referenced to MSL) used for derived shoreline position (Source: Producer Defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:-2.3479471
    Maximum:2.3203514
    Units:meters
    Resolution:0.0000001
    shoreline_x
    Position (latitude) of shoreline derived from satellite imagery for date and time indicated. (Source: Producer Defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:-124.73947
    Maximum:-122.224724
    Units:decimal degrees
    Resolution:0.000001
    shoreline_y
    Position (longitude) of shoreline derived from satellite imagery for date and time indicated. (Source: Producer Defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:41.998660
    Maximum:48.510162
    Units:decimal degrees
    Resolution:0.000001
    Entity_and_Attribute_Overview: The first line of the csv is a header line
    Entity_and_Attribute_Detail_Citation: U.S. Geological Survey

Who produced the data set?

  1. Who are the originators of the data set? (may include formal authors, digital compilers, and editors)
    • Daniel Buscombe
    • Yarran Doherty
    • Kristen D. Splinter
    • Sean F. Vitousek
  2. Who also contributed to the data set?
  3. To whom should users address questions about the data?
    U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
    Attn: PCMSC Science Data Coordinator
    2885 Mission Street
    Santa Cruz, CA

    831-427-4747 (voice)
    pcmsc_data@usgs.gov

Why was the data set created?

These data provide estimates of automatically detected coastal shoreline position for resource managers, science researchers, students, and the general public. These data can be used with geographic information systems, shoreline evolution models, or other software to assist identifying and assessing possible areas of vulnerability, along with appropriate inclusion of uncertainty. These data are not intended to be used for navigation or in lieu of definitive shoreline datasets.

How was the data set created?

  1. From what previous works were the data drawn?
    Landsat imagery (source 1 of 2)
    U.S. Geological Survey, 2023, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. (2020). Landsat 4-5 Thematic Mapper Level-2, Collection 2 [dataset]. U.S. Geological Survey. https://doi.org/10.5066/P9IAXOVV: U.S. Geological Survey, online.

    Online Links:

    Type_of_Source_Media: online database
    Source_Contribution:
    The archive of Landsat 5-8 satellite imagery accessed through Google Earth Engine was used to derive shoreline positions for the study area.
    FES 2014 (source 2 of 2)
    Carrere, L., Lyard, F., Cancet, M., Guillot, A., and Picot, N., 20160501, FES (Finite Element Solution) 2014, a new tidal model—Validation results and perspectives for improvements: AVISO, online.

    Online Links:

    Type_of_Source_Media: online model
    Source_Contribution:
    Tide height predictions using a finite element solution model. Tidal corrections in the shoreline position were made with tide height predicted from the FES 2014 model.
  2. How were the data generated, processed, and modified?
    Date: 01-Jul-2024 (process 1 of 4)
    Set up CoastSat toolbox (Vos and others, 2019a and 2019b) for implementation along the region of interest. Toolbox set up in python 3.10 to run for geography spanning coastline for the U.S. Pacific Northwest coast, for the time period of 01 March 1984 to 31 December 2023. Beach slopes used for the tidal corrections were automatically derived from the raw satellite shorelines using the method explained by Vos and others (2020). CoastSat operates on the same transects as the CoSMoS-COAST model for the region (Vitousek and others, 2023), modified from the transects of the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS; Himmelstoss and others, 2021). The transects were grouped (including a 500 m lateral buffer) into several different bounding boxes for which the satellite imagery was extracted. The bounding boxes had an average size of 16 km2 (a maximum of 32 km2 and a minimum of 1 km2).
    Date: 01-Jul-2024 (process 2 of 4)
    Ran CoastSat toolbox on Landsat imagery available through Google Earth Engine (Gorelick and others, 2017) for geography and time period of interest. Only cloudless imagery or imagery with less than 50 percent cloud cover was used. Imagery had horizontal resolution of 30 m, which was pan-sharpened to 15 m. Tidal corrections were applied using tide heights estimated from the FES 2014 Tidal model. Data sources used in this process:
    • FES 2014
    • Landsat imagery
    Date: 01-Jul-2024 (process 3 of 4)
    Checked output to ensure quality results. These shorelines represent the automatically detected shoreline segments as identified by CoastSat (no other adjustments). The accuracy of the satellite-derived shoreline (SDS) for this area was addressed in Vos and others (2019a), who compared SDS observations with ground-based surveys at Duck, NC. They found an RMS accuracy of about 9 m (root mean square error). Lacking additional, sufficient ground-based observations for the purposes of further robust error estimates, authors use an error of 10 m (in root mean square error) for the SDS dataset. In dynamic locations, including areas such as river mouths, capes, and ends of spits, uncertainty is greater, and locations should be inspected and used with care.
    Date: 01-Jul-2024 (process 4 of 4)
    Organized final extracted shorelines into comma separated files grouped by state. Originating imagery dates/times, slope, tide, and transect positions are included in files, in addition to derived shoreline positions at all transects.
  3. What similar or related data should the user be aware of?
    Buscombe, Daniel D., Vos, Kilian, O’Neill, Andrea C., Fitzpatrick, Sharon, Splinter, Kristen, and Vitousek, Sean F., 2024, Satellite-derived shorelines for the U.S. Gulf Coast states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida for the period 1984-2022, obtained using CoastSat.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Buscombe, D., Vos, K., O’Neill, A.C., Fitzpatrick, S.N., Splinter, K.D., and Vitousek, S.F., 2024, Satellite-derived shorelines for the U.S. Gulf Coast states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida for the period 1984-2022, obtained using CoastSat, U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P1WFZXDM.
    Barnard, Patrick L., Befus, Kevin, Danielson, Jeffrey J., Engelstad, Anita C., Erikson, Li H., Foxgrover, Amy C., Hardy, Matthew W., Hoover, Daniel J., Leijnse, Tim, Massey, Chris, McCall, Robert, Nadal-Caraballo, Norberto C., Nederhoff, Kees, Ohenhen, Leonard, O’Neill, Andrea C., Parker, Kai A., Shirzaei, Manoocher, Su, Xin, Thomas, Jennifer A., Ormondt, Maarten van, Vitousek, Sean F., and Yawn, Madison C., 2023, Future coastal hazards along the U.S. North and South Carolina coasts.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Barnard, P.L., Befus, K., Danielson, J.J., Engelstad, A.C., Erikson, L.H., Foxgrover, A.C., Hardy, M.W., Hoover, D.J., Leijnse, T., Massey, C., McCall, R., Nadal-Caraballo, N.C., Nederhoff, K., Ohenhen, L., O’Neill, A.C., Parker, K.A., Shirzaei, M., Su, X., Thomas, J.A., van Ormondt, M., Vitousek, S.F., Vos K., and Yawn, M.C., 2023 Future coastal hazards along the U.S. North and South Carolina coasts: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9W91314.
    Vitousek, Sean, Vos, Kilian, Barnard, Patrick L., and O’Neill, Andrea C., 2023, Projections of Shoreline Change of current and future (2005-2100) sea-level rise scenarios for the U.S. Atlantic coast.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Vitousek, S., Vos, K., Barnard, P.L., and O’Neill, A.C., 2023, Projections of Shoreline Change of current and future (2005-2100) sea-level rise scenarios for the U.S. Atlantic coast, of Barnard, P.L., Befus, K., Nadal-Caraballo, N.C., Danielson, J., Engelstad, A., Erikson, L.H., Foxgrover, A.C., Hardy, M., Hoover, D., Leijnse, T., Massey, C., McCall, R., Nederhoff, K., Ohenhen, L., O'Neill, A.C., Parker, K., Shirzaei, M., Su, X., Thompson, J., van Ormondt, M., Vitousek, S., Vos, K., Yawn, M.C., 2023. Future Coastal Hazards along the U.S. Atlantic coast. U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9BQQTCI.
    Vos, K., Harley, M.D., Splinter, K.D., Simmons, J.A., and Turner, I.L., 2019, Sub-annual to multi-decadal shoreline variability from publicly available satellite imagery.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Vos, K., Harley, M.D., Splinter, K.D., Simmons, J.A., and Turner, I.L., 2019a, Sub-annual to multi-decadal shoreline variability from publicly available satellite imagery: Coastal Engineering, v. 150, p. 160-174.
    Vos, K., Splinter, K.D., Harley, M.D., Simmons, J.A., and Turner, I.L., 2019, CoastSat: A Google Earth Engine-enabled Python toolkit to extract shorelines from publicly available satellite imagery.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Vos, K., Splinter, K.D., Harley, M.D., Simmons, J.A., and Turner, I.L., 2019b, CoastSat: A Google Earth Engine-enabled Python toolkit to extract shorelines from publicly available satellite imagery: Environmental Modelling and Software, v. 122, 104528.
    Vos, K., Harley, M.D., Splinter, K.D., Walker, A., and Turner, I.L., 2020, Beach slopes from satellite‐derived shorelines.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Vos, K., Harley, M.D., Splinter, K.D., Walker, A., and Turner, I.L, 2020, Beach slopes from satellite‐derived shorelines: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 47, e2020GL088365.
    Gorelick, N., Hancher, M., Dixon, M., Ilyshechenko, S., Thau, D., and Moore, R., 2017, Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone..

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Gorelick, N., Hancher, M., Dixon, M., Ilyushchenko, S., Thau, D., and Moore, R., 2017, Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone: Remote Sensing of Environment, v. 202, p. 18-27.
    Himmelstoss, E.A., Farris, A.S., Henderson, R.E., Kratzmann, M.G., Ergul, A., Zhang, O., Zichichi, J.L., and Thieler, E.R., 2021, Digital Shoreline Analysis System (version 5.1).

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Himmelstoss, E.A., Farris, A.S., Henderson, R.E., Kratzmann, M.G., Ergul, A., Zhang, O., Zichichi, J.L., Thieler, E.R., 2021, Digital Shoreline Analysis System (version 5.1): U.S. Geological Survey software release, https://code.usgs.gov/cch/dsas.

How reliable are the data; what problems remain in the data set?

  1. How well have the observations been checked?
    Attribute values are estimates of shoreline position based on satellite imagery. The accuracy of this method was assessed by Vos and others (2019a), who compared data with ground-based surveys at Duck, North Carolina. In line with these estimates, authors are using a cross-shore horizontal error of 10 m (root mean square error) in most locations. In dynamic locations, including areas such as river mouths, capes, and ends of spits, uncertainty is greater, and positions should be inspected and used with care.
  2. How accurate are the geographic locations?
    Data are concurrent with specified transect locations.
  3. How accurate are the heights or depths?
    A formal accuracy assessment of the vertical positional information in the data set has either not been conducted or is not applicable.
  4. Where are the gaps in the data? What is missing?
    Data set is considered complete for the information presented.
  5. How consistent are the relationships among the observations, including topology?
    Data have undergone QA/QC and fall within expected/reasonable ranges.

How can someone get a copy of the data set?

Are there legal restrictions on access or use of the data?
Access_Constraints No access constraints
Use_Constraints USGS-authored or produced data and information are in the public domain from the U.S. Government and are freely redistributable with proper metadata and source attribution. Please recognize and acknowledge the U.S. Geological Survey as the originator(s) of the dataset and in products derived from these data.
  1. Who distributes the data set? (Distributor 1 of 1)
    U.S. Geological Survey - CMGDS
    2885 Mission Street
    Santa Cruz, CA

    831-427-4747 (voice)
    pcmsc_data@usgs.gov
  2. What's the catalog number I need to order this data set? These data are available in csv format by state. Shorelines are identified as points along transects (ID) and transect start and end points are included in the csv.
  3. What legal disclaimers am I supposed to read?
    Unless otherwise stated, all data, metadata and related materials are considered to satisfy the quality standards relative to the purpose for which the data were collected. Although these data and associated metadata have been reviewed for accuracy and completeness and approved for release by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the display or utility of the data on any other system or for general or scientific purposes, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty.
  4. How can I download or order the data?
  5. What hardware or software do I need in order to use the data set?
    These data can be viewed with GIS software such as ArcGIS, Global Mapper or QGIS, or numerical processing software such as python or Matlab.

Who wrote the metadata?

Dates:
Last modified: 05-Apr-2025
Metadata author:
U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
Attn: PCMSC Science Data Coordinator
2885 Mission Street
Santa Cruz, CA

831-427-4747 (voice)
pcmsc_data@usgs.gov
Metadata standard:
Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (FGDC-STD-001-1998)
This page is <https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/catalog/pcmsc/DataReleases/CMGDS_DR_tool/DR_P1E2JDPF/SatelliteDerivedShorelines_PNWCoast_metadata.faq.html>
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