A web map featuring Alaska Coastline, digitized from USGS Quad maps.

DGGS Report of Investigation 2021-3, Erosion exposure assessment of infrastructure in Alaska coastal communities, provides estimated erosion exposure for 48 communities from the Bering to the Beaufort seas. The Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys conducted a shoreline change assessment to forecast 20-, 40-, and 60-year erosion estimates using the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS; Himmelstoss and others, 2018), and estimated the replacement cost of infrastructure in the forecast area. The geodatabase includes mean erosion forecasts and maximum uncertainties for 38 communities along with infrastructure locations and classification derived from Alaska Division of Community & Regional Affairs digital mapping products (DCRA, 2021) for 44 communities. All files are available from the DGGS website: http://doi.org/10.14509/30672

NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) is building coastal-relief models (CRM) for select U.S. coastal regions. Bathymetric, topographic, and shoreline data used in DEM compilation are obtained from various sources, including NGDC, the U.S. National Ocean Service (NOS), the National , the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Office of Coast Survey (OCS) and other federal, state, and local government agencies, academic institutions, and private companies. DEMs are referenced to the vertical tidal datum of Mean Sea Level (MSL) and horizontal datum of World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS 84). Grid spacings for the Southern Alaska CRM is 24 arc-seconds (~720 meters).

The Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys has analyzed long-term shoreline change at 48 Alaska communities. Shoreline datasets were compiled from previously published U.S. Geological Survey assessments and created from historical and recent aerial images by the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys. Shorelines were analyzed to calculate shoreline change rates every 25 meters along coastlines and tidally influenced riverbanks using the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS; Himmelstoss and others, 2018). The geodatabase for each community includes shoreline positions, the alongshore baseline used to cast transects, and transects that include shoreline change rates and statistics. All files can be downloaded free of charge from the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys website (http://doi.org/10.14509/30552).

The ShoreZone mapping system has been in use since the early 1980s and has been applied to more than 40,000 km of shoreline in Washington and British Columbia. Now Alaska's extensive coastline is being imaged and mapped. This project has been funded by NOAA and a number of other agencies and organizations throughout the years. This standardized system catalogs both geomorphic and biological resources at mapping scales of better than 1:10,000. The high resolution, attribute rich dataset is a useful tool for extrapolation of site data over broad spatial ranges and creating a variety of habitat models. Low tide, oblique aerial imagery sets this system apart from other mapping efforts. You can "fly the coastline" (aerial video), view still photos, and access biophysical data using our interactive website. This site will include more of Alaska's coastline as new data becomes available.

A map showing all the planned, funded, in progress, and complete coastal mapping activities for Alaska, symbolized by technology type (imagery, shoreline vector, topobathy lidar, sonar). The purpose of this map is to show progress toward coastal mapping completion for Alaska, as well as to provide a common operating picture for collaboration, pooling of resources, and outreach coordination. Simplified coastline and large communities layers acquired from the Alaska State Geoportal.Used in Dashboard for Alaska Coastal Mapping Strategy Hub site Dashboard: https://noaa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/8b2e8dcc5f3c4f85aac9434ae642e125hub site: https://alaska-coastal-mapping-strategy-noaa.hub.arcgis.com/

DGGS Report of Investigation 2021-3, Erosion exposure assessment of infrastructure in Alaska coastal communities, provides estimated erosion exposure for 48 communities from the Bering to the Beaufort seas. The Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys conducted a shoreline change assessment to forecast 20-, 40-, and 60-year erosion estimates using the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS; Himmelstoss and others, 2018), and estimated the replacement cost of infrastructure in the forecast area. The geodatabase includes mean erosion forecasts and maximum uncertainties for 38 communities along with infrastructure locations and classification derived from Alaska Division of Community & Regional Affairs digital mapping products (DCRA, 2021) for 44 communities. All files are available from the DGGS website: http://doi.org/10.14509/30672

This dataset presents projected hourly time-series of wave heights, wave periods, incident wave directions and directional spreading at distinct points along the open coast of Alaska for the years 2020 through 2050. The projections were developed by running the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) WAVEWATCHIII model. Wind and sea ice fields from seven different Global Climate or General Circulation Models from the CMIP6 High-Resolution Model Intercomparison Project were used to simulate waves across the globe at a 0.5-degree resolution (approximately 50 kms, depending on latitude) and further downscaled to 10- (approximately 18 kilometer) and 4-arc-minute (approximately 7 kilometer) model grids. Point model output data extracted from NOAA’s 4-arc-minute grid for Alaska (ak_4m) are provided herein.

The Arctic Coastal Plain of northern Alaska is an area of strategic economic importance to the United States, is home to remote Native American communities, and encompasses unique habitats of global significance. Coastal erosion along the north coast of Alaska is chronic, widespread, may be accelerating, and is threatening defense and energy-related infrastructure, natural shoreline habitats, and Native communities. There is an increased demand for accurate information regarding past and present shoreline changes across the United States. To meet these national needs, the Coastal and Marine Geology Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is compiling existing reliable historical shoreline data along sandy shores of the conterminous United States and parts of Alaska and Hawaii under the National Assessment of Shoreline Change project. There is no widely accepted standard for analyzing shoreline change. Existing shoreline data measurements and rate calculation methods vary from study to study and prevent combining results into state-wide or regional assessments. The impetus behind the National Assessment project was to develop a standardized method of measuring changes in shoreline position that is consistent from coast to coast. The goal was to facilitate the process of periodically and systematically updating the results in an internally consistent manner.

These data provide an accurate high-resolution shoreline compiled from imagery of ALASKA PENINSULA, THIN POINT TO BELKOFSKI POINT . This vector shoreline data is based on an office interpretation of imagery that may be suitable as a geographic information system (GIS) data layer. This metadata describes information for both the line and point shapefiles. The NGS attribution scheme 'Coastal Cartographic Object Attribute Source Table (C-COAST)' was developed to conform the attribution of various sources of shoreline data into one attribution catalog. C-COAST is not a recognized standard, but was influenced by the International Hydrographic Organization's S-57 Object-Attribute standard so the data would be more accurately translated into S-57. This resource is a member of https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/39808

This Dataset contains Erosion Rates and Soil Physiochemical Properties in Northern Alaska Coastline Photos and is part of the Collaborative Research: Flux and Transformation of Organic Carbon across the Eroding Coastline of Northern Alaska project. This proposed research addresses scientific questions through four main components designed to: (1) characterize the abundance, composition, and age of soil organic carbon (OC) and the abundance and structure of ground ice in relation to geomorphic environments, (2) estimate the total OC flux along the entire Alaskan Beaufort Sea coast and develop empirical models based on terrain and oceanographic factors to assess the vulnerability of the coasts to increased erosion resulting from a longer fetch due to sea-ice retreat, (3) to determine the biogeochemical transformation and bioavailability of OC associated with various dissolved and particulate forms as they cross the land/sea interface through field study and controlled laboratory experimentation; and (4) integrate our results to the pan-arctic scale through international collaboration with the Arctic Coastal Dynamics program. The study will involve extensive sampling at 50 random locations along the entire coast to develop precise estimates of OC abundance and flux with explicit confidence limits. Intensive sampling at three key sites that represent the dominant coastline types will be conducted to evaluate the transformation of the eroded OC. Three additional secondary sites will be established to broaden the monitoring to other coastline types and to involve local communities in the assessment of coastal changes.

These data were automated to provide an accurate high-resolution historical shoreline of Alaska Peninsula suitable as a geographic information system (GIS) data layer. These data are derived from shoreline maps that were produced by the NOAA National Ocean Service including its predecessor agencies which were based on an office interpretation of imagery and/or field survey. The NGS attribution scheme 'Coastal Cartographic Object Attribute Source Table (C-COAST)' was developed to conform the attribution of various sources of shoreline data into one attribution catalog. C-COAST is not a recognized standard, but was influenced by the International Hydrographic Organization's S-57 Object-Attribute standard so the data would be more accurately translated into S-57. This resource is a member of https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/39808

This coastal exposure index was published as part of a broader estuaries habitat classification framework in the journal Estuaries and Coasts: G.C. Schoch, D.M. Albert, and C.S. Shanley. 2013. An Estuarine Habitat Classification for a Complex Fjordal Island Archipelago. Estuaries and Coasts DOI 10.1007/s12237-013-9622-3. Online URL: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12237-013-9622-3.Description excerpt: Marine exposure changes with the degree of protection from the full force of open ocean waves. Wave exposure is often quantified as a function of fetch, orientation, and nearshore bathymetry, or on maximum fetch and wind forcing where wave exposure increases with increasing fetch distance and windspeed and duration. However, these estimates do not account for the cumulative effect of ocean swells including refracted, diffracted, and reflected waves. Estimates using fetch are only useful for estimating wave heights for protected embayments and inland shores subjected primarily to locally generated wind waves. We developed an estimate of marine exposure based on an index of the total area visible over water from shore, allowing for the penetration and effects of deep water waves. The marine exposure index was calculated as: lnSum6 i=1 pi ri where p=number of points visible at radius i, and r=distance in km of radius i. We first generated concentric buffers to seaward of the shoreline at distances of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 100 km. These lines were then converted to points at 1-km intervals. We used the Viewshed tool in ArcGIS to identify the number of points at each radius visible from each segment along the shoreline. The distance-weighted index of marine exposure was calculated as the natural log of the sum of points visible at each radius multipled be the radius distance and catagorized by area of exposure.

NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) is building high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) for select U.S. coastal regions. These integrated bathymetric-topographic DEMs are used to support tsunami forecasting and modeling efforts at the NOAA Center for Tsunami Research, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL). The DEMs are part of the tsunami forecast system SIFT (Short-term Inundation Forecasting for Tsunamis) currently being developed by PMEL for the NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers, and are used in the MOST (Method of Splitting Tsunami) model developed by PMEL to simulate tsunami generation, propagation, and inundation. Bathymetric, topographic, and shoreline data used in DEM compilation are obtained from various sources, including NGDC, the U.S. National Ocean Service (NOS), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and other federal, state, and local government agencies, academic institutions, and private companies. DEMs are referenced to the vertical tidal datum of Mean High Water (MHW) and horizontal datum of World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84). Grid spacings for the DEMs range from 1/3 arc-second (~10 meters) to 3 arc-seconds (~90 meters).

NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) is building high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) for select U.S. coastal regions. These integrated bathymetric-topographic DEMs are used to support tsunami forecasting and warning efforts at the NOAA Center for Tsunami Research, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL). The DEMs are part of the tsunami forecast system SIFT (Short-term Inundation Forecasting for Tsunamis) currently being developed by PMEL for the NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers, and are used in the MOST (Method of Splitting Tsunami) model developed by PMEL to simulate tsunami generation, propagation, and inundation. Bathymetric, topographic, and shoreline data used in DEM compilation are obtained from various sources, including NGDC, the U.S. National Ocean Service (NOS), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and other federal, state, and local government agencies, academic institutions, and private companies. DEMs are referenced to the vertical tidal datum of Mean High Water (MHW) and horizontal datum of World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84). Grid spacings for the DEMs range from 1/3 arc-second (~10 meters) to 3 arc-seconds (~90 meters).

This aerial photograph collection consists of about 1897 frames of color infrared and natural color transparencies. It was flown in the summers of 1976 and 1977 for the Outer Continental Shelf Environmental Assessment Program, at an altitude ranging from about 5,000 - 18,400 feet.
ECR prefix indicates color infrared, and CC/ZC indicates natural color.
It is filed by flight line. This subset of the aerial photograph collection includes flight lines that included coastline from the Seward Peninsula. Flight lines include numbers 8-14 and 24-40. There are 846 images in this subset, 281 natural color images and 565 color infrared images. The photography may be ordered from the National Archives or duplicated in the National Ocean Service photo lab.

This data set contains vector lines and polygons representing the shoreline and coastal habitats of Western Alaska classified according to the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) classification system. This data set comprises a portion of the ESI for Western Alaska. ESI data characterize the marine and coastal environments and wildlife by their sensitivity to spilled oil. The ESI data includ...

These data provide an accurate high-resolution shoreline compiled from imagery of COLUMBIA BAY, ALASKA . This vector shoreline data is based on an office interpretation of imagery that may be suitable as a geographic information system (GIS) data layer. This metadata describes information for both the line and point shapefiles. The NGS attribution scheme 'Coastal Cartographic Object Attribute Source Table (C-COAST)' was developed to conform the attribution of various sources of shoreline data into one attribution catalog. C-COAST is not a recognized standard, but was influenced by the International Hydrographic Organization's S-57 Object-Attribute standard so the data would be more accurately translated into S-57. This resource is a member of https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/39808

NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) is building high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) for select U.S. coastal regions. These integrated bathymetric-topographic DEMs are used to support tsunami forecasting and modeling efforts at the NOAA Center for Tsunami Research, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL). The DEMs are part of the tsunami forecast system SIFT (Short-term Inundation Forecasting for Tsunamis) currently being developed by PMEL for the NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers, and are used in the MOST (Method of Splitting Tsunami) model developed by PMEL to simulate tsunami generation, propagation, and inundation. Bathymetric, topographic, and shoreline data used in DEM compilation are obtained from various sources, including NGDC, the U.S. National Ocean Service (NOS), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and other federal, state, and local government agencies, academic institutions, and private companies. DEMs are referenced to the vertical tidal datum of Mean High Water (MHW) and horizontal datum of World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS 84). Grid spacings for the DEMs range from 1/3 arc-second (~10 meters) to 3 arc-seconds (~90 meters).

A web map featuring Alaska Coastline, digitized from USGS Quad maps.