NOAA's Digital Coast provides the data, tools, and training that communities use to manage their coastal resources Geospatial data alone is not enough. For data to be truly useful, additional training, tools, and information are often required. The Digital Coast provides this complete package in one place for coastal officials.

The Digital Coast is a cost-effective resource for coastal communities. Through the Digital Coast, users can find the information they need to explore the implications of sea level rise, conduct risk and vulnerability assessments, develop community green infrastructure plans, and much more. The site also provides valuable case studies to highlight how data and tools available from the Digital Coast have been used to address coastal management issues.

The Digital Coast's success is driven in large part by content contributions from many trusted sources, including federal, state, and local government agencies, non-profit organizations, and the private sector. A strong partnership group also helps to validate the information provided through the Digital Coast, ensuring that it is helpful and relevant to coastal managers. These partner organizations have found that the Digital Coast provides a way to work together on initiatives that not only benefit their organizations, but can also have a big impact on efforts to protect coastal resources and communities.


For more information:
Digital Coast NOAA Coastal Services Center


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The law of the sea is a body of customs, treaties, and international agreements by which governments maintain order, productivity, and peaceful relations on the sea Notable in the development of the law of the sea are two international conventions signed in the latter half of the 20th Century. One, the United Nations Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone (1958), outlined the rights and responsibilities of States parties in their offshore waters. In 1982, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea further outlined the role of States parties in their marine areas and beyond.

While the United States ratified the 1958 Convention, as of late 2011, it has not become a party to the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention. The United States recognizes that many of the principles in the 1982 Convention reflect customary international law; however, the U.S. is not bound by the agreement itself.

NOAA has a unique role in administering the law of the sea: Its nautical charts provide the scientifically derived baseline that marks the inner limit of the territorial sea and the outer limit of internal waters, such as bays and rivers. This determines where U.S. territorial waters begin for purposes of international law. The method of arriving at this baseline is described in the 1958 Convention and in the 1982 Convention.

The baselines, and thus the bounds, of offshore marine areas subject to jurisdiction are subject to ongoing revision due to shoreline changes such as accretion (addition of land) and erosion.

The location of maritime boundaries can have potentially far-reaching effects. As a result, NOAA works with other federal agencies, particularly the U.S. Department of State, to keep track of U.S. maritime boundaries and to represent such boundaries, where applicable, on U.S. navigational charts.


For more information:
Law of the Sea: History of the Maritime Zones under International Law

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Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) is the process that federal agencies like NOAA, together with the states and Indian tribes, use to evaluate the impacts of oil spills, HAZMAT incidents and hazardous waste sites, and ship groundings on natural resources both along the nation's coast and throughout its interior.

NOAA and these other entities, referred to collectively as natural resource trustees, work together to identify the extent of resource injuries, the best methods for restoring them, and the type and amount of restoration required.

NOAA's responsibilities in a NRDA include:

A preliminary assessment to determine whether any impacts have occurred. Scientists may collect data, review scientific literature, and use mathematical models to help predict the effects of the incident on trust resources. Injury assessment and restoration planning, during which NOAA quantifies the injuries through scientific and economic studies and then identifies potential restoration projects (e.g., beach and shoreline enhancements, creation of oyster reefs or other shellfish habitats, and programs to monitor the recovery of species and habitats). Restoration, which aims either to return the injured resources to their original condition, or, if that is not possible, to compensate the public for its losses. During this phase, the co-trustees work with the Responsible Party (the entity whose property or actions caused the injury), who pays for the assessment and restoration and often participates in restoration activities. In the event that the Responsible Party refuses to pay damages, NOAA and its co-trustees may file a lawsuit or submit a claim to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

For more information
NOAA's Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program (DARRP)
Gulf Spill Restoration
NOAA Office of Response and Restoration
Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund
Natural Resource Restoration

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As there is no reference that designates one specific shoreline as the “legal” shoreline, numbers for the length of the U.S. shoreline can vary depending on how the shoreline is defined. 

The NOAA figure was determined by hand in 1939-40 with a recording instrument on the largest-scale charts and maps available at that time. Shorelines of outer coast, offshore islands, sounds, bays, rivers, and creeks were included to the head of the tidewater or to a point where tidal waters narrow to a width of 100 feet. For the Great Lakes, the shoreline lengths were measured in 1970 by the International Coordinating Committee on Great Lakes Basic Hydraulic and Hydrologic Data.

The total length of tidal shoreline includes measurements of the coastal states as well as the outlying U.S. territories and possessions.

For more information:
NOAA Shoreline Website
The Coastline of the United States (pdf, 305kb)

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The Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), passed in 1972 and administered by the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, provides for the management of the nation’s coastal resources by balancing economic development with environmental conservation. The goal of the CZMA is to “preserve, protect, develop, and where possible, to restore or enhance the resources of the nation's coastal zone."

The CZMA applies to many different federal actions including federal agency activities, federal license or permit activities, outer continental shelf plans, and federally assisted state projects.

In order to ensure federal consistency, a state agency reviews any programs being implemented by the federal government. Along with the state review, the National Ocean Service interprets the CZMA, oversees applications of federal consistency, provides management and legal assistance to coastal states and federal agencies, and mediates CZMA-related disputes.

The CZMA promotes cooperation and coordination between state s and the federal government in order to promote federal consistency and protect our nation’s coastal resources.

For more information:
CZMA: Federal Consistency Overview (pdf, 200kb)
Federal Consistency Overview
Congressional Action to Help Manage Our Nation's Coasts
Explore: Coastal Zone Management

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Maritime heritage includes not only physical resources such as historic shipwrecks and prehistoric archaeological sites, but also archival documents and oral histories. Maritime heritage can also include the stories of indigenous cultures that have lived and used the oceans for thousands of years.

There is a maritime heritage component in each of our 13 national marine sanctuaries and our one national monument, whether this is a shipwreck or study of indigenous cultures. The first sanctuary that was created with a maritime heritage component was the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of North Carolina in 1975.

Maritime heritage resources are studied through very careful recovery and in many cases, long-term conservation to preserve these artifacts in a museum for future generations.

Maritime heritage resources, when properly studied and interpreted, add an important dimension to our understanding and appreciation of our nation’s rich maritime legacy, and make us more aware of the critical need for us to be wise stewards of our ocean planet.

For more information:
Office of National Marine Sanctuaries: Maritime Heritage
Monitor National Marine Sanctuary
Diving Deeper Podcast, Episode 16 (September 9, 2009) - What is maritime heritage?

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Land cover data documents how much of a region is covered by forests, wetlands, impervious surfaces, agriculture, and other land and water types. Water types include wetlands or open water. Land use shows how people use the landscape – whether for development, conservation, or mixed uses. The different types of land cover can be managed or used quite differently.

Land cover can be determined by analyzing satellite and aerial imagery. Land use cannot be determined from satellite imagery. Land cover maps provide information to help managers best understand the current landscape. To see change over time, land cover maps for several different years are needed. With this information, managers can evaluate past management decisions as well as gain insight into the possible effects of their current decisions before they are implemented.

Coastal managers use land cover data and maps to better understand the impacts of natural phenomena and human use of the landscape. Maps can help managers assess urban growth, model water quality issues, predict and assess impacts from floods and storm surges, track wetland losses and potential impacts from sea level rise, prioritize areas for conservation efforts, and compare land cover changes with effects in the environment or to connections in socioeconomic changes such as increasing population.

For more information:
NOAA Coastal Services Center
Diving Deeper Podcast, Episode 14 (July 29, 2009) - What is land cover data?



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A community that is more informed and prepared will have a greater opportunity to rebound quickly from weather and climate-related events, including adapting to sea level rise. The ability to rebound more quickly can reduce negative human health, environmental, and economic impacts.

The ability of a community to successfully recover is linked to the strengths and capacities of individuals, families, businesses, schools, hospitals, and other parts of the community. Also, there are more people moving into high-risk areas such as the coast. With these population increases, homes, businesses, and infrastructure are also at great risk of damage from hazards. 

Because all communities are going to face hazards, resilience is important. Resilience is our ability to prevent a short-term hazard event from turning into a long-term community-wide disaster. While most communities effectively prepare themselves to respond to emergency situations, many are not adequately prepared to recover in the aftermath.

For more information:
NOAA Coastal Services Center
NOAA's Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management
Diving Deeper Podcast, Episode 10 (June 3, 2009) - What is resilience?
Explore: Natural Hazards Assessment

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An environmental sensitivity index (ESI) map compiles information for coastal shoreline sensitivity, biological resources, and human resources. This information is used to create cleanup strategies before an accident occurs so that authorities are prepared to take action in the event of such a spill. Advance planning reduces the harmful consequences of oil spills and cleanup.

ESI maps have many features that make them great tools for spill response teams. The maps use geographic information system techniques in order to combine regional maps with data on biological and human resources in an area, as well as information on sensitive shorelines. The resources are given ranks and color coded based on their sensitivity to oiling. Organizations can use the synthesized data to create efficient and effective cleanup strategies.

Researchers in the Office of Response and Restoration work with state, federal, and industrial agencies to create ESI maps.

For more information:
Environmental Sensitivity Maps, Office of Response and Restoration
Environmental Sensitivity Index Mapping (pdf, 1.6Mb)

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Smart growth is a way of approaching community development and expansion with the goal of making them “more livable, more economically efficient, and more effective at meeting the needs of the people who live there.”

Smart growth encourages building communities that are easily walkable while also providing a range of other transportation options. Houses are built to be attractive and affordable using compact, energy efficient designs. These tenets, as well as an overall goal of environmental respect and preservation guide smart growth community building.

The NOAA Coastal Services Center has created recommendations for how these principles can be applied to an actual coastal community. These recommendations include a Conventional Design that aims to maximize lot development and deemphasizes environmental preservation. The Conservation Design focuses on preservation of natural resources and open space and works to meet and exceed required environmental protection standards. Lastly, the New Urbanist Design surrounds a central open space with a network of interconntected commercial and residential areas.

For more information:
Alternatives for Coastal Development: One Site, Three Scenarios, NOAA Coastal Services Center
Coastal Decision-making Lesson Plan(pdf, 200kb), NOS Education
Coastal Decision-making Tools

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