The data represent sandy beaches, from Maine to Virginia, before Hurricane Sandy which made landfall on October 29, 2012 from the “Beach and Tidal Inlet Habitat Inventories” project. The North Atlantic coast, Maine to Long Island Sound and the Mid-Atlantic coast, Montauk, NY to Virginia datasets used different methodology and are discribed below.
North Atlantic:
The shoreline was divided into segments (called ‘pockets’) based on whether the area directly adjacent to the beach was developed or undeveloped. Developed beach segments were coded with orange polylines. Undeveloped beach segments were coded with light green polylines. Each shoreline segment was labelled with the name of the municipality followed by a number representing the geographic order of the shoreline segment from north to south or east to west depending on the orientation of the shoreline. The Peconic Estuary shoreline of New York was mapped clockwise starting in Montauk and ending in Orient; the geographic order of its shoreline segments therefore run east to west for the South Fork and west to east for the North Fork of Long Island. Some shoreline segments were labelled with a more specific location name identifying its status as a park, preserve, refuge, or other public ownership. Beach pockets that were contiguous to one another were labelled with a number followed by a letter, in alphabetical order, that represented whether that subsection of beach was developed or undeveloped. For example, “Montauk pocket 3” represents the third beach pocket from east to west in the community of Montauk and is uniformly developed. “Montauk pocket 5a, 5b, 5c,” etc., represent the fifth beach pocket from east to west, with each letter (“a”, “b”, “c”, etc.) representing a separate subsection of beach that is either developed (e.g., Montauk pocket 5a, 5c, 5e, etc.) or undeveloped (e.g., Montauk pocket 5b, 5d, 5f, etc.).
Where the boundaries of a beachfront property in public and/or NGO ownership did not coincide with the boundaries of the corresponding pocket beach, a separate polyline was created to identify the approximate boundaries of the public/NGO parcel; these polylines were coded lime green. A pocket beach was defined as a predominantly sandy beach with a minimum 500 foot length. Pocket beaches can be separated by inlets, rocky headlands, marsh, or hard shoreline stabilization structures (e.g., seawalls) where no dry beach existed seaward of the structure at the time of the inventory. The presence of a sandy beach was digitized using Google Earth imagery from September 2010 to August 2012 to identify and measure the length of sandy beach habitat in Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and the Long Island Sound and Peconic Estuary shorelines of New York prior to Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall on October 29, 2012. Polylines were drawn along the sandy beach, where it was present, and do not represent the position of the coastline or any particular tide line. The polylines represent the presence or absence of a sandy beach, its length, and whether it is developed or undeveloped along its adjacent beachfront.
NOTE: The location and lengths of sandy beach in Massachusetts are not included in this dataset due to the availability of that data from the Massachusetts Coastal Erosion Commission (see http://www.mass.gov/eea/waste-mgnt-recycling/coasts-and-oceans/erosion-commission-report.html). Beaches in public and/or NGO ownership in MA in this dataset are those that are not included in the MA Office of Coastal Zone Management’s Coast Guide Online dataset (http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/czm/program-areas/public-access-and-coast-guide/coast-guide/coast-guide-online.html). The locations and lengths of sandy beach along the Atlantic Ocean shoreline of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia are available in a separate dataset prepared with slightly different methods due to the lack of pocket beaches and presence of barrier islands along those coastlines.
Mid-Atlantic:
The presence of a sandy beach was digitized using Google Earth imagery from September 2010 to August 2012 to identify and measure the length of sandy beach habitat within each municipality or community in New York (Atlantic Ocean shoreline only), New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia prior to Hurricane Sandy. Polylines were drawn along the sandy beach, where it was present, and do not represent the position of the coastline or any particular tide line. The polylines represent the presence or absence of a sandy beach and its length.
Sandy beaches were digitized as polyline features from imagery using a “heads-up” approach using the “Path” tool in Google Earth and were coded orange. Digitizing was done at a scale of 500 to 1,000 feet elevation in Google Earth. Each shoreline segment was labelled with the name of the municipality and the segments are organized in geographic order from north to south or east to west depending on the orientation of the shoreline. The length of sandy beach was measured parallel to the beach from endpoint to endpoint using the “Path” tool of Google Earth; subsections of each community’s sandy beachfront that were developed versus undeveloped were measured using the “Ruler” tool of Google Earth and recorded separately. Additional polyline segments were created to identify the approximate boundaries of beachfront parcels in public and/or non-governmental organization (NGO) ownership; these segments were coded in lime green and labelled with a more specific location name identifying its status as a park, preserve, refuge, or other public ownership. The locations and lengths of sandy beach along the exposed shorelines of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and the Long Island Sound and Peconic Estuary shorelines of New York are available in a separate dataset prepared with slightly different methods due to the presence of pocket beaches and rocky sections of coastline along those shorelines. All data were recorded in Microsoft Excel. All digitizing was completed by a single GIS analyst.
