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Arctic

NOAA's Medium Resolution Digital Vector Shoreline (1998) for the Contiguous United States

Dataset Summary

Agency	NOAA's Ocean Service, Special Projects (SP)
Sub-Agency/Organization
Category	Oceans and Estuaries, Environment and Conservation
Date Released	1998
Date Updated
Time Period	1988 - 1992
Frequency	None Planned
Description	NOAA's Medium Resolution Digital Vector Shoreline is a high-quality, Geographic Information System-ready, general-use digital vector data set created by the Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA) Division of NOAA's Office of Ocean Resources Conservation and Assessment. The Medium Resolution Digital Vector Shoreline is now managed by the NOS Special Projects Office. Compiled from hundreds of NOAA coast charts, this product comprises over 75,000 nautical miles of coastline (nearly 2.5 million vectices), representing the entire coterminous United States of America. Alaska, the Hawaiian Islands, Puerto Rico, and all other interests and territories of the United States are not included in the collection.

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Dataset Information

Data.gov Data Category Type	Geodata
Specialized Data Category Designation	Geospatial
Keywords	None, shoreline, shoreline data, shoreline vectorization, NOAA nautical chart, digital vector shoreline, digital geographic boundaries, Shoreline, ISO 19115 Topic Category, oceans, environment, NOS Data Explorer Topic Category, Environmental Monitoring, Shoreline, None, Contiguous United States, Conterminous United States, East Coast, West Coast, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf Coast, Great Lakes
Unique ID	75A34F69-1433-6C85-3D90-CE4299E232E1

Contributing Agency Information

Citation	Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service (NOS), Special Projects (SP)
Agency Program Page
Agency Data Series Page	http://coastalgeospatial.noaa.gov/shoreline.html

Dataset Coverage

Unit of Analysis
Granularity
Geographic Coverage	-124.762, -66.849, 49.020, 24.504

Data Description

Collection Mode
Data Collection Instrument
Data Dictionary/Variable List	Truncation arcs are arcs inserted into the data to provide continuity/closure in places where the cartographic information on the chart was incomplete. Often, small water bodies (rivers, streams, and creeks), in locations beyond the point of navigability are terminated to facilitate the insertion of non-cartographic information such as title blocks and notations. Continuity of the data, a requirement our data set specification, is interrupted at these locations if they are captured and retained as depicted on the navigation chart. To reestablish the necessary topological continuity an artificial closure arc is placed across the truncated section of shoreline. These arcs make no attempt to simulate the position of the missing shoreline section(s), but rather simply terminate the feature. To easily identify these arc features in the data field they are given the attribute codes: S_SOURCE = 4 and S_ARC_CODE = 3.Estimation arcs are used for two purposes: first, to fill in gaps in the shoreline as depicted on the chart (other than those areas which would be considered truncations), and secondly, to identify captured (digitized) shoreline arcs which have been modified in some way either for error rectification or edge matching adjustments. The span of these arcs range from five meters to several tens of meters in length. In the first case, estimator arcs attempt to simulate or mimic the actual shape or course of the coastline in the missing area. Insertion of these arcs into the data is done using heads up methods with the appropriate navigational chart(s) as a guide. In the second case, an existing arcs terminal to node is moved from its original captured location to a position where it can be connected to the concomitant arc's node from an adjacent chart. Additional vertices may then be added to replicate the course of the original information. Modification of existing arcs was carried out such that disruption of the information was minimized. Estimate arcs are identified in the data by the codes: S_SOURCE = 4, S_ARC_CODE = 5. If the accuracy of the data could not be assessed and thus categorized into one of the five qualitative integrity classes, the arc was classified with an integrity of unknown. Most of the arcs grouped into the unknown category were those captured early in the project. During that time source materials (primarily master compilations and X-drawings) were assumed to be of equal stability and accuracy. This was not, however, the case. Once this disparity was recognized, source tracking procedures were implemented and the integrity of the captured information, based on the stability and clarity of the source media was tracked and assessed.

Additional Dataset Documentation

Technical Documentation
Additional Metadata	XML Format

OMB Control No. 3090-0284