USGS National Shoreline Change - A GIS compilation of new lidar-derived shorelines (2010, 2017, and 2018) and associated shoreline change data for coastal South Carolina

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has compiled national shoreline data for more than 20 years to document coastal change and serve the needs of research, management, and the public. Maintaining a record of historical shoreline positions is an effective method to monitor national shoreline evolution over time, enabling scientists to identify areas most susceptible to erosion or accretion. These data can help coastal managers and planners understand which areas of the coast are vulnerable to change.

This data release includes two new mean high water (MHW) shorelines extracted from lidar data collected in 2010 and 2017-2018. Previously published historical shorelines for South Carolina (Kratzmann and others, 2017) were combined with the new lidar shorelines to calculate long-term (up to 166 years) and short-term (up to 18 years) rates of change. Files associated with the long-term and short-term rates are appended with "LT" and "ST", respectively. A proxy-datum bias reference line that accounts for the positional difference in a proxy shoreline (e.g. High Water Line (HWL) shoreline) and a datum shoreline (e.g. MHW shoreline) is also included in this release.