NCCOS Assessment: Public Access in Coastal Virginia, 2024-10-29 to 2025-03-31

This dataset contains data on paid and public water access infrastructure (boat landings, piers, marinas, etc.) in the 29 counties and 19 independent cities of coastal Virginia area. Paid water access infrastructure (WAI) are structures that are privately owned, but available to the public for a fee. Public WAI are structures that are available to the public (without need of special permission) and are owned, operated, and/or maintained by a government entity. Paid and public WAI were originally gathered from the Virginia Institute of Marina Science’s Shoreline & Tidal Marsh Inventory (VIMS Inventory). The VIMS Inventory covered 2007-2019, but has been refined to account for all paid/public WAI in the study area as of March 2025. Likewise, the shoreline information in the original VIMS Inventory has been refined to account for shoreline that is suitable for paid/public WAI. This information was used to analyze the spatial distribution of paid/public WAI and water access sites in the coastal Virginia area.