Collection of U.S. Coastal Communities Plans and Boundary Shapefiles

This dataset includes a national-scale collection of 698 local planning documents and corresponding geospatial boundaries for 318 United States (U.S.) coastal communities. Developed to support research in coastal resilience and climate adaptation, this dataset addresses the challenge of fragmented local governance data by grouping Comprehensive, Hazard Mitigation, and Climate Adaptation plans. By pairing written plans with U.S. Census-derived shapefiles, this dataset enables integrated spatial and content analysis. It is designed for use by urban planners and hazard researchers applying Natural Language Processing (NLP) or Machine Learning with optional pairing to geospatial analysis.

Methodology & Scope:
The 318 communities were randomly selected from 1,921 eligible coastal communities, providing 95% confidence in estimates for the full population. Communities in the sample reside within 22 of 23 coastal states across the U.S.The plans for each community were collected from publicly available local government websites and manually verified for plan type, publication year, and jurisdictional scope. Draft, unpublished, and regional plans were excluded. The community boundary shapefiles were derived from U.S. Census data and correspond directly to the jurisdictions represented in the planning documents. When an exact boundary match was unavailable, researchers jointly evaluated alternative polygons and selected the option that most closely aligned with the community’s documented extent. The primary data sources are linked in Referenced Data and Software.

Data Organization and Contents:
Files are organized in three folders.
Plans_Collection/: Individual planning documents (PDFs)
Plans_Dataset_Tracker/: A metadata file including population counts for each community, publication year for each plan, and the title for each Adaptation Plan.
Shapefile/: Geospatial boundary files

Interactive Preview:
The community boundaries can also be viewed online using the linked ArcGIS Online Map 318 Coastal Community Boundaries in Related Work Linked Data or Software.

Note on Data Paper:
A data paper under review containing more detailed information will be added to Related Works when available.