Coastal Services Center

The Shoreline Metadata Profile

The objective of the Shoreline Metadata Profile is to capture the critical processes and conditions associated with collecting and creating shoreline data and those data that intersect with our nation's shorelines. The Shoreline Metadata Profile is intended to serve the community of users who are involved with geospatial data "activities" that intersect the U.S. shoreline by providing the format and content for describing data sets related to shoreline and other coastal data sets. It is primarily oriented toward providing the elements necessary for documenting shoreline data and reaching a common understanding of the shoreline for national mapping purposes and other geospatial and geographic information systems (GIS) applications.

The Shoreline Metadata Profile is a Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) standard designed to clarify some of the complexities of shoreline data by providing shoreline-specific metadata elements (fields), a comprehensive shoreline glossary, and a bibliography. Because the CSDGM only allows for the documentation of generic geospatial data, the FGDC Marine and Coastal Spatial Data Subcommittee (formerly the Bathymetric Subcommittee) felt that it was necessary to develop a metadata profile that addressed the unique elements of shoreline data.

Shoreline data are important for coastal zone management, environmental monitoring, resource development, jurisdictional issues, ocean and meteorological modeling, engineering, planning, and many other uses. The shoreline feature is an integral component of the nation's geospatial data framework and the Coastal National Spatial Data Infrastructure. A published metadata standard will provide data developers and users with a basis from which to assess the quality and utility of their shoreline data.

The U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center will maintain the Shoreline Metadata Profile for the FGDC. Questions concerning the Shoreline Profile can be addressed to the executive secretary of the FGDC Marine and Coastal Spatial Data Subcommittee.

• Shoreline Metadata Profile (PDF)

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