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 one new mean high water (MHW) shoreline extracted from lidar data collected in 2017 for the entire coastal region of North Carolina which is divided into four subregions: northern North Carolina (NCnorth), central North Carolina (NCcentral), southern North Carolina (NCsouth), and western North Carolina (NCwest). Previously published historical shorelines for North Carolina (Kratzmann and others, 2017) were combined with the new lidar shoreline to calculate long-term (up to 169 years) and short-term (up to 20 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.

The storm-induced Coastal Change Hazards component of the National Assessment of Coastal Change Hazards (NACCH) project focuses on understanding the magnitude and variability of extreme storm impacts on sandy beaches. Light detection and ranging (lidar)-derived beach morphologic features such as dune crest, toe, and shoreline help define the vulnerability of the beach to storm impacts. This dataset defines the elevation and position of the seaward-most dune crest and toe and the mean high-water shoreline derived from the 2019 Post-Dorian United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) North Carolina and Virginia lidar survey. Beach width is included and is defined as the distance between the dune toe and shoreline along a cross-shore profile. The beach slope is calculated using this beach width and the elevation of the shoreline and dune toe.

This data set contains vector lines representing coastal hydrography features that are not captured in the HYDROP polygon data layer. Typically, the features found in the HYDROL data layer are piers, breakwaters, and inland rivers and creeks. As a whole, the ESI data characterize the marine and coastal environments and wildlife by their sensitivity to spilled oil, and include information for three main components: shoreline habitats, sensitive biological resources, and human-use resources. See also the HYDROP (Hydrography Polygons) data layer for additional shoreline/hydrography information.