Back-Island Shorelines for the Undeveloped Areas of New Jersey's Barrier Islands, Extracted from Orthoimagery, March 9, 1991, to July 30, 2013

Assessing the physical change to shorelines and wetlands is critical in determining the resiliency of wetland systems that protect adjacent habitat and communities. The wetland and back-barrier shorelines of New Jersey's barrier islands changed as a result of wave action and storm surge that occurred during Hurricane Sandy, which made landfall on October 29, 2012.  The impact of Hurricane Sandy will be assessed and placed in its historical context to understand the future vulnerability of wetland systems.
Making these assessments will rely on data extracted from current and historical resources such as maps, aerial photographs, satellite imagery, and lidar elevation data, which document physical changes over time.
This USGS Data Series publication includes several open-ocean shorelines, back-island shorelines, back-island shoreline points, sand area polygons, and sand lines for the undeveloped areas of New Jersey's barrier islands that were extracted from orthoimagery (orthoaerial photography) dated from March 9, 1991 to July 30, 2013.
This data set consists of lines that were digitized at the intersection of the back-island shoreline and a set of transects spaced at 20-meter (m) intervals.  The transects, nj_transects_ln_20m_utm18.shp, are included in this Data Series publication and can be accessed via the Data Download page, located at http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/0960/_ds_data-products.html.  The lines falling between the transects do not follow the natural back-island shoreline.  Only one back-island shoreline/transect intersection line vector was digitized per transect.
Orthoimagery of New Jersey were acquired in digital format from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and New Jersey Geographic Information Network (NJGIN).
The following list provides additional details about the orthoimagery used.  The digitized back-island shorelines are organized by area (Sandy Hook, Barnegat Bay, Great Bay, Ludlum Bay, Great Channel, and Cape May) with all dates for each area compiled into one data-set (shapefile) named bshrln_&lt;range of dates&gt;_&lt;area name&gt;.shp.  The orthoimage date for each line is included in the shapefile attribute table "Date" field.
Date				Type		Source		Resolution
19910309-19910313	Pan		USGS, DOQQ		1 m (meter)
19950325-19950407	CIR		USGS, DOQQ		1 m
20020218-20020411	CIR		NJGIN			1 m*
20060805-20060613	Natural	USDA, NAIP		1 m
20070318-20070415	Natural	NJGIN			1 m*
20080808-20080826	Natural	USDA, NAIP		1 m
20100703-20100726	Natural	USDA, NAIP		1 m
20120314-20120416	RGBI		NJGIN			1 m*
20121031-20121106	Natural	NOAA			1 m*
20130707-20130730	Natural	USDA, NAIP		1 m
Pan - Panchromatic (1 band, gray scale)
CIR - Color Infrared (infrared, red, green)
Natural - Natural Color (red, green, blue)
RGBI - Natural Color and Infrared (red, green, blue, and infrared)
DOQQ	- Digital Orthophoto Quarter Quads
NAIP	- National Agriculture Imagery Program
*Resampled from 1-foot resolution imagery.

Tags: 1991, 1995, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, aerial-photography, atlantic-county, barnegat-bay, cape-may, cape-may-county, coastal-processes-gt-beaches, doi-usgs-cmg-gt-coastal-and-marine-geology-u-s-geological-survey-u-s-department-of-interior, erosion, great-bay, great-channel, land-surface-gt-land-use-land-cover-gt-land-cover, ludlum-bay, monmouth-county, national-seashore, new-jersey, ocean-county, ocean-gt-coastal-processes-gt-barrier-islands, orthoimagery, orthophotography, remote-sensing, sandy-hook, shoreline, united-states, usgs-4736758d-909c-4d43-aa83-f2ebfd24a174, wetlands
Organization: Department of the Interior