Annual Shoreline Positions and Change Rates for Australia, 1988-Present

Digital Earth Australia Coastlines provides annual shoreline positions and rates of coastal change for the entire Australian coastline from 1988 to the present. The dataset is produced by Geoscience Australia by combining satellite data from the Digital Earth Australia program with tidal modelling to map the coastline at mean sea level. It enables the examination of coastal erosion and growth trends at local and continental scales.

Use Cases

• Monitoring and mapping rates of coastal erosion along the Australian coastline based on annual shoreline data.
• Prioritizing coastal management actions based on historical coastline change trends mentioned in the description.
• Modeling how coastlines respond to drivers like extreme weather, sea level rise, or human development.
• Supporting geomorphological studies of how and why coastlines have changed across time.

Strengths

• Covers the entire Australian coastline, which is over 30,000 km long.
• Provides annual data from 1988 to the present, enabling long-term trend analysis.
• Combines satellite data with tidal modelling for consistent coastline mapping at mean sea level.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Combination of satellite data from the Digital Earth Australia program with tidal modelling.

Time Range

1988 to present

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 01:11:37.665962; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Entire Australian coastline