Massachusetts Coastal Zone polygons represent the official coastal management boundary as defined by state regulation 301 CMR 21.99. The boundary layer was compiled by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management in accordance with the federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972.
Use Cases
- Analyze land-use policy compliance by overlaying the coastal_zone boundary polygon with other spatial data layers.
- Model coastal development impacts by using the zone polygon as a constraint layer in spatial planning tools.
- Calculate jurisdictional statistics for areas within the coastal_zone polygon, such as population or habitat extent.
Strengths
- Boundary defined by authoritative state regulation 301 CMR 21.99.
- Created to comply with the federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, providing legal grounding.
Limitations
- Dataset size, row count, and specific geometry details are unknown.
- Data freshness and update frequency are not provided, potentially limiting current applicability.
Provenance
- Source
- Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management.
- Collection Method
- Compiled to represent the legal boundary per state and federal law.
- Time Range
- null
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Massachusetts coastal zone.