Historical Shoreline Data for James and Appomattox Rivers, Virginia

James and Appomattox Rivers in southeastern Virginia, from Richmond to Petersburg, are covered by this high-resolution historical shoreline dataset. The data were automated from maps produced by the NOAA National Ocean Service and its predecessors, based on imagery interpretation and field surveys. It is formatted as a GIS data layer using the NGS C-COAST attribution scheme.

Use Cases

• Analyze historical shoreline change and erosion rates based on the high-resolution mapping.
• Serve as a base layer for coastal infrastructure planning based on the geographic information system (GIS) format.
• Model habitat change in river estuaries based on the historical shoreline position.
• Validate or compare modern shoreline data based on the historical maps from NOAA.

Strengths

• Data is described as high-resolution and accurate for historical shoreline representation.
• Derived from authoritative NOAA National Ocean Service maps and surveys.
• Attribution uses a structured scheme (C-COAST) influenced by international hydrographic standards.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset scale are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• File formats are PDF and HTML, which may require conversion for direct GIS use.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Automated from shoreline maps produced by NOAA NOS, based on office interpretation of imagery and/or field surveys.

Time Range

Historical, but specific temporal coverage is not provided.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 21:15:59.674163; freshness should be verified.

Geography

James and Appomattox Rivers, vicinity of southeastern Richmond to Petersburg, Virginia, USA.