Northern Ireland Historical Shoreline Change Analysis from 1800s

Historical shoreline analysis for the entire Northern Ireland coastline, tracking annual to decadal changes since the early 1800s. Ulster University produced this digital asset using Ordnance Survey maps and aerial imagery, processed with the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS). The data provides rate-of-change statistics at 25-meter intervals, visualizing coastal retreat and accretion.

Use Cases

• Calculate coastal erosion and accretion rates based on Net Shoreline Movement (NSM) and End Point Rate (EPR) statistics.
• Model long-term shoreline trends using Linear Regression Rate (LRR) and Weighted Linear Regression Rate (WLR) data.
• Identify vulnerable coastal stretches for management based on spatially displayed rate-of-change intervals.
• Assess total shoreline movement variability using the Shoreline Change Envelope (SCE) metric.

Strengths

• Analysis covers the entire Northern Ireland coastline.
• Temporal coverage spans from the early 1800s to the present.
• Rate-of-change statistics are calculated at consistent 25-meter intervals.
• Derived from Ordnance Survey maps and aerial imagery using standardized DSAS software.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the Northern Ireland focus.

Provenance

Source

OpenDataNI, Ulster University

Collection Method

Analysis of historical Ordnance Survey maps and aerial imagery using the ArcGIS Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS).

Time Range

Early 1800s to present

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-18 11:22:42.398517; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northern Ireland coastline