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NORCAL_BIASVALUES - Northern California Shoreline Bias Values

Metadata Updated: January 22, 2026

The USGS has produced a comprehensive database of digital vector shorelines by compiling shoreline positions from pre-existing historical shoreline databases and by generating historical and modern shoreline data. Shorelines are compiled by state and generally correspond to one of four time periods: 1800s, 1920s-1930s, 1970s, and 1998-2002. These shorelines were used to calculate long-term and short-term change rates in a GIS using the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) version 3.0; An ArcGIS extension for calculating shoreline change: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2005-1304, Thieler, E.R., Himmelstoss, E.A., Zichichi, J.L., and Miller, T.M. Shoreline vectors derived from historic sources (first three time periods) represent the high water line (HWL) at the time of the survey, whereas modern shorelines (final time period) represent the mean high water line (MHW). Changing the shoreline definition from a proxy-based physical feature that is uncontrolled in terms of an elevation datum (HWL) to a datum-based shoreline defined by an elevation contour (MHW) has important implications with regard to inferred changes in shoreline position and calculated rates of change. This proxy-datum offset is particularly important when averaging shoreline change rates alongshore. Since the proxy-datum offset is a bias, virtually always acting in the same direction, the error associated with the apparent shoreline change rate shift does not cancel during averaging and it is important to quantify the bias in order to account for the rate shift. The shoreline change rates presented in this report have been calculated by accounting for the proxy-datum bias.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date January 11, 2026
Metadata Updated Date January 22, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date January 11, 2026
Metadata Updated Date January 22, 2026
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/USGS_d231e94a-a150-4d88-8b40-bc2e8447b3f8
Data Last Modified 2021-10-25T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Datagov Dedupe Retained 20260122105123
Harvest Object Id 894d25a1-4c24-4c51-98e7-620b210ab115
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -124.408341, 38.230976, -124.408341, 41.997984, -122.967696, 41.997984, -122.967696, 38.230976, -124.408341, 38.230976}
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 189cd77011c31001880509149cf808f38bc06669eacb406adf7d0bdbb8315b11
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -124.408341, 38.230976, -124.408341, 41.997984, -122.967696, 41.997984, -122.967696, 38.230976, -124.408341, 38.230976}

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