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Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center

Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center is one of three centers serving the mission of the USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program—the primary Federal marine geology and physical science research program responsible for the Nation’s entire coastal and marine landscape. 

News

News Briefs: January-February 2024

News Briefs: January-February 2024

Sound Waves Newsletter: January-February 2024

Sound Waves Newsletter: January-February 2024

Photo Roundup: January-February 2024

Photo Roundup: January-February 2024

Publications

National shoreline change—Summary statistics of shoreline change from the 1800s to the 2010s for the coast of California

Rates of shoreline change have been updated for the open-ocean sandy coastline of California as part of studies conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. Shorelines from the original assessment (1800s through 1998 or 2002), as well as additional shoreline position data from 2009 to 2011, 2015, and 2016 extracted from light detection and ranging (lidar) data, were used to compute long-term rates (ap
Authors
Meredith G. Kratzmann

The Coastal Carbon Library and Atlas: Open source soil data and tools supporting blue carbon research and policy

Quantifying carbon fluxes into and out of coastal soils is critical to meeting greenhouse gas reduction and coastal resiliency goals. Numerous ‘blue carbon’ studies have generated, or benefitted from, synthetic datasets. However, the community those efforts inspired does not have a centralized, standardized database of disaggregated data used to estimate carbon stocks and fluxes. In this paper, we
Authors
James R. Holmquist, David H. Klinges, Michael Lonneman, Jaxine Wolfe, Brandon M. Boyd, Meagan J. Eagle, Jonathan Sanderman, Katherine Todd-Brown, Lauren N. Brown, E. Fay Belshe, Samantha K. Chapman, Ron Corstanje, Christopher N. Janousek, James T. Morris, Gregory B. Noe, Andre S. Rovai, Amanda C. Spivak, Megan Vahsen, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Kevin D. Kroeger, Patrick Megonigal

Biophysical drivers of coastal treeline elevation

Sea level rise is leading to the rapid migration of marshes into coastal forests and other terrestrial ecosystems. Although complex biophysical interactions likely govern these ecosystem transitions, projections of sea level driven land conversion commonly rely on a simplified “threshold elevation” that represents the elevation of the marsh-upland boundary based on tidal datums alone. To determine

Authors
Grace Molino, Joel A. Carr, Neil K. Ganju, Mathew Kirwan

Science

USGS CoastCams

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) uses a nationwide network of coastal observing cameras, or CoastCams, to monitor coastal conditions in near real-time and support research by the USGS and its partners into a variety of coastal processes and hazards. The most recent CoastCam images are made publicly available within minutes of data collection and can be accessed using the links below or by...
link

USGS CoastCams

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) uses a nationwide network of coastal observing cameras, or CoastCams, to monitor coastal conditions in near real-time and support research by the USGS and its partners into a variety of coastal processes and hazards. The most recent CoastCam images are made publicly available within minutes of data collection and can be accessed using the links below or by...
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Future Landscape Adaptation and Coastal Change (FLACC)

USGS scientists working on the Future Landscape Adaptation and Coastal Change (FLACC) project bring together information on coastal environments, processes, and climate drivers to evaluate where and when future changes along our Nation’s coast may occur and what they may look like.
link

Future Landscape Adaptation and Coastal Change (FLACC)

USGS scientists working on the Future Landscape Adaptation and Coastal Change (FLACC) project bring together information on coastal environments, processes, and climate drivers to evaluate where and when future changes along our Nation’s coast may occur and what they may look like.
Learn More

Coastal Change Likelihood

The U.S. Geological Survey, in partnership with the National Park Service through the Natural Resource Preservation Program, developed the Coastal Change Likelihood (CCL) assessment to determine the future likelihood of coastal change along U.S. coastlines in the next decade. The Northeast United States, from Maine to Virginia, was selected for a proof-of-concept pilot study.
link

Coastal Change Likelihood

The U.S. Geological Survey, in partnership with the National Park Service through the Natural Resource Preservation Program, developed the Coastal Change Likelihood (CCL) assessment to determine the future likelihood of coastal change along U.S. coastlines in the next decade. The Northeast United States, from Maine to Virginia, was selected for a proof-of-concept pilot study.
Learn More